The relation of genre to tradition in the seventeenth century was not simple. For one thing, tradition itself was composite; being intricately divided into pagan-antique and Christian strands, the Christian into Protestant and Catholic, and the Protestant further split by sect. For another, whereas emphasis on genre seems to imply engagement with a stable body of literature, the period itself was one of radical social changes, rapidly changing valuation of literary textuality, and deliberate literary innovation. The complexity was such that several stories about genre probably need to be disengaged. One of them might narrate how epigram came to dominate the literary scene, determining its minutest operations. Another, how georgic, after being exiled from poetry, was at last welcomed back and thought its most refined, consummate representative. A third story could tell of promotions and demotions in the hierarchy of kinds. In a fourth, changes in the concept of genre itself would be the theme: changes responding to alterations in the practice of imitation.