Write down the genres of literature. Literary genres and genera: characteristics and classification

  • 03.07.2019

Genres of literature- these are historically emerging groups of works of literature that are united by a set of formal and substantive properties based on formal features.

Fable- a poetic or prosaic literary work of a moralizing, satirical nature. At the end of the fable there is a short moralizing conclusion - the so-called morality.

Ballad is a lyric-epic work, that is, a story told in poetic form of a historical, mythical or heroic nature. The plot of a ballad is usually borrowed from folklore.

Epics- these are heroic and patriotic songs and tales, telling about the exploits of heroes and reflecting life Ancient Rus' IX-XIII centuries; type of oral folk art, which is characterized by a song-epic way of reflecting reality.

Visions is a genre medieval literature, which is characterized, on the one hand, by the presence of the image of a “clairvoyant” in the center of the narrative and the afterlife, otherworldly, eschatological content of the visual images revealed to the clairvoyant, on the other.

Detective- This is primarily a literary genre, the works of which describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the mystery.

Comedy- view dramatic work. Displays everything ugly and absurd, funny and absurd, ridicules the vices of society.

Comedy of manners(comedy of characters) is a comedy in which the source of the funny is inner essence characters and morals high society, funny and ugly one-sidedness, exaggerated trait or passion (vice, flaw). Very often a comedy of manners is satirical comedy, which makes fun of all these human qualities.

Lyric poem(in prose) - view fiction, emotionally and poetically expressing the author’s feelings.

Melodrama- a type of drama whose characters are sharply divided into positive and negative.

Myth is a narrative that conveys people’s ideas about the world, man’s place in it, the origin of all things, about gods and heroes.

Feature article- the most reliable type of narrative, epic literature, reflecting facts from real life.

Song, or Song- most ancient look lyric poetry; a poem consisting of several verses and a chorus. Songs are divided into folk, heroic, historical, lyrical, etc.

Science fiction - a genre in literature and other forms of art, one of the varieties of fiction. Science fiction is based on fantastic assumptions (fiction) in the field of science, including various types of sciences, such as the exact sciences, natural sciences, and humanities.

Novella- this is the main genre of short narrative prose, more short form fiction rather than a story or novel. The author of the stories is usually called a short story writer, and the collection of stories is called a short story.

Talemedium shape; a work that highlights a number of events in the life of the main character.

Oh yeah- a genre of lyricism, which is a solemn poem dedicated to some event or hero, or separate work this genre.

Poem- type of lyric epic work; poetic story telling.

Message(uh pistol literature) is a literary genre that uses the form of “letters” or “epistles” (epistole).

Storysmall form, a work about one event in the life of a character.

Fairy tale- This genre literary creativity, h Most often, fairy tales contain magic and various incredible adventures. .

Novel- large shape; a work in which many people usually take part characters whose destinies are intertwined. Novels are philosophical, adventure, historical, family and social.

Tragedy- a type of dramatic work telling about the unfortunate fate of the main character, often doomed to death.

Folklore- view folk art, which reflects general patterns social development peoples There are three types of works in folklore: epic, lyrical and dramatic. At the same time, epic genres have poetic and prose forms (in literature epic kind represented only by prose works: short story, novella, novel, etc.). A feature of folklore is its traditionalism and orientation towards the oral method of transmitting information. The carriers were usually rural residents (peasants).

Epic- a work or cycle of works depicting a significant historical era or a major historical event.

Elegylyrical genre, which contains in free poetic form any complaint, expression of sadness, or the emotional result of philosophical reflection on the complex problems of life.

Epigram is a short satirical poem that makes fun of a person or social phenomenon.

Epic is a heroic narrative about the past containing complete picture folk life and representing in harmonious unity a certain epic world of heroic heroes.

Essay is a literary genre prose essay small volume and free composition.

A literary genre is a group of literary works that have common historical development trends and are united by a set of properties in their content and form. Sometimes this term is confused with the concepts of “type” and “form”. Today there is no single clear classification of genres. Literary works are divided according to a certain number characteristic features.

