LITERARY Genres: characteristic types and examples

When it comes to writing there are various ways of doing it and these have to do with a series of particularities and purposes. That is, the author, through his texts, seeks a purpose with the reader. To help you know the different texts that you can find in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we want to show you the literary genres: types, characteristics and examples so you can easily identify them.

Index

1. What are literary genres
2. Types of literary genres
3. Epic or narrative genre
4. Lyric genre and its characteristics
5. Dramatic or theater genre
6. Didactic genre
7. The genre of the novel and the essay
8. Genre of the story or story

The texts that we find can be of many types and in order to learn to identify them, we must first know what literary genres are. Surely on more than one occasion you have heard of them, but do you know what they really are?

Literary genres serve to define the set of characteristics that a literary work possesses

Image: Timetoast

The classical classification of literary genre is established by Aristotle, but it should be noted that throughout the history of world literature genres have been changing due to the emergence of new categories. Thus, if we look at the first classification collected in the rhetoric of the Greek philosopher, we can point out that for him there are only three literary genres:

• Epic or narrative
• Lyrical
• Dramatic

To these three genres is also added the didactic whose particularities we will define later. On the other hand, if we carry out a more modern classification of literary genres, we would find four genres:

• Test
• Poetry
• Novel
• Story

At present, although the second is the most used, any of the classifications can continue to be applied, so we could say that modern genres are a compendium of both. For this reason, we will now define each of them.

Image: Antonio Viñuales

In the epic genrethe author seeks objectivity in the narration of the factsThese are generally heroic and historical themes with a great deal of exploits. Although these are texts that move away from subjectivity, most of them are usually fictitious and are represented in a defined time and space. Let's see an example of this genre in verse with Romance del cerco de Zamora.

On the wall of Zamora

I saw an upright knight;

to the real of the Castilians

gives with a great cry:

-Guarte, guarte, King Don Sancho,

don't say I don't warn you,

that of the fence of Zamora

a treacherous one has come out.

Vellido Dolfos is called,

son of Dolfos Vellido,

if a great traitor was his father,

the greatest traitor is the son;

four betrayals he has done,

and with this it will be five!

If he cheats on you, King Don Sancho,

do not say that I do not warn you.

Screams give in the real:

"Don Sancho has been badly wounded!"

Vellido Dolfos has died;

great betrayal he has committed!

Since he had him dead,

he got in through a shutter;

through the streets of Zamora

he is giving voices and shouts:

-Time was, Dona Urraca,

to fulfill what was promised!

The lyric it is another of the literary genres. Here, the author relies on the subjectivity to express your thoughts, feelings and emotions. Shows an introspective and personal view of the events. Although it can be expressed in prose, the most common is that the lyric is written in verse. As an example, this poem by Antonio Machado entitled I go dreaming roads.

I go dreaming roads

pm. The hills

golden, the green pines,

the dusty oaks ...

Where will the road go?

I'm singing, traveler

along the trail ...

(The afternoon is falling)

"In my heart I had

"the thorn of a passion;

"I managed to rip it off one day:

"I no longer feel my heart."

And the whole field for a moment

remains, mute and gloomy,

meditating. The wind sounds

in the poplars of the river.

The afternoon grows darker;

and the road that winds

and weakly bleaches

it becomes cloudy and disappears.

My song wails again:

"Sharp golden thorn,

"who could feel you

"in the heart nailed".

The drama refers to texts that have been conceived to be represented. In them appear the dialogue between characters that interact with each other. They have a plot that is presented and results by the characters without the narrator's intervention in the story. They can be written in prose or in verse. Below we see an example of the work Bohemian lightsfrom Ramón María del Valle Inclán:

