Types of literary genres by form. Literary work Literary p

The ancient genres that had developed before this turn were then energetically rethought under its influence.

Notes

List of literary genres

• By shape
  • Short story
• by content

Links

• Sysoeva O. A. Genre approach to the study of literature within the framework of additional education (using the example of Sasha Sokolov’s novel “School for Fools”)
• Theoretical poetics: concepts and definitions. Reader for students of philological faculties. Author-compiler N. D. Tamarchenko

Literature

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See what “Literary genre” is in other dictionaries:

NOVEL (French roman, German Roman; English novel/romance; Spanish novela, Italian romanzo), the central genre (see GENRE) of European literature of the New Time (see NEW TIME (in history)), fictional, in difference from the neighboring genre of the story (see... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Elegy (έλεγεία) is a lyrical poem of a sad, thoughtful mood: this is the content that is now usually put into a word that had a different meaning in previous poetics. Its etymology is controversial: it is derived from the supposed refrain έ λέγε ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron

Currently, the most popular and richest form of literary works, reflecting modern life with all the variety of issues that concern it. To achieve such a universal meaning, the novel needed... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron

Lamentation is one of the ancient literary genres, characterized by lyrical and dramatic improvisation on the themes of misfortune, death, etc. It can be written in both poetry and prose. The style of crying is used, in particular, in some texts of the Bible... Wikipedia

- (poetic) a certain type of literary work. The main genres can be considered epic, lyrical and dramatic, but it would be more accurate to apply this term to their individual varieties, such as an adventure novel, a clownish comedy... Literary encyclopedia

Genre- GENRE (poetic) a certain type of literary work. The main genres can be considered epic, lyrical and dramatic, but it would be more correct to apply this term to their individual varieties, such as the adventure novel,... ... Dictionary of literary terms

- (historical and special used in cinema) a completed film-dramatic work. It must contain a complete, consistent and specific description of the plot, consisting of developed scenes and episodes, dialogues and reveal images... ... Wikipedia

GENRE- literary (from the French genre genus, type), historically developing type of literary work (novel, poem, ballad, etc.); the theoretical concept of painting generalizes the features characteristic of a more or less extensive group of works... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary

The above types of classification are not mutually exclusive, but demonstrate different approaches to defining genres. Therefore, the same book can refer to several of them at once.

Classification of literary genres by type

When classifying literary genres by gender, they start from the author’s attitude to what is being presented. The basis for this classification was laid by Aristotle. According to this principle, four major genres are distinguished: epic, lyrical, dramatic and lyric-epic. Each of them has its own “subgenres”.

Epic genres tell about events that have already happened, and the author writes them down according to his memories, while he distances himself as much as possible from assessing what was said. These include epic novels, short stories, fairy tales, myths, ballads, fables and epics.

The lyrical genre involves the transmission of feelings experienced by the author in the form of a literary work in poetic form. These include odes, elegies, epigrams, epistles and stanzas.

A classic example of stanzas is Byron's Childe Harold.

The lyric-epic genre in literature combines the characteristics of epic and lyrical genres. These include ballads and poems, in which there is both a plot and the author’s attitude to what is happening.

The dramatic genre exists at the intersection of literature and theater. Nominally it includes dramas, comedies and tragedies with a list of the characters involved at the beginning and author's notes in the main text. However, in fact, it can be any work written in the form of a dialogue.

Classification of literary genres by content

If we define works by content, they are combined into three large groups: comedies, tragedies and dramas. Tragedy and drama, which tell, respectively, about the tragic fate of the heroes and the emergence and overcoming of the conflict, are quite homogeneous. Comedies are divided into several types, according to the action taking place: parody, farce, vaudeville, sitcom and character comedy, sketch and sideshow.

Classification of literary genres by form

When classifying genres by form, only formal features such as the structure and volume of the work are taken into account, regardless of their content.

Lyrical works are classified most clearly in this way; in prose, the boundaries are more blurred.

