In Metaphors of Genre, David Fishelov demonstrates the important role played by analogies in genre theory and provides a critical presentation of four specific analogies that permeate modern genre theory: the biological analogy, the family "metaphor," the institutional perspective, and the "speech act" analogy. While making a critical presentation of the existing theories, Fishelov offers new perspectives and hypotheses within each analogy. The discussion in each case is accompanied with an analysis of some examples from the generic tradition most readily lending itself to that...