• MAX: Must it be dawn?
• DON LATINO: That's right.
• MAX: And how cold!
• DON LATINO: Let's take a few steps.
• MAX: Help me, I can't get up. I'm chilled!
• DON LATINO: Look at what pawned the cape!
• MAX: Lend me your carrik, Latino.
• DON LATINO: Max, you are fantastic!
• MAX: Help me stand up.
• DON LATINO: Up, carcunda!
• MAX: I don't have me!
• DON LATINO: How you are!
• MAX: Idiot!
• DON LATINO: The truth is that you have a somewhat strange physiognomy!
• MAX: Don Latino de Hispalis, grotesque character, I will immortalize you in a novel!
• DON LATINO: A tragedy, Max.
• MAX: Our tragedy is not a tragedy.
• DON LATINO: Well, something will be!
• MAX: The Esperpento.
• DON LATINO: Don't twist your mouth, Max.
• MAX: I'm freezing!
• DON LATINO: Get up. Let's take a walk.
• MAX: I can't.
• DON LATINO: Leave that charade. Let's take a walk.
• MAX: Give me your breath. Where have you gone, Latino?
• DON LATINO: I'm by your side.
• MAX: Since you've turned into an ox, I couldn't recognize you. Give me your breath, illustrious ox of the belenita manger. Muge, Latino! You are the halter, and if you moo, the Apis Ox will come. We will fight it.
• DON LATINO: You're scaring me. You should stop that joke.
• MAX: Ultraists are phonies. The grotesque was invented by Goya. The classic heroes have gone for a walk in the Alley of the Cat.
• DON LATINO: You are completely curd!
• MAX: The classic heroes reflected in the concave mirrors give the Esperpento. The tragic meaning of Spanish life can only occur with a systematically distorted aesthetic.
• DON LATINO: Meow! You are catching it!
• MAX: Spain is a grotesque deformation of European civilization.
• DON LATINO: It could! I inhibit myself.
• MAX: The most beautiful images in a concave mirror are absurd.

Image: Brainly

Within the literary genres we must also talk about the didactic. Its functionality is to educate, that is, its objective is seek learning and teaching using technical language to convey information in which ideas are very clear and specific. We can find didactic genre in many places, but mainly in textbooks or on a website such as Wikipedia:

Invertebrates (in Latin invertebrata) are all those animals (Animalia kingdom) that do not fall within the subphylum vertebrates of the chordate phylum (Chordata). The name refers to the fact that, unlike the latter, they lack a vertebral column or notochord, and an articulated internal skeleton. The term is applicable to 95% of all animal species.

Image: Google Sites

The novel has narrative nature and has its own structureIn addition, the extension is a very important part of its characteristics. Although at present the genre of the novel has a series of peculiarities, the truth is that the limits between some genres and others are often not very clear. Within the novel, we can find different subgenres, which usually have to do with the theme of the same.

• Fantasy or science fiction novels: they focus on supernatural or invented elements. As examples we can point out: The Lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1984 by George Orwell or Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling.
• Adventure novels: the character is the one who moves the story forward, they are dynamic. Some examples: 20,000 leagues of underwater travel by Jules Verne or The island of the treasure by Robert Louis Stevenson.
• Detective novels: mystery or suspense stories in which a crime must be solved. The queen of this type of novel is Agatha Christie thanks to titles such as Murder on the Orient Express or Ten little blacks.
• Historical novels: they are very fashionable and are one of the most common literary genres. In them they narrate real historical facts or with real basis, adapted to the characteristics of the novel. Fiction and reality can be mixed through characters or situations. As examples we can point out Ines of my soul by Isabel Allende or The heretic scored by Miguel Delibes.

Essay

The essay is also another of the literary genres and, in fact, it is one of the most used in modern literature, it is agile and always expressed in prose. In general, it is not very extensive and it applies a subjective view of different topics. The essays do not go too deep into them and are usually for an informative purpose.

The story is short compared to the novel and shows a structure in which the characters and ideas meet more simplified. It is important to learn to differentiate the story from the novel because, although both are fictional, the truth is that they have very different elements. Within it we can find different subgenres:

• Fairy tale: it is one of the most used story types. It's about small fables or narrations focused especially on the children's audience in which the symbolic and the allegorical are mixed. In them magical and fictitious events are narrated that sometimes have a teaching.
• Short story: they are very short texts, their length does not usually exceed one page. In them there is a structure marked with an introduction, a middle and an ending, but very simplified and abstract.

Finally note that in the modern classification of literary genres we have included poetry, whose main characteristics are the same as those of lyric.

Image: Slideplayer

If you want to read more articles similar to Literary genres: types, characteristics and examples, we recommend that you enter our category of Literary concepts.