History of genre formation

First systematization literary genres was presented by Aristotle in his Poetics. Thanks to this work, the impression began to emerge that the literary genre is a natural, stable system that requires the author to fully comply with the principles and canons a certain genre. Over time, this led to the formation of a number of poetics that strictly prescribed to authors exactly how they should write a tragedy, ode or comedy. Long years these requirements remained unshakable.

Decisive changes in the system of literary genres began only end of the XVIII century.

At the same time literary works aimed at artistic exploration, in their attempts to distance themselves as much as possible from genre divisions, gradually came to the emergence of new phenomena unique to literature.

What literary genres exist

To understand how to determine the genre of a work, you need to familiarize yourself with the existing classifications and the characteristic features of each of them.

Below is an approximate table for determining the type of existing literary genres

by birth epic fable, epic, ballad, myth, short story, tale, short story, novel, fairy tale, fantasy, epic
lyrical ode, message, stanzas, elegy, epigram
lyric-epic ballad, poem
dramatic drama, comedy, tragedy
by content comedy farce, vaudeville, sideshow, sketch, parody, sitcom, mystery comedy
tragedy
drama
according to form visions short story epic story anecdote novel ode epic play essay sketch

Division of genres by content

Classification literary trends based on content includes comedy, tragedy and drama.

Comedy is a type of literature, which involves a humorous approach. Varieties of comic direction are:

There are also comedy of characters and sitcoms. In the first case, the source of humorous content is the internal traits of the characters, their vices or shortcomings. In the second case, comedy manifests itself in current circumstances and situations.

Tragedy - dramatic genre with an obligatory catastrophic outcome, the opposite of the comedy genre. Typically, tragedy reflects the deepest conflicts and contradictions. The plot is as tense as possible. In some cases, tragedies are written in poetic form.

Drama – special kind fiction, where the events taking place are conveyed not through their direct description, but through monologues or dialogues of the characters. Drama as a literary phenomenon existed among many peoples, even at the level of works of folklore. Initially in Greek this term meant a sad event affecting one specific person. Subsequently, drama began to represent a wider range of works.

The most famous prose genres

The category of prose genres includes literary works of various lengths, written in prose.

Novel

A novel is a prose literary genre that involves a detailed narrative about the fate of the heroes and certain critical periods of their lives. The name of this genre originates in the 12th century, when knightly stories arose “in the folk Romance language” as the opposite of Latin historiography. The short story began to be considered a plot variety of the novel. IN late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century such concepts as detective novel appeared in literature, women's novel, fantasy novel.

Novella

A short story is a type of prose genre. Her birth was caused by the famous collection "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio. Subsequently, several collections based on the model of the Decameron were published.

The era of romanticism introduced elements of mysticism and phantasmagorism into the short story genre - examples include the works of Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe. On the other hand, the works of Prosper Merimee bore the features of realistic stories.

Novella as short story with a sharp plot became characteristic genre For American literature.

The characteristic features of the novel are:

  1. Maximum brevity of presentation.
  2. The poignancy and even paradoxical nature of the plot.
  3. Neutrality of style.
  4. Lack of descriptiveness and psychologism in the presentation.
  5. An unexpected ending, always containing an extraordinary turn of events.

Tale

A story is prose of a relatively small volume. The plot of the story, as a rule, is in the nature of reproducing natural life events. Usually the story reveals the fate and personality of the hero against the backdrop of current events. A classic example is “Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by A.S. Pushkin.

Story

A story is called a small form prose work, which originates from folklore genres - parables and fairy tales. Some literary experts as a type of genre review essays, essays and short stories. Usually the story is characterized by a small volume, one plot line and a small number of characters. Stories are characteristic of literary works of the 20th century.

Play

It's called a play dramatic work, which is created for the purpose of subsequent theatrical production.

The structure of the play usually includes phrases from the characters and the author's remarks describing the environment or the actions of the characters. At the beginning of the play there is always a list of characters With brief description their appearance, age, character, etc.

The whole play is divided into large parts - acts or actions. Each action, in turn, is divided into smaller elements - scenes, episodes, pictures.

The plays of J.B. have won great fame in world art. Moliere (“Tartuffe”, “The Imaginary Invalid”) B. Shaw (“Wait and see”), B. Brecht (“The Good Man from Szechwan”, “The Threepenny Opera”).

Description and examples of individual genres

Let's look at the most common and significant examples of literary genres for world culture.

