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- Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject matter.
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Nov 21, 2023 · Discover the different types of literary genres. Learn the definition of a genre, understand the genre characteristics in literature, and view examples. Updated: 11/21/2023.
- Overview
- The scope of literature
literature, a body of written works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject matter.
For historical treatment of various literatures within geographical regions, see such articles as African literature; African theatre; Oceanic literature; Western literature; Central Asian arts; South Asian arts; and Southeast Asian arts. Some literatures are treated separately by language, by nation, or by special subject (e.g., Arabic literature, Celtic literature, Latin literature, French literature, Japanese literature, and biblical literature).
Definitions of the word literature tend to be circular. The 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary considers literature to be “writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” The 19th-century critic Walter Pater referred to “the matter of imaginative or artistic literature” as a “transcript, not of mere fact, but of fact in its infinitely varied forms.” But such definitions assume that the reader already knows what literature is. And indeed its central meaning, at least, is clear enough. Deriving from the Latin littera, “a letter of the alphabet,” literature is first and foremost humankind’s entire body of writing; after that it is the body of writing belonging to a given language or people; then it is individual pieces of writing.
But already it is necessary to qualify these statements. To use the word writing when describing literature is itself misleading, for one may speak of “oral literature” or “the literature of preliterate peoples.” The art of literature is not reducible to the words on the page; they are there solely because of the craft of writing. As an art, literature might be described as the organization of words to give pleasure. Yet through words literature elevates and transforms experience beyond “mere” pleasure. Literature also functions more broadly in society as a means of both criticizing and affirming cultural values.
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Literary Hodgepodge
Literature is a form of human expression. But not everything expressed in words—even when organized and written down—is counted as literature. Those writings that are primarily informative—technical, scholarly, journalistic—would be excluded from the rank of literature by most, though not all, critics. Certain forms of writing, however, are universally regarded as belonging to literature as an art. Individual attempts within these forms are said to succeed if they possess something called artistic merit and to fail if they do not. The nature of artistic merit is less easy to define than to recognize. The writer need not even pursue it to attain it. On the contrary, a scientific exposition might be of great literary value and a pedestrian poem of none at all.
The purest (or, at least, the most intense) literary form is the lyric poem, and after it comes elegiac, epic, dramatic, narrative, and expository verse. Most theories of literary criticism base themselves on an analysis of poetry, because the aesthetic problems of literature are there presented in their simplest and purest form. Poetry that fails as literature is not called poetry at all but verse. Many novels—certainly all the world’s great novels—are literature, but there are thousands that are not so considered. Most great dramas are considered literature (although the Chinese, possessors of one of the world’s greatest dramatic traditions, consider their plays, with few exceptions, to possess no literary merit whatsoever).
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The Greeks thought of history as one of the seven arts, inspired by a goddess, the muse Clio. All of the world’s classic surveys of history can stand as noble examples of the art of literature, but most historical works and studies today are not written primarily with literary excellence in mind, though they may possess it, as it were, by accident.
The essay was once written deliberately as a piece of literature: its subject matter was of comparatively minor importance. Today most essays are written as expository, informative journalism, although there are still essayists in the great tradition who think of themselves as artists. Now, as in the past, some of the greatest essayists are critics of literature, drama, and the arts.
- Kenneth Rexroth
These fictional literary forms are often categorized by genre, each of which features a particular style, tone, and storytelling devices and elements. Here are some common examples of genre fiction and their characteristics: Literary Fiction: a work with artistic value and literary merit.
- Literary Fiction. Literary fiction novels are considered works with artistic value and literary merit. They often include political criticism, social commentary, and reflections on humanity.
- Mystery. Mystery novels, also called detective fiction, follow a detective solving a case from start to finish. They drop clues and slowly reveal information, turning the reader into a detective trying to solve the case, too.
- Thriller. Thriller novels are dark, mysterious, and suspenseful plot-driven stories. They very seldom include comedic elements, but what they lack in humor, they make up for in suspense.
- Horror. Horror novels are meant to scare, startle, shock, and even repulse readers. Generally focusing on themes of death, demons, evil spirits, and the afterlife, they prey on fears with scary beings like ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches, and monsters.
- Fiction Genres. Sorted alphabetically. Action/Adventure. An action/adventure story has adventure elements in its plot line. This type of story often involves some kind of conflict between good and evil, and features characters who must overcome obstacles to achieve their goals.
- Nonfiction Genres. From the BISAC categories, a globally accepted system for coding and categorizing books by the Book Industry Standards And Communications group.
- Drama Genres. These include genres for theater, film, television serials, or audio plays. As a writer, I find some of these genres particularly eye-roll worthy.
- Poetry Genres. This list is from Harvard's Glossary of Poetic Genres who also has definitions for each genre. Allegory. Aubade. Ballad. Blason. Cento. Dirge. Dramatic monologue.
Today, the four main literary genres are fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry. The word genre comes from the French for “kind, sort, or style.” Characteristics of Genre. Every genre shares certain overarching characteristics, though how these characteristics present themselves differ.
May 2, 2023 · A genre (ZHAHN-ruh) is a category of literature in which the various works share certain characteristics. We often break writing into four main literary genres: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