According to this principle, thirteen genres are distinguished: epic, epos, novel, tale, short story, short story, sketch, play, sketch, essay, opus, ode and visions.

Literary genres are groups of works collected according to formal and content characteristics. Works of literature are divided into separate categories according to the form of the narrative, the content and the type of belonging to a particular style. Literary genres make it possible to systematize everything that has been written since the time of Aristotle and his Poetics, first on “birch bark letters”, tanned skins, stone walls, then on parchment paper and scrolls.

Literary genres and their definitions

Definition of genres by form:

A novel is an extensive narrative in prose, reflecting the events of a certain period of time, with a detailed description of the lives of the main characters and all other characters involved to one degree or another in these events.

A story is a form of storytelling that does not have a specific volume. The work usually describes episodes from real life, and the characters are presented to the reader as an integral part of the events taking place.

A short story (short story) is a widespread genre of short prose and is called “short story”. Because the short story format is limited in scope, the writer can usually develop the narrative within the framework of a single event involving two or three characters. An exception to this rule was the great Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who could describe the events of an entire era with many characters in a few pages.

An essay is a literary quintessence that combines the artistic style of storytelling and elements of journalism. Always presented in a concise form with a high content of specificity. The topic of the essay, as a rule, is related to socio-social problems and is of an abstract nature, i.e. does not affect specific individuals.

A play is a special literary genre designed for a wide audience. Plays are written for the theater stage, television and radio performances. In their structural design, the plays are more like a story, since the duration of theatrical performances corresponds perfectly to a story of average length. The genre of the play differs from other literary genres in that the narration is told from the perspective of each character. The text indicates dialogues and monologues.

Ode is a lyrical literary genre, in all cases of positive or laudatory content. Dedicated to something or someone, often a verbal monument to heroic events or exploits of patriotic citizens.

An epic is a narrative of an extensive nature, including several stages of state development that have historical significance. The main features of this literary genre are global events of an epic nature. An epic can be written both in prose and in verse, an example of this is Homer's poems "Odyssey" and "Iliad".

An essay is a short piece of prose in which the author expresses his own thoughts and views in an absolutely free form. An essay is a somewhat abstract work that does not claim to be completely authentic. In some cases, essays are written with a degree of philosophy; sometimes the work has a scientific connotation. But in any case, this literary genre deserves attention.

Detectives and science fiction

Detective stories are a literary genre based on the age-old confrontation between police officers and criminals. Novels and short stories in this genre are action-packed; in almost every detective work, murders occur, after which experienced detectives begin an investigation.

Fantasy is a special literary genre with fictional characters, events and an unpredictable ending. In most cases, the action takes place either in space or in the underwater depths. But at the same time, the heroes of the work are equipped with ultra-modern machines and devices of fantastic power and efficiency.

Is it possible to combine genres in literature?

All of the listed types of literary genres have unique distinctive features. However, there is often a mixture of several genres in one work. If this is done professionally, a rather interesting and unusual creation is born. Thus, the genres of literary creativity contain significant potential for updating literature. But these opportunities should be used carefully and thoughtfully, since literature does not tolerate profanation.

Genres of literary works by content

Each literary work is classified according to its type: drama, tragedy, comedy.

What kinds of comedies are there?

Comedies come in different types and styles:

1. Farce is a light comedy built on elementary comic techniques. It is found both in literature and on the theater stage. Farce as a special comedic style is used in circus clowning.
2. Vaudeville is a comedy play with many dance numbers and songs. In the USA, vaudeville became the prototype of the musical; in Russia, small comic operas were called vaudeville.
3. An interlude is a small comic scene that was performed between the actions of the main play, performance or opera.
4. Parody is a comedic technique based on the repetition of recognizable features of famous literary characters, texts or music in a deliberately modified form.

Modern genres in literature

Types of literary genres:

1. Epic - fable, myth, ballad, epic, fairy tale.
2. Lyrical - stanzas, elegy, epigram, message, poem.

Modern literary genres are periodically updated; over the past decades, several new directions in literature have appeared, such as political detective fiction, the psychology of war, as well as paperback literature, which includes all literary genres.

