Encyclopaedias and Genre, 1670-1750.

This article examines genres of general encyclopaedias in western Europe from 1670 to 1750. My approach is twofold. First, by examining references to genres in discourse about encyclopaedias, I will try to determine whether consensus existed about the kinds of general encyclopaedias. Second, I will evaluate late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century claims about the kinds of encyclopaedias in light of works' contents to arrive at a similar but more dynamic classification. Finally, besides providing information about the kinds of encyclopaedias in the early modern period, this investigation is meant to cast light on the ancestry of the modern encyclopaedia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]