The genre of the work. Literary genres

One of the founders of Russian literary criticism was V. G. Belinsky. And although serious steps were taken in antiquity in the development of the concept literary kind(Aristotle), it is Belinsky who owns the scientifically based theory of three literary genera, which you can get acquainted with in detail by reading Belinsky's article "Division of poetry into genera and types".

There are three kinds fiction: epic(from the Greek Epos, narration), lyrical(called the lyre musical instrument, accompanied by sung verses) and dramatic(from Greek Drama, action).

Presenting a particular subject to the reader (meaning the subject of conversation), the author chooses different approaches to it:

First approach: can be detailed tell about the subject, about the events associated with it, about the circumstances of the existence of this subject, etc.; at the same time, the position of the author will be more or less detached, the author will act as a kind of chronicler, narrator, or choose one of the characters as the narrator; the main thing in such a work will be precisely the story, narration about the subject, the leading type of speech will be exactly the narrative; this kind of literature is called epic;

The second approach: you can tell not so much about events, but about impression, which they produced on the author, about those feelings that they called; image inner world, experiences, impressions and will refer to the lyrical genre of literature; exactly experience becomes the main event of the lyrics;

Third approach: you can portray subject in action, show him on stage; present to the reader and the viewer surrounded by other phenomena; this kind of literature is dramatic; in the drama itself, the voice of the author will be the least likely to sound - in remarks, that is, the author's explanations for the action and replicas of the characters.

Consider the following table and try to memorize its contents:

Genres of fiction

Each type of literature in turn includes a number of genres.

GENRE is a historically formed group of works united common features content and form. These groups include novels, stories, poems, elegies, short stories, feuilletons, comedies, etc. In literary criticism, the concept is often introduced literary type, is a broader concept than genre. In this case, the novel will be considered a type of fiction, and genres - various varieties of the novel, for example, adventure, detective, psychological, parable novel, dystopian novel, etc.

Examples genus-species relations in literature:

• Genus: dramatic; type: comedy; Genre: sitcom.
• Genus: epic; type: story; genre: fantasy story etc.

Genres, being historical categories, appear, develop and eventually "leave" from the "active reserve" of artists, depending on historical era: ancient lyricists did not know the sonnet; in our time, an archaic genre has become born in antiquity and popular in XVII-XVIII centuries Oh yeah; romanticism XIX century brought to life detective literature, etc.

Consider the following table, which lists the types and genres related to the different kinds of word art:

Genera, types and genres of fiction

Modern literary criticism also highlights fourth, an adjacent type of literature that combines the features of the epic and lyrical childbirth: lyrical-epic to which it refers poem. Indeed, by telling the reader a story, the poem manifests itself as an epic; revealing to the reader the depth of feelings, the inner world of the person who tells this story, the poem manifests itself as a lyric.

LYRICAL called a kind of literature in which the author's attention is paid to the image of the inner world, feelings, experiences. The event in the lyrics is important only insofar as it evokes an emotional response in the soul of the artist. It is the experience that becomes the main event in the lyrics. Lyricism as a kind of literature arose in ancient times. The word "lyric" Greek origin, but has no direct translation. AT Ancient Greece poetic works depicting the inner world of feelings and experiences were performed to the accompaniment of a lyre, and this is how the word "lyric" appeared.

The most important character in the lyrics is lyrical hero: it is his inner world that is shown in lyrical work, on his behalf, the lyric artist speaks to the reader, and the external world is depicted in the context of the impressions that he makes on lyrical hero. Note! Do not confuse the lyrical hero with the epic one. Pushkin reproduced in great detail the inner world of Eugene Onegin, but this epic hero, a participant in the main events of the novel. The lyrical hero of Pushkin's novel is the Narrator, the one who is familiar with Onegin and tells his story, deeply experiencing it. Onegin only once becomes a lyrical hero in the novel - when he writes a letter to Tatyana, just as she becomes a lyrical heroine when she writes a letter to Onegin.

By creating the image of a lyrical hero, the poet can make him personally very close to himself (poems by Lermontov, Fet, Nekrasov, Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, etc.). But sometimes the poet seems to be "hiding" behind the mask of a lyrical hero, completely far from the personality of the poet himself; so, for example, A. Blok makes Ophelia a lyrical heroine (2 poems called "The Song of Ophelia") or a street actor Harlequin ("I was all in colorful rags ..."), M. Tsvetaeva - Hamlet ("At the bottom she, where the silt ... "), V. Bryusov - Cleopatra ("Cleopatra"), S. Yesenin - a peasant boy from folk song or fairy tales (“Mother went to the bathing suit through the forest ...”). So it’s more literate, when discussing a lyrical work, to talk about the expression in it of the feelings of not the author, but the lyrical hero.

Like other types of literature, poetry includes a number of genres. Some of them arose in ancient times, others - in the Middle Ages, some - quite recently, one and a half to two centuries ago, or even in the last century.