All literary genres are unique, each of which has a set of qualities and characteristics unique to it. The first known classification of them was proposed by Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher and naturalist. In accordance with it, basic literary genres can be compiled into a small list that is not subject to any changes. An author working on any work must simply find similarities between his creation and the parameters of the specified genres. Over the next two millennia, any changes in the classifier developed by Aristotle were met with hostility and were considered a deviation from the norm.

In the 18th century, a large-scale literary restructuring began. The established types of the genre and their system began to undergo major modifications. The current conditions became the main prerequisite for the fact that some genres of literature have sunk into oblivion, others have gained incredible popularity, and others have only just begun to take shape. We can see the results of this transformation, which continues even now, with our own eyes - types of genres that are dissimilar in meaning, gender and many other criteria. Let's try to figure out what genres there are in literature and what their features are.

A genre in literature is a historically established set of literary creations, united by a set of similar parameters and formal characteristics.

All existing types and genres of literature can be visually represented in a table, in which large groups will appear in one part, and its typical representatives in the other. There are 4 main groups of genres by genre:

• epic (mostly prose);
• lyrical (mostly poetry);
• dramatic (plays);
• lyroepic (something between lyric and epic).

Also, types of literary works can be classified according to content:

• comedy;
• tragedy;
• drama.

But it will become much easier to understand what types of literature there are if you understand their forms. The form of a work is the method of presenting the author’s ideas that form the basis of the work. There are external and internal forms. The first, in essence, is the language of the work, the second is the system of artistic methods, images and means with which it was created.

What are the genres of books by form: essay, vision, short story, epic, ode, play, epic, essay, sketch, opus, novel, story. Let's look at each in detail.

Essay

An essay is a short prose composition with a free composition. Its main purpose is to show the author’s personal opinion and concepts on a specific issue. In this case, the essay does not have to fully disclose the problem of presentation or clearly answer the questions. Basic properties:

• figurativeness;
• closeness to the reader;
• aphorism;
• associativity.

There is an opinion that essays are a separate type of artistic work. This genre dominated in the 18th-19th centuries in British and Western European journalism. Famous representatives of that time: J. Addison, O. Goldsmith, J. Wharton, W. Godwin.

Epic

Epic is simultaneously a genus, type and genre of literature. It is a heroic tale of the past, showing the life of people at that time and the reality of the characters from an epic perspective. Often the epic talks in detail about a certain person, about an adventure with his participation, about his feelings and experiences. It also talks about the hero's attitude towards what is happening around him. Representatives of the genre:

• "Iliad", "Odyssey" Homer;
• "The Song of Roland" Turold;
• "The Song of the Nibelungs", author unknown.

The ancestors of the epic are the traditional poem-songs of the ancient Greeks.

Epic

Epic - large works with heroic overtones and those that are similar to them. What kind of literature is there in this genre?

• narration of important historical moments in poetry or prose;
• a story about something, including several descriptions of various significant events.

There is also a moral epic. This is a special type of storytelling in literature, distinguished by its prosaic nature and ridicule of the comical state of society. It includes “Gargantua and Pantagruel” by Rabelais.

Sketch

A sketch is a short play in which there are only two (rarely three) main characters. Today, the sketch is used on the stage in the form of a comedy show with miniatures lasting no more than 10 minutes. Such shows regularly appear on television in Britain, the USA and Russia. Well-known example programs on TV are “Unreal Story”, “6 Frames”, “Our Russia”.

Novel

The novel is a separate literary genre. It presents a detailed account of the development and life of key characters (or one hero) in the most crisis and difficult periods. The main types of novels in literature are those belonging to a specific era or country, psychological, chivalric, classical, moral and many others. Known examples:

• "Eugene Onegin" Pushkin;
• "Doctor Zhivago" Pasternak;
• "The Master and Margarita" Bulgakov."