Poem

The poem is a large poetic work that has lyrical plot or describing a sequence of events. Historically, the poem was “born” from the epic

In turn, a poem can have many genre varieties:

  1. Didactic.
  2. Heroic.
  3. Burlesque,
  4. Satirical.
  5. Ironic.
  6. Romantic.
  7. Lyrical-dramatic.

Initially, the leading themes for the creation of poems were world-historical or important religious events and themes. An example of such a poem would be Virgil's Aeneid., “The Divine Comedy” by Dante, “Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso, “ Lost heaven"J. Milton, Voltaire's Henriad, etc.

At the same time, it developed romantic poem- “The Knight in Leopard’s Skin” by Shota Rustaveli, “Furious Roland” by L. Ariosto. This type of poem to a certain extent echoes the tradition of medieval chivalric romances.

Over time, moral, philosophical and social themes began to take center stage (“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” by J. Byron, “The Demon” by M. Yu. Lermontov).

IN XIX-XX centuries the poem begins more and more become realistic(“Frost, Red Nose”, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov, “Vasily Terkin” by A.T. Tvardovsky).

Epic

An epic is usually understood as a set of works that are combined common era, nationality, subject.

The emergence of each epic is conditioned by certain historical circumstances. As a rule, an epic claims to be an objective and authentic account of events.

Visions

This peculiar narrative genre, When the story is told from a person's point of view ostensibly experiencing a dream, lethargy, or hallucination.

  1. Already in the era of antiquity, under the guise of real visions, fictitious events began to be described in the form of visions. The authors of the first visions were Cicero, Plutarch, Plato.
  2. In the Middle Ages, the genre began to gain momentum in popularity, reaching its peak with Dante in his " Divine Comedy", which in its form represents a detailed vision.
  3. For some time, visions were an integral part of church literature in most European countries. The editors of such visions were always representatives of the clergy, thus gaining the opportunity to express their personal views supposedly on behalf of higher powers.
  4. Over time, new acute social satirical content was put into the form of visions (“Visions of Peter the Plowman” by Langland).

In more modern literature the genre of visions began to be used to introduce elements of fantasy.

The concept of genre. Principles of genre classification

Literary genres (French genre - genus, type) are types of works that have developed in the process of development of artistic literature. Obviously, the problem of the genre itself is general form can be formulated as a problem of classifying works, identifying common – genre – features in them. The main difficulties of classification are related to the historical changes in literature and the evolution of genres.

Quantity and character genre characteristics(the volume of the genre) is a variable value in the history of literature, which is reflected in the variety of successive genre theories, as well as the prevailing ideas about Jeans in writing and reading practice. So, for tragedy in realistic drama of the 19th-20th centuries. Many signs of a classic tragedy are not necessary. In the era of realism, a tragedy is considered to be any dramatic work that reveals a tragic conflict and expresses corresponding pathos. Thus, we can talk about a decrease in the genre volume of tragedy from classicism to realism.

Most genres arose in ancient times. Evolving into lit. process, they nevertheless retain some stable substantive and formal features that allow us to talk about a genre tradition. The genre designations themselves, often included in the text of the work, in its title (“Eugene Onegin. A Novel in Verse”), are signs of literature. traditions; they evoke a certain genre expectation in the reader.

When studying genres, one should distinguish between their most stable and transient features. Within the framework of the theoretical and literary course, the main attention is paid to the characteristics of the most stable genre characteristics. However, it is important to remember that lit. In the process, genre always appears as an element of a genre system, the principles of which depend on the specific historical characteristics of artistic thinking. Thus, in ancient literatures, the development of authorial self-awareness was slow, determined by the stability of traditions and the general pace of national life. Therefore, the genre systems of ancient literatures, distinguished by their complexity and ramifications, are characterized by greater stability compared to the literature of modern times.

True liberation from cruel genre regulations became possible only with the development of realism; it was associated with overcoming subjective one-sidedness in creativity itself. And in realistic literature, which correlates the development of characters with circumstances in their historical concreteness, following the tradition of genres could be carried out much more freely, which generally led to a decrease in their volumes. In all European literature of the 19th century. There is a sharp restructuring of the genre system. Genres began to be perceived as aesthetically equivalent types of works that were open to creative exploration. This approach to genres is typical of our time.