Read about some LYRICAL GENRES:
Oh yeah(Greek "Song") - a monumental solemn poem glorifying a great event or a great person; distinguish between spiritual odes (arrangements of psalms), moralizing, philosophical, satirical, ode-messages, etc. The ode is three-part: it must have a theme stated at the beginning of the work; development of the theme and arguments, as a rule, allegorical (second part); final, didactic (instructive) part. Samples of ancient ancient odes are associated with the names of Horace and Pindar; the ode came to Russia in the 18th century, the odes of M. Lomonosov ("On the day of the accession to the Russian throne of Empress Elisaveta Petrovna"), V. Trediakovsky, A. Sumarokov, G. Derzhavin ("Felitsa", "God"), A .Radishcheva ("Liberty"). Paid tribute to the ode A. Pushkin ("Liberty"). To mid-nineteenth century, the ode lost its relevance and gradually passed into the category of archaic genres.

Hymn- a poem of laudatory content; also came from ancient poetry, but if in ancient times hymns were composed in honor of gods and heroes, then at a later time hymns were written in honor of solemn events, festivities, often not only of a state, but also of a personal nature (A. Pushkin. "Feasting Students" ).

Elegy(Phrygian "reed flute") - a genre of lyrics dedicated to meditation. Originated in ancient poetry; originally it was called crying over the dead. The elegy was based on the ideal of life of the ancient Greeks, which was based on the harmony of the world, the proportionality and balance of being, incomplete without sadness and contemplation, these categories have passed into the modern elegy. An elegy can embody both life-affirming ideas and disappointment. The poetry of the 19th century still continued to develop the elegy in its "pure" form; in the lyric poetry of the 20th century, elegy is found rather as a genre tradition, as a special mood. AT modern poetry an elegy is a plotless poem of a contemplative, philosophical and landscape character.
A. Pushkin. "To sea"
N. Nekrasov. "Elegy"
A. Akhmatova. "March Elegy"

Read A. Blok's poem "From the Autumn Elegy":

Epigram(Greek "inscription") - a small poem of satirical content. Initially, in ancient times, epigrams were called inscriptions on household items, tombstones and statues. Subsequently, the content of the epigrams changed.
Examples of epigrams:

Yuri Olesha:

Epistle, or message - a poem, the content of which can be defined as "a letter in verse." The genre also came from ancient lyrics.
A. Pushkin. Pushchin ("My first friend, my priceless friend...")
V. Mayakovsky. "Sergey Yesenin"; "Lilichka! (Instead of a Letter)"
S. Yesenin. "Mother's Letter"
M. Tsvetaeva. Poems to Blok

Sonnet- This is a poetic genre of the so-called rigid form: a poem consisting of 14 lines, organized in a special way into stanzas, with strict principles of rhyme and stylistic laws. There are several types of sonnet in form:

• Italian: consists of two quatrains (quatrains), in which the lines rhyme according to the ABAB or ABBA scheme, and two three-verses (tercetes) with the rhyming CDС DСD or CDE CDE;
• English: consists of three quatrains and one couplet; general scheme rhymes - ABAB CDCD EFEF GG;
• sometimes French is singled out: the stanza is similar to Italian, but in tercetes there is a different rhyming scheme: CCD EED or CCD EDE; he had a significant influence on the development of the next type of sonnet -
• Russian: created by Anton Delvig: the stanza is also similar to Italian, but the rhyming scheme in tercetes is CDD CCD.

This lyrical genre was born in Italy in the 13th century. Its creator was the lawyer Jacopo da Lentini; a hundred years later Petrarch's sonnet masterpieces appeared. The sonnet came to Russia in the 18th century; a little later, he received a serious development in the work of Anton Delvig, Ivan Kozlov, Alexander Pushkin. Poets showed particular interest in the sonnet " silver age": K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, I. Annensky, V. Ivanov, I. Bunin, N. Gumilyov, A. Blok, O. Mandelstam ...
In the art of versification, the sonnet is considered one of the most difficult genres.
In the last 2 centuries, poets rarely adhered to any strict rhyme, often offering a mixture of various schemes.

This content dictates features of the sonnet language:
• vocabulary and intonation should be sublime;
• rhymes - accurate and, if possible, unusual, rare;
• significant words should not be repeated in the same meaning, etc.

A special difficulty - and therefore the pinnacle of poetic technique - is wreath of sonnets: a cycle of 15 poems, the initial line of each being the last line of the previous one, and the last line of the 14th poem being the first line of the first. The fifteenth sonnet consists of the first lines of all 14 sonnets in the cycle. In Russian lyrics, the wreaths of sonnets by V. Ivanov, M. Voloshin, K. Balmont became the most famous.