Novella

A short story or short story is a key genre of fiction, which has a smaller volume than a story or novel. The main properties of the work include:

• the presence of a small number of heroes;
• the plot has only one line;
• cyclicality.

The creator of the stories is a short story writer, and the collection of stories is a short story.

Play

The play is a representative of dramaturgy. It is intended for display on the theater stage and in other performances. The play consists of:

• speeches of the main characters;
• author's notes;
• descriptions of the places where the main actions take place;
• characteristics of the appearance of the persons involved, their behavior and character.

The play includes several acts, which consist of episodes, actions, and pictures.

Tale

The story is a work of prosaic nature. It has no special limitations in terms of volume, but is located between a short story and a novel. Usually the plot of a story has a clear chronology and shows the natural course of the character’s life without intrigue. All attention belongs to the main person and the specifics of his nature. It is worth noting that there is only one plot line. Famous representatives of the genre:

• “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by A. Conan Doyle;
• “Poor Liza” by N. M. Karamzin;
• “The Steppe” by A.P. Chekhov.

In foreign literature, the concept of “story” is equal to the concept of “short novel”.

Feature article

An essay is a condensed, truthful artistic tale about several events and phenomena thought out by the author. The basis of the essay is an accurate understanding of the subject of observation directly by the writer. Types of such descriptions:

• portraits;
• problematic;
• travel;
• historical.

Opus

An opus in the general sense is a play accompanied by music. Main characteristics:

• internal completeness;
• individuality of form;
• thoroughness.

In the literary sense, an opus is any scientific work or creation of an author.

Oh yeah

Ode is a poem (usually solemn) dedicated to a specific event or person. At the same time, an ode can be a separate work with a similar theme. In Ancient Greece, all poetic lyrics, even the singing of the choir, were considered odes. Since the Renaissance, this name began to be given to exclusively high-flown lyrical poems, focusing on the images of antiquity.

Vision

Vision is a genre of literature of the Middle Ages, which is based on a “clairvoyant” who talks about the afterlife and unreal images that appear to him. Many modern researchers attribute visions to narrative didactics and journalism, since in the Middle Ages a person could convey his thoughts about the unknown in this way.

These are the main types of literature in form and what their variations are. Unfortunately, it is difficult to fit all genres of literature and their definitions into a short article - there are really a lot of them. In any case, everyone understands the need and importance of reading a wide variety of works, because they are real vitamins for the brain. With the help of books, you can increase your level of intelligence, expand your vocabulary, improve memory and attentiveness. BrainApps is a resource that will help you develop in this direction. The service offers more than 100 effective exercise machines that will easily pump up your gray matter.

Historically, three types of literature have developed in literature: epic, dramatic and lyrical. These are groups of genres that have similar structural features. If the epic in the story fixes the external reality (events, facts, etc.), then the drama does the same in the format of a conversation, not on behalf of the author, and the lyrics describe the inner reality of a person. Of course, the division is arbitrary and to a certain extent artificial, but, nevertheless, our acquaintance with the book begins with the fact that we see the genre, gender or combination thereof on the cover and draw the first conclusions. For example, a person only likes to watch plays in the theater, which means that he does not need a volume of Moliere and will pass by it without wasting time. Knowledge of the basic principles of literary criticism also helps during reading, when you want to understand the author, penetrate into his creative laboratory, and unravel why his plan was embodied this way and not otherwise.

Each genre has an example and theoretical justification, the most concise and simple.

The novel is a large form of the epic genre, a work with expanded themes and many themes. Typically, a classic novel depicts people participating in various life processes that give rise to external and internal conflicts. Events in the novel are not always described sequentially, for example, Lermontov in the novel “A Hero of Our Time” deliberately breaks the sequence.