Basic principles of genre classification of literary works. Genre features that have the most stable, historically repeatable character are the basis for the literary classification of works. Traditional genre designations are mainly used as literary terms - fable, ballad, poem, etc. - which spontaneously arose in literature and acquired a wide range of associations in the process of genre evolution.

The most important genre feature of a work is its belonging to one or another literary genre: epic, dramatic, lyrical, lyric-epic genres are distinguished. Within genera, there are different types - stable formal, compositional and stylistic structures, which it is advisable to call generic forms. They are differentiated depending on the organization of speech in the work - poetic or prose, and on the volume of the text. In addition, the basis for highlighting generic forms in the epic can be the principles of plot composition, in poetic lyrics - solid strophic forms (sonnet, rondo, triolet), in drama - some or other relation to the theater (drama for reading, for puppet theater) and so on.

Epic genres. Due to the breadth and versatility of the depiction of characters in epic works, in comparison with drama and lyric poetry, their genre issues are especially clear and vivid. It reveals itself in a variety of generic forms. Thus, a song, a fairy tale, and a story can be national-historical in their problematics.

In the classification of generic forms, differences in the volume of texts of works are important. Along with the small (story) and medium (story) prose forms, there is a large epic form, which is often called novels. The volume of the text of a work in an epic is determined by the completeness of the recreation of characters and relationships, and hence by the scale of the plot. Unlike a story, a story is not characterized by an extensive system of characters, there is no complex evolution of characters and detailed individualization.

Heroic folk song.

Novels, short stories (short stories, essays)

Satirical, everyday tales, fables

Dramatic genres. With their characteristic short performance time on stage and the resulting unity and concentration of the conflict, they create fertile ground for the expression of certain types of pathos in the actions and experiences of the characters. Therefore, the division of drama into genres is associated with the pathos of the play. But pathos comes from conflict.

An additional substantive criterion for division in drama is the peculiarities of genre issues.

1) Tragedy - a conflict between personal aspirations and super-personal “laws” of life occurs in the minds of the main character (heroes) and the entire plot of the play is created to develop and resolve this conflict. The hero of the tragedy is in a state of conflict not only with other characters, he struggles primarily with himself. The tragedy ends with the death of the usual hero, although, as Belinsky wrote, “The essence of the tragic is not in the bloody ending.”

A) moral descriptive - in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the characters act as bearers of certain moral and civil norms, reflect the clashes of old and new, more humane, moral norms.

B) national-historical (“Persians” by Aeschylus, “Boris Godunov” by Pushkin)

2) Drama is the most diverse in subject matter, characterized by a wide range of life conflicts depicted. The pathos of drama is generated by the characters’ clashes with the forces of life that oppose them from the outside. However, conflict in drama can also be very serious and acute and can lead to suffering and sometimes even death of the hero.

A) national-historical conflict (“Voevoda” by Ostrovsky, “Enemies” by Gorky)

B) socially everyday (romantic) (“The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare, “Vassa Zheleznova” by Gorky).

3) Comedy - a play filled with humorous or satirical pathos. Such pathos is generated by the comic contradictions of the characters being recreated. The comedy of the characters is revealed through plot conflicts, often based on chance. At the same time, the characters themselves do not change due to the course of events. There is no character development in comedy. The depiction of the internal inconsistency, absurdity, inferiority of comic characters, their satirical or humorous negation - this is the main ideological orientation of comedy.

Lyrical genres. The originality of the lyrics is that it brings to the fore the inner world lyrical hero, his experiences. This is clearly visible not only in works that lack any visual images outside world, but also in descriptive, narrative lyrics, here the experience is conveyed through the emotional expression of speech, the nature of tropes, etc. Therefore, the basis for the meaningful genre division in the lyrics is the very nature of the experience. But experience in lyrics can be subjects of typology in a different way. As in epic and drama, in lyric poetry one can trace differences in genre issues - national-historical, moral-descriptive, romantic, which are manifested here through the typification of the very experience of the lyrical hero.

The genres of literary lyrics were formed on the basis of folk lyrical song, in its various varieties.

