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Stephen Owen in "Genres in Motion" argues that if we attempt to "define or describe a genre […] we're assuming a paradigm with a limited set of choices. This implies that genres cannot be categorized, without some level of skepticism,  or rather identifying, classifying, and labeling genres is not as simple as it seems. Moreover, Owen argues that genre in history involes "changing motives", which relates to Dimock's article: "Genres as Fields of Knowledge".  In this article, I noticed that there is an emphasis on genres as a fluid continum, a "spilling over of phenomena" which further suggests that the labels to which we assign texts are constantly being overridden, redefined, and revamped. 

Moreover, not only are genres not easily identifiable or defined, but they are also representative of the progression of literature throughout history. For example, Owen describes the Pancatantra, the most successful Sanskrit literary report that traveled through Pahlavi to Arabic Hebrew, Latin and Italian and asserts that "early novel brings cachet to the history of a national literature". Meanwhile, Dimock asserts that genres function as a "horizon of expectations" […] but that horizon becomes real only when there happen to be texts that exemplify it. 

Although it may be human nature to want to label and define literature, since it is our way of assigning meaning to what we read or hear, these ontological names, or ways we classify genres is constantly evolving, and an ever-growing process: it is "emerging and ephemeral, defined over and over again by new entries that are still being produced"