By thematic basis novels are divided into autobiographical (Chudakov's "Darkness Falls on the Old Steps"), philosophical (Dostoevsky's "Demons"), adventure (Dafoe's "Robinson Crusoe"), fantastic (Glukhovsky's "Metro 2033"), satirical (Rotterdam's "In Praise of Stupidity"), historical (Pikul “I Have the Honor”), adventurous (Merezhko “Sonka the Golden Hand”), etc.

According to the structure of novels are divided into a novel in verse (Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"), a novel-pamphlet (Swift's "Gulliver's Travels"), a novel-parable (Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"), a novel-feuilleton ("The Countess of Salisbury" by Dumas), an epistolary novel ( Rousseau “Julia or the new Heloise”) and others.

An epic novel is a novel with a panoramic depiction of the life of the people at turning points in history (Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”).

The story is an epic work of average size (between a short story and a novel), in which the narrative of a particular event is presented in a natural sequence (Kuprin’s “The Pit”). How is a story different from a novel? At least in that the material of the story is presented chronically, and not for the sake of the action-packed composition of the novel. In addition, the story does not pose problems of a global historical nature. In the story, the author is more constrained, all his inventions are subordinated to the main action, but in the novel the writer is carried away by memories, digressions and analysis of the characters.

The story is small epic prose form. The work has a limited number of characters, one problem and one event (Turgenev “Mumu”). How is a novella different from a short story? The boundaries between these two genres are very arbitrary, but in the short story the ending most often develops unpredictably (O'Henry's "The Gift of the Magi").

Essay is small epic prose form (many classify it as a type of story). The essay usually touches on social issues and tends to be descriptive.

The parable is moral teaching in allegorical form. How is a parable different from a fable? A parable draws its material primarily from life, while a fable is based on fictitious, sometimes fantastic plots (gospel parables).

Lyrical genres are...

A lyric poem is a small genre form of lyrics written on behalf of the author (Pushkin “I loved you”) or on behalf of the lyrical hero (Tvardovsky “I was killed near Rzhev”).

Elegy is a small lyrical form, a poem that is imbued with a mood of sadness and melancholy. Sad thoughts, sorrow, sad reflections make up the repertoire of elegies (Pushkin’s elegy “On the rocks, on the hills”).

The message is poetic letter. According to the content of the messages, they can be divided into friendly, satirical, lyrical, etc. They can be dedicated to either one person or a group of people (Voltaire’s “Message to Frederick”).

Epigram is a poem that makes fun of a specific person (from friendly ridicule to sarcasm) (Gaft “Epigram on Oleg Dahl”). Features: wit and brevity.

Ode is a poem distinguished by its solemn tone and sublime content (Lomonosov “Ode on the day of Elizabeth Petrovna’s accession to the throne, 1747”).

A sonnet is a poem of 14 verses (“Twenty Sonnets to Sasha Zapoeva” by Timur Kibirov). The sonnet is one of the strict forms. A sonnet usually consists of 14 lines, forming 2 quatrains (with 2 rhymes) and 2 tercets (with 2 or 3 rhymes).

The poem is the average lyric-epic form, in which there is a detailed plot and several experiences are embodied, that is, attention to the inner world of the lyrical hero (Lermontov’s “Mtsyri”).

Ballad is average lyric-epic form, story in verse. Often a ballad has a tense storyline (Zhukovsky’s “Lyudmila”).

Dramatic genres are...

Comedy is a type of drama in which the content is presented in a funny way, and the characters and circumstances are comical. What types of comedies are there? Lyrical (“The Cherry Orchard” by Chekhov), high (“Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov), satirical (“The Inspector General” by Gogol).

Tragedy is a type of drama based on an acute life conflict that entails the suffering and death of the heroes (Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”).

Drama is a play with an acute conflict that is ordinary, not so sublime and resolvable (for example, Gorky “At the Depths”). How does it differ from tragedy or comedy? Firstly, the material used is modern, not from antiquity, and secondly, a new hero appears in the drama, rebelling against circumstances.

Tragifars - a dramatic work that combines tragic and comic elements (Ionesco, “The Bald Singer”). This is a postmodern genre that has appeared relatively recently.