1) Ode is a poem expressing the enthusiastic feelings that some significant object arouses in the poet. In the ode, the poet connects primarily with collective feelings - patriotic, civil. Genre issues in an ode it can be national-historical or morally descriptive.

2) Satire is a poem expressing indignation, the poet’s indignation at the negative aspects of society. Satire is morally descriptive in terms of genre issues; the poet in it is like the mouthpiece of the advanced part of society, concerned about its negative state.

3) Elegy is a poem filled with sadness and dissatisfaction with life. Sadness can be caused by some reason (“Sorrowful Elegies” by Ovid). But an elegy is possible in which the recreated experience does not have a specific motivation (“I experienced my desires...” by Pushkin).

4) Epigram, epitaph, madrigal - small forms of lyric poetry. In the history of literature, the broad (ancient Greek) and narrow (later) meanings of the epigram are known. The ancient Greek epigram (literally “inscription”) originates from inscriptions on religious objects. A type of epigram was an epitaph - an inscription on a tombstone. The content and emotional tone of the ancient Greek epigrams were different. The originality of thought and the laconicism of its expression are what have always been valued in the epigram. The second, narrow meaning of the epigram, which has been attached to it since the 1st century AD, is a short humorous or satirical poem, most often ridiculing a certain person. The antipode of an epigram (in the higher meaning of the word) is a madrigal - a short, half-joking poem of a complimentary nature (usually addressed to a lady).

Lyric-epic genres. A combination of lyrical meditation and epic narrative often found in works of different genres (for example, in a romantic poem). But there are genres whose nature is always lyrical and epic.

1) Fable is a morally descriptive genre that contains a short allegorical narrative and a lesson (“moral”) arising from it. Even if the teaching is not “Formulated” in the text of the fable, it is implied; The relationship between the teaching and the plot of the fable constitutes its lyrical-epic basis.

2) A ballad is a small poetic work of plot in which the narrative itself is permeated with lyricism. Unlike a fable, where it is possible to distinguish lyrical (“moral”) and epic (plot) parts, a ballad represents an indissoluble fusion of lyrical and epic principles. Genre issues in a ballad can be national-historical and romantic.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. The question of genre as a variety of one or another is quite complex. This term is found in music, painting, architecture, theater, cinema, and literature.

Determining the genre of a work is a task that not every student can cope with. Why is genre division necessary at all? Where are the boundaries separating a novel from a poem, and a short story from a story? Let's try to figure it out together.

Genre in literature - what is it?

The word "genre" comes from the Latin genus ( species, genus). Literary reference books report that:

A genre is a historically established variety, united by a certain set of formal and substantive features.

From the definition it is clear that in the process of genre evolution it is important to highlight three points:

  1. each genre of literature is formed over a long period of time (each of them has its own history);
  2. the main reason for its appearance is the need to express new ideas in an original way (substantive criterion);
  3. distinguish one type of work is distinguished from another by external signs: volume, plot, structure (formal criterion).

All genres of literature can be represented this way:

These are three typology options that help to classify a work into a particular genre.

The history of the emergence of literary genres in Rus'

The literature of European countries was formed according to the principle of movement from the general to the particular, from the anonymous to the author. Artistic creativity both abroad and in Russia, it was fed from two sources:

  1. spiritual culture, the center of which was monasteries;
  2. in folk speech.

If you look closely at the history of literature in Ancient Rus', you will notice how chronicles, patericons, lives of saints and patristic works are gradually being replaced by new ones.

At the turn of the XIV-XV centuries such genres ancient Russian literature , as a word, walking (the ancestor of the travel novel), (everyday “splinter” of a moral parable), heroic poem, spiritual verse. Based on the material oral traditions, released separately during the period of decay ancient myth to a fairy-tale epic and a realistic military story.

By interacting with foreign written traditions, Russian literature is enriched new genre forms : a novel, a secular philosophical story, an author's fairy tale, and in the era of romanticism -, lyric poem, ballad.

The realistic canon brings to life problem novel, story, story. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, genres with blurred boundaries became popular again: essay (), sketch, short poem, symbolist. Old forms are filled with original meaning, transform into each other, and destroy given standards.