Read "Sonnet" by A. Pushkin and see how the sonnet form is parsed:

In school literary criticism, such a genre of lyrics is called lyric poem. There is no such genre in classical literary criticism. It was introduced into the school curriculum to somewhat simplify the complex system of lyrical genres: if bright genre features works cannot be singled out and the poem is not in the strict sense either an ode, or a hymn, or an elegy, or a sonnet, etc., it will be defined as a lyric poem. In this case, one should pay attention to the individual features of the poem: the specifics of the form, theme, image of the lyrical hero, mood, etc. So, poems by Mayakovsky, Tsvetaeva, Blok, etc. should be included in lyric poems (in the school sense). Almost all the lyrics of the 20th century fall under this definition, unless the authors specifically specified the genre of the works.

Satire(lat. "mixture, all sorts of things") - as a poetic genre: a work whose content is denunciation - social phenomena, human vices or individuals - by ridicule. Satire in antiquity in Roman literature (satires of Juvenal, Martial, etc.). The genre received new development in the literature of classicism. The content of satire is characterized by ironic intonation, allegoricalness, Aesopian language, and the technique of "speaking names" is often used. In Russian literature, A. Kantemir, K. Batyushkov (XVIII-XIX centuries) worked in the satire genre, in the 20th century Sasha Cherny and others became famous as the author of satires. Many poems from V. Mayakovsky's "Poems about America" ​​can also be called satires ( "Six nuns", "Black and white", "Skyscraper in section", etc.).

Ballad- lyric-epic plot poem of fantastic, satirical, historical, fabulous, legendary, humorous, etc. character. The ballad arose in antiquity (supposedly in early middle ages) as a folklore ritual dance and song genre, and this determines its genre features: strict rhythm, plot (in ancient ballads it was told about heroes and gods), the presence of repetitions (whole lines or individual words were repeated as an independent stanza), called refrain. In the 18th century, the ballad became one of the most beloved poetic genres of Romantic literature. Ballads were created by F. Schiller ("Cup", "Glove"), I. Goethe ("Forest King"), V. Zhukovsky ("Lyudmila", "Svetlana"), A. Pushkin ("Anchar", "Groom") , M. Lermontov ("Borodino", "Three Palms"); at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the ballad was revived again and became very popular, especially in the revolutionary era, during the period of revolutionary romance. Among the poets of the twentieth century, ballads were written by A. Blok ("Love" ("The Queen lived on a high mountain ..."), N. Gumilyov ("Captains", "Barbarians"), A. Akhmatova ("The Gray-eyed King"), M. Svetlov ("Grenada"), etc.

Note! The work can combine the features of some genres: a message with elements of an elegy (A. Pushkin, "K *** ("I remember wonderful moment..."), a lyrical poem of elegiac content (A. Blok. "Motherland"), an epigram-message, etc.

1. The creator of Macbeth is William Shakespeare (the tragedy "Macbeth").
2. Portuguese poet Luis de Camões (1524-1580).
3. Wordsworth - English Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850).
4. Lithuanian singer - Polish romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855).
5. See topic #12.

• V.A. Zhukovsky. Poems: "Svetlana"; "Sea"; "Evening"; "Unspeakable"
• A.S. Pushkin. Poems: "Village", "Demons", " Winter evening"," Pushchino "(" My first friend, my priceless friend ... "," Winter Road "," To Chaadaev "," In the depths of Siberian ores ... "," Anchar "," The flying ridge is thinning clouds ... "," Prisoner " , "A conversation between a bookseller and a poet", "The poet and the crowd", "Autumn", "... I visited again ...", "Do I wander along the noisy streets ...", "A gift in vain, a random gift ...", "October 19" ( 1825), "On the Hills of Georgia", "I loved you...", "To ***" ("I remember a wonderful moment..."), "Madonna", "Echo", "Prophet", "To the Poet", "To the sea", "From Pindemonti" ("I don't cheaply appreciate high-profile rights..."), "I erected a monument to myself..."
• M.Yu.Lermontov. Poems: "Death of a Poet", "Poet", "How often, surrounded by a motley crowd...", "Duma", "Both boring and sad...", "Prayer" ("I, mother of God, now with a prayer...") , "We parted, but your portrait ...", "I will not humble myself before you ...", "Motherland", "Farewell, unwashed Russia…”, “When the yellowing field is agitated…”, “No, I am not Byron, I am different…”, “Leaf”, “Three palm trees”, “From under the mysterious, cold half-mask…”, “The Captive Knight”, “ Neighbor", "Testament", "Clouds", "Cliff", "Borodino", "Clouds of heaven, eternal pages ki ...", "Prisoner", "Prophet", "I go out alone on the road ..."
• N.A. Nekrasov. Poems: "I do not like your irony ...", "Knight for an hour", "I will die soon ...", "Prophet", "Poet and citizen", "Troika", "Elegy", "Zina" ("You are still on you have a right to life…”); other verses of your choice
• F.I. Tyutchev. Poems: "Autumn evening", "Silentium", "Not what you think, nature ...", "The earth still looks sad ...", "How good you are, O night sea ...", "I met you ...", " Whatever life teaches us…”, “Fountain”, “These poor villages…”, “Tears of people, oh human tears…”, “You can’t understand Russia with your mind