Today, Vista Higher Learning is breaking down the differences to give you a crash course on the five main genres of literature.
- #1 Fiction. One of the most popular genres of literature, fiction, features imaginary characters and events. ...
- #2 Nonfiction. ...
- #3 Drama. ...
- #4 Poetry. ...
- #5 Folktale.
Literary Genres
- Drama. Stories composed in verse or prose, usually for theatrical performance, where conflicts and emotion are expressed through dialogue and action.
- Fable. ...
- Fairy Tale. ...
- Fantasy. ...
- Fiction. ...
- Fiction in Verse. ...
- Folklore. ...
- Historical Fiction.
The primary genres in literature are poetry, drama/play, essay, short story, and novel. The term genre is used quite often to denote literary sub-classifications or specific types of literature such as comedy, tragedy, epic poetry, thriller, science fiction, romance, etc.
In the landscape of literature, there are four major genres: poetry, drama, fiction, and creative nonfiction. While there are certain key recognizable features of each genre, these are not so much rules as they are tools, or conventions, the author uses.
The literature has three major categories, namely prose, poetry and plays.
genre, (French: “kind” or “sort”) a distinctive type or category of literary composition, such as the epic, tragedy, comedy, novel, and short story.
The four main literary genres are poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama, with each varying in style, structure, subject matter, and the use of figurative language. The genre raises certain expectations in what the reader anticipates will happen within that work.
There a six genres of writing: descriptive, expository, persuasive, narrative, technical and poetic.
At the most basic level, there are essentially three main genres for literature - poetry, prose and drama - and each can be broken down even further, resulting in dozens of subgenres for each.
The 21st century in literature refers to world literature produced during the 21st century. The measure of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from (roughly) the year 2001 to the present.
writings, letters, compositions, lore, creative writing, written works, belles-lettres classic works of literature.
Contemporary literature refers to prose, poetry, and drama published since 1945 and comprises two movements.
For example, as students learning how to write, you might encounter six common types of writing genres. They are 'descriptive writing', 'expository writing', 'journals and letters', 'narrative writing', 'persuasive writing' and 'poetry writing.
The novel is a genre of fiction, and fiction may be defined as the art or craft of contriving, through the written word, representations of human life that instruct or divert or both.
An equation for remembering the genre is: Story (Action) + Plot + Character + Setting = Genre. This becomes an easy way to remember the elements of a genre. The above elements of story, plot, setting, and character equal a specific category of movie.
Beyond the epic, the main oral genres include the folktale; song, including laments, praise songs, and work songs; folk drama; myth; and, closely related, legend and historical recitation.
The five genres of literature students should be familiar with are Poetry, Drama, Prose, Nonfiction, and Media—each of which is explained in more detail below. You'll see some overlap between genres; for example, prose is a broader term that includes both drama and non-fiction.
Genres are useful.
Writers and readers both use genres because of the cognitive and social work they accomplish. For writers, using the patterns of a genre accepted by readers for accomplishing their purposes allows them to establish a working relationship with readers.
The purpose of a genre is to help you figure out how people tend to act, react, and interact in the situation in which you are writing. So if you tell your readers you are giving them a “movie review,” they will have some predictable expectations about the content, organization, style, and design of your text.
21st century literature per se, is anything that was written and published in the year 2000s. It is a bit too early to give a definite and elaborate description of the 21st century literature in the Philippines and the world.