Dramatic art has a powerful influence on the formation of the genre system. Installation for theatricality changes the appearance of such genres familiar to the average reader as a poem, a story, a short story, and even a small lyric poem (in the era of the “sixties” poets).

In modern literature remains open. There is a prospect of interaction not only within individual genres, but also within various types art. Every year appears new genre in literature.

Literature by genus and species

The most popular classification breaks down works “by type” (all of its components are shown in the third column in the figure shown at the beginning of this publication).

To understand this genre classification, you need to remember that literature, like music, is worth on “three pillars”. These whales, called genera, are in turn divided into species. For clarity, let's present this structure in the form of a diagram:

  1. The oldest “whale” is considered epic. Its progenitor, who split into legend and tale.
  2. appeared when humanity stepped beyond the stage of collective thinking and turned to the individual experiences of each member of the community. The nature of lyrics - personal experience author.
  3. older than epic and lyric poetry. Its appearance is associated with the era of antiquity and the emergence of religious cults - mysteries. Drama became the art of the streets, a means of releasing collective energy and influencing masses of people.

Epic genres and examples of such works

The largest epic forms known to modern times are the epic and the epic novel. The ancestors of the epic can be considered a saga, widespread in the past among the peoples of Scandinavia, and a legend (for example, the Indian “The Tale of Gilgamesh”).

Epic is a multi-volume narrative about the fate of several generations of heroes in historically established and fixed cultural tradition circumstances.

A rich socio-historical background is required against which events unfold privacy heroes. For an epic, such features as a multi-component plot, connections between generations, and the presence of heroes and anti-heroes are important.

Because it depicts large-scale events over the course of centuries, it rarely features careful psychological portrayal, but the epics created in the last few centuries combine these attitudes with achievements contemporary art. “The Forsyte Saga” by J. Galsworthy not only describes the history of several generations of the Forsyte family, but also gives subtle vivid images individual characters.

Unlike the epic epic novel covers a shorter period of time (no more than a hundred years) and tells the story of 2-3 generations of heroes.

In Russia, this genre is represented by the novels “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy, " Quiet Don» M.A. Sholokhov, “Walking through torment” by A.N. Tolstoy.

To medium forms Epic includes novel and story.

The term " novel" comes from the word "Roman" and is reminiscent of the ancient prose narrative that gave birth to this genre.

The Satyricon of Petronius is considered an example of an ancient novel. IN medieval Europe The picaresque novel is spreading. The era of sentimentalism gives the world a travel novel. Realists develop the genre and fill it with classical content.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the following appeared types of novels:

  1. philosophical;
  2. psychological;
  3. social;
  4. intellectual;
  5. historical;
  6. love;
  7. detective;
  8. adventure novel.

IN school curriculum many novels. Giving examples, name the books by I.A. Goncharova " An ordinary story", "Oblomov", "Cliff", works by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons", " Noble Nest", "On the Eve", "Smoke", "New". The genre of “Crime and Punishment”, “The Idiot”, “The Brothers Karamazov” by F. M. Dostoevsky is also a novel.

Tale does not affect the fate of generations, but has several storylines developing against the backdrop of one historical event.

« The captain's daughter» A. S. Pushkin and “Overcoats” by N.V. Gogol. V.G. Belinsky spoke about the primacy of narrative literature in XIX culture century.

Small epic forms(story, sketch, novella, essay) have one storyline, a limited number of characters and are characterized by a compressed volume.

Examples include stories by A. Gaidar or Y. Kazakov, short stories by E. Poe, essays by V.G. Korolenko or essay by W. Wulf. Let’s make a reservation, sometimes it “works” as a genre scientific style or journalism, but has artistic imagery.

Lyrical genres

Large lyrical forms represented by a poem and a wreath of sonnets. The first is more plot-driven, which makes it similar to the epic. The second one is static. The wreath of sonnets, consisting of 15 14-verse lines, describes a topic and the author’s impressions of it.

In Russia, poems have a socio-historical character. " Bronze Horseman" and "Poltava" A.S. Pushkin, “Mtsyri” by M.Yu. Lermontov, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” N.A. Nekrasov, “Requiem” by A.A. Akhmatova - all these poems lyrically describe Russian life and national characters.

