A
literary genre is a
genre of
literature, that is "a loose set of criteria for a category of literary composition", depending on
literary technique,
tone, or
content.
The most general genres in literature are (in chronological order)
epic,
tragedy,
[1] comedy,
novel, and
short story. They can all be in the genres
prose or
poetry, which shows best how loosely genres are defined. Additionally, a genre like
satire,
allegory or
pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. Finally, they are defined by the general
cultural movement of the
historical period in which they were composed. The concept of "genre" has been criticized by
Jacques Derrida.
[2][3]
Subgenres
Genres are often divided into subgenres.
Literature, for instance, is divided into three basic kinds of literature, classic genres of Ancient Greece,
poetry,
drama, and
prose. Poetry may then be subdivided into
epic,
lyric, and
dramatic. Subdivisions of drama includes foremost
comedy and
tragedy, while eg. comedy itself has subgenres, including
farce,
comedy of manners,
burlesque,
satire, and so on. However, any of these terms would be called "genre", and its possible more general terms implied.
To be even more flexible, hybrid forms of different terms have been used, like a
prose poem or a
tragicomedy.
Science fiction has many recognized subgenres; a science fiction story may be rooted in real scientific expectations as they are understood at the time of writing (see
Hard science fiction). A more general term, coined by
Robert A. Heinlein, is "
speculative fiction," an umbrella term covering all such genres that depict alternate realities. Even fiction that depicts innovations ruled out by current scientific theory, such as stories about or based on
faster-than-light travel, are still science fiction, because science is a main subject in the piece of art.
Dramatic poetry, for instance, might include
comedy,
tragedy,
melodrama, and mixtures like
tragicomedy. This parsing into subgenres can continue: "comedy" has its own genres, for example, including
comedy of manners, sentimental comedy,
burlesque comedy, and satirical comedy.
Often, the criteria used to divide up works into genres are not consistent, and may change constantly, and be subject of argument, change and challenge by both authors and critics. However, even a very loose term like
fiction ("literature created from the imagination, not presented as fact, though it may be based on a true story or situation") is not universally applied to all fictitious literature, but instead is typically restricted to the use for novel, short story, and novella, but not fables, and is also usually a prose text.
A subgenre may join non-contradicting criteria:
Romance and
mystery are marked out by their plots, and
Western by its setting, which means that a work can easily be a Western romance or Western mystery.
Genres may be easily be confused with
literary techniques, but though only loosely defined, they are not the same, examples are
parody,
Frame story,
constrained writing,
stream of consciousness.
List of literary genres
Notes
References
- Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin and London: University of Texas Press.
- John D. Dorst Neck-Riddle as a Dialogue off Genres: Applying Bakhtin's Genre Theory The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 96, No. 382 (Oct. - Dec., 1983), pp. 413-433 doi:10.2307/540982
- Derrida, Jacques The Law of Genre [Critical Inquiry] Vol. 7, No. 1, On Narrative. (Autumn, 1980), pp. 55-81. http://www.unm.edu/~loboblog/mort/archives/009207.html. essay contained in On Narrative W.J.T. Mitchell, ed. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
- For the gay men's lifestyle magazine, see Genre (magazine).
A
genre [
ˈʒã:rə], (French: "kind" or "sort" from Greek: γένος (genos)) is a loose set of criteria for
..... Click the link for more information. Literature literally "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter) as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary, or works of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry.
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A literary technique or literary device may be used in works of literature in order to produce a specific effect on the reader.
Elements of fiction
Literary techniques are important aspects of an author's style, which is one of the five elements of fiction
..... Click the link for more information. Authors set a tone in literature by conveying an emotion/feeling or emotions/feelings through words. The way a person feels about an idea/concept, event, or another person can be quickly determined through facial expressions, gestures and in the tone of voice used.
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Content may refer to:
- Content (media and publishing), information and experiences created to benefit audiences in contexts that they value
- Volume generalized to arbitrarily many dimensions in mathematics and physics
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The
epic is long, exalted narrative poetry, generally concerning a serious subject and details the heroic deeds and events important to a culture or nation.
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In common, present day usage the word comedy almost always refers to the creation or presentation of humor with the intention of provoking laughter. Most comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations,
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novel (from, Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new", "news", or "short story of something new") is today a long prose narrative set out in writing.
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The short story is a literary genre. It is usually fictional narrative prose and tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction, such as novellas (in the modern sense of this term) and novels.
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Prose is writing distinguished from poetry by its greater variety of rhythm and its closer resemblance to the patterns of everyday speech. The word prose comes from the Latin prosa, meaning straightforward, hence the term "prosaic," which is often seen as pejorative.
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Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible
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Satire (from Latin satura, not from the Greek mythological figure satyr[1]) is a literary genre, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision,
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An allegory (from Greek αλλος, , "other", and αγορευειν, agoreuein, "to speak in public") is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal.
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Pastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and feed.
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A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. This embodies all art forms, the sciences, and philosophies. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in
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named time periods as defined in various fields of study. Major categorization systems include cosmological (concerning the various time periods in the origin and evolution of our universe), geological
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Jacques Derrida (IPA: in French /ʒak dɛʁida/[1], in English /ʒæk dɛɹɪˈdɑː/
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Literature literally "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter) as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary, or works of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry.
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Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible
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Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.[1] It is derived from a Greek word meaning "action" (Classical Greek δράμα), derived from "to do" (Classical Greek
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Prose is writing distinguished from poetry by its greater variety of rhythm and its closer resemblance to the patterns of everyday speech. The word prose comes from the Latin prosa, meaning straightforward, hence the term "prosaic," which is often seen as pejorative.
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For other meanings of epic, see .
The
epic is long, exalted narrative poetry, generally concerning a serious subject and details the heroic deeds and events important to a culture or nation.
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Verse drama is any drama written as verse to be spoken; another possible general term is poetic drama. For a very long period verse drama was the dominant form of drama in Europe (and was also important in non-European cultures).
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In common, present day usage the word comedy almost always refers to the creation or presentation of humor with the intention of provoking laughter. Most comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations,
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In a figurative sense a tragedy (from Classical Greek τραγωδία, "song for the goat", see below) is any event with a sad and unfortunate outcome, but the term also applies specifically in Western culture to a form of drama defined by
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A farce is a comedy written for the stage or film which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play,
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The comedy of manners satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters, such as the miles gloriosus in ancient times, the fop and the rake during the Restoration, or an old person pretending to be young.
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burlesque is employed in genre criticism to describe any imitative work that derives humor from an incongruous contrast between style and subject. In this usage, forms of satire such as parody are types of burlesque (Abrams, 1999).
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