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1. ConceptIn everyday usage, "literature" denotes either the entire corpus of published written texts, including non-fiction, or in a stricter sense only those texts that are classified as “literary” and hence represent an aesthetic (i.e. also social and historical) selection. The definition assumes that such texts, unlike, say, technical prose or popular literature, will require primarily aesthetic reception. The boundary between the two spheres, which has shifted over time, has been regulated s…

1. DefinitionSensibility is an historico-cultural phenomenon of the second half of the 18th century, in which a literary movement coincided with a historical mentality. In the 1740s, the terms  sentimental and  sensibility (French  sensible/ sensibilité, German  empfindsam/ Empfindsamkeit) began to appear in philosophical and literary texts [4. 11–20]. At the suggestion of Gotthold E. Lessing, Johann J.C. Bode translated Laurence Sterne’s A  Sentimental Journey (1768) as Empfindsame Reise, thus establishing the German adjective alongside the English as a …

1. Definition Generic terms are abstract conceptual fictions, that is, concepts derived from particular phenomena, that serve to organize and communicate knowledge. In the organization of knowledge in science, genus (Latin  genus, Greek génos) is the collective term for the individuals belonging to a species by virtue of common characteristics. In zoology, botany and mineralogy, genus is further divided in systematic nomenclature into groups, families, orders, and classes. Derived from the Latin, the French genre was adopted into English in the 18th century to d…