Small forms of lyrics numerous. This is a poem, ode, canzone, sonnet, epitaph, fable, madrigal, rondo, triolet. Some forms originated in medieval Europe (the sonnet genre was especially loved by lyricists in Russia), some (for example, the ballad) became the legacy of the German romantics.

Traditionally small poetic works usually divided into 3 types:

  1. philosophical lyrics;
  2. love lyrics;
  3. landscape lyrics.

IN Lately Urban lyrics also emerged as a separate subtype.

Dramatic genres

Drama gives us three classic genres:

  1. comedy;
  2. tragedy;
  3. actual drama.

All three types of performing arts originated in Ancient Greece.

Comedy was initially associated with religious cults of purification, mysteries, during which carnival action unfolded on the streets. The sacrificial goat “comos”, which was later called the “scapegoat”, walking through the streets along with the artists, symbolized all human vices. According to the canon, they are what comedy should make fun of.

Comedy is the genre of “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov and “Nedoroslya” D.I. Fonvizina.

In the era of classicism, 2 types of comedy developed: comedy provisions and comedy characters. The first played with circumstances, passed off one hero as another, and had an unexpected ending. The second pitted the characters against each other in the face of an idea or task, generating a theatrical conflict on which the intrigue rested.

If during a comedy the playwright expected the healing laughter of the crowd, then tragedy The goal was to bring tears. It was bound to end with the death of the hero. Empathizing with the characters, the viewer or purification.

“Romeo and Juliet” and also “Hamlet” by W. Shakespeare were written in the tragedy genre.

Actually drama- This is a later invention of dramaturgy, removing therapeutic tasks and focusing on subtle psychologism, objectivity, and play.

Determining the genre of a literary work

How was the poem "Eugene Onegin" called a novel? Why did Gogol define the novel “Dead Souls” as a poem? And why Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard"Is it a comedy? Genre designations are clues that remind you that in the world of art there are right directions, but, fortunately, there are no forever beaten paths.

Just above is a video that helps determine the genre of a particular literary work.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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A genre in literature is a selection of texts that have a similar structure and are similar in content. There are quite a lot of them, but there is a division by type, form and content.

Classification of genres in literature.

Division by gender

With such a classification, one should consider the attitude of the author himself to the text of interest to the reader. He was the first to try to divide literary works into four genres, each with its own internal divisions:

  • epic (novels, stories, epics, short stories, stories, fairy tales, epics),
  • lyrical (odes, elegies, messages, epigrams),
  • dramatic (dramas, comedies, tragedies),
  • lyric-epic (ballads, poems).

Division by content

Based on this principle of division, three groups emerged:

  • Comedy,
  • Tragedies
  • Dramas.

Two latest groups talk about tragic fate, about the conflict in the work. And comedies should be divided into smaller subgroups: parody, farce, vaudeville, sitcom, sideshow.

Separation by shape

The group is diverse and numerous. There are thirteen genres in this group:

  • epic
  • epic,
  • novel,
  • story,
  • novella,
  • story,
  • sketch,
  • play,
  • feature article,
  • essay,
  • opus,
  • visions.

In prose there is no such clear division

It is not easy to immediately determine what genre a particular work is. How does the work you read affect the reader? What feelings does it evoke? Is the author present, does he introduce his personal experiences, is there a simple narrative without adding analysis of the events described. All these questions require specific answers in order to make a final verdict on whether the text belongs to a certain type of literary genre.

Genres tell their story

To begin to understand the genre diversity of literature, you should know the characteristics of each of them.

  1. Form groups are perhaps the most interesting. A play is a work written specifically for the stage. A story is a prosaic narrative work of small volume. The novel is distinguished by its scale. A story is an intermediate genre, standing between a short story and a novel, which tells about the fate of one hero.
  2. The content groups are small in number, so it is very easy to remember them. Comedy has a humorous and satirical character. Tragedies always end in unexpectedly unpleasant ways. The drama is based on the conflict between human life and society.
  3. The typology of genres by genus contains only three structures:
    1. The epic tells about the past without expressing one’s personal opinion about what is happening.
    2. Lyrics always contain the feelings and experiences of the lyrical hero, that is, the author himself.
    3. The drama reveals its plot through the characters' communication with each other.