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The literary genres They are a set of categories to classify the texts that make up the Literature, taking into account both its structure and its content.
The literary genres propose an agreement of each work regarding the way in which it should be read, what should be expected of it, what its fundamental characteristics should be, etc.
- See also: Literary text
What are the literary genres?
Although literary genres are categories that vary over time and respond to the way in which literature is made at a given time, today they recognize three major defined genres:
- Narrative genre. It is characterized by the direct or indirect elaboration of a story or a series of stories, in the mouth of a specific narrator. Some subgenres are: the short story, the novel, the chronicle and the microfiction.
- Poetic genre. It is characterized by the freedom of subjective approach to the text through a lyrical self, as well as by the metaphorical or enigmatic elaboration of one's own language to describe it. Poetic texts are usually written in verse and using rhyme, although there are also poetic texts written in prose. Some subgenres are: the poem, the romance, the copla, the haiku, the obituaries.
- Drama. It is characterized by being designed for a later representation in theater. It is a story with one or more characters, without any type of narrator and staged in a fictional present. Some subgenres are: tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy.
Depending on the classification, a fourth literary genre is often also referred to:
- Essay. It is characterized by a free, subjective and didactic approach to any subject, that is, a reflection and exposition of a point of view regarding something chosen by the author, with no other encouragement than free movement: the pleasure of thinking freely while respect and obtain own conclusions.
Examples of literary genres
- Poetry (in verse): “15”, by Pablo Neruda
I like you when you are silent because you are absent,
and you hear me from afar, and my voice does not touch you
It seems that your eyes have flown
and it seems that a kiss will close your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from things, filled with my soul
Dream butterfly, you look like my soul,
and you look like the word melancholy
I like you when you shut up and you're like distant
And you're like complaining, lullaby butterfly
And you hear me from afar, and my voice does not reach you:
Allow me to hush myself with your silence
Let me also speak to you with your silence
clear as a lamp, simple as a ring
You are like the night, silent and constellated
Your silence is from the stars, so far and simple
I like you when you shut up because you are like absent
Distant and painful as if you had died
A word then, a smile is enough
And I'm glad, glad it's not true.
More examples in:
- Lyrical poems
- Short poems
- Narrative (short story): "The Dinosaur" by Augusto Monterroso
When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.
- Dramaturgy: "Venice" by Jorge Accame (Fragment)
MARTA.- Ah. Of course, as the lady gets up clients with money and disappears for several days ...
GRACIELA.- What do you mean?
MARTA.- That, just. That the lady has no clients, she has boyfriends.
GRACIELA.- What does that matter to you? I contribute the same twine, or not?
RITA.- (To Marta) Leave her alone. At his age you did the same.
MARTA.- At your age, at your age! And what are you getting into, if I'm talking to her?
CHATO.- (To Graciela) Graciela, shall we?
GRACIELA.- Leave me, idiot, can't you see that I'm fighting? (To Marta) What do you have against me?
(…)
- Narrative (short story): “Clandestine Happiness” by Clarice Lispector (Excerpt)
She was fat, short, freckled and with excessively curly hair, half yellowish. She had a huge bust, while all of us were still flat. As if it weren't enough, the two pockets of her blouse were filled with candy above her chest. But she had what any comic book-eating girl would have liked to have: a father who owns a bookstore.
He didn't take much advantage of it. And we even less: even for birthdays, instead of at least a cheap little book, he would give us a postcard from the father's store. Above it was always a landscape of Recife, the city where we lived, with its bridges more than seen (...)
- Poetry (in prose): “21” by Oliverio Girondo
Let the noises pierce your teeth, like a dental file, and your memory fill with rust, rotten odors and broken words.
May a spider's leg grow in each pore; that you can only feed on used cards and that sleep reduces you, like a steamroller, to the thickness of your portrait.
That when you go out into the street, even the lanterns kick you off; May an irresistible fanaticism force you to prostrate yourself before the garbage cans and may all the inhabitants of the city mistake you for a picnic area.
(…)
Background of literary genres
The first attempt to classify the artistic works of the word was carried out by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his Poetics (IV BC) and included the following genres, parents of which we know today:
- The epic. Rather like narrative, it offered a reworking of mythical or legendary events from the founding past of culture (such as the Trojan War, in the case of the Iliad of Homer), transmitted by a narrator, although using description and dialogues. At the time, the epic was sung by the rhapsodies.
- The lyric. Equivalent to current poetry, although it is also very close to singing as well and to song. In this genre, the author was supposed to compose verses to express in his own language his emotionality, his subjectivity and the appreciations he had regarding an inspirational theme.
- The dramatic. Equivalent to the current dramatic genre, it was theatrical writing that played a fundamental role in the culture of the ancient Greeks for the emotional and ethical formation of its citizens. Most of them represented myths and stories of religious origin.
- Continue with: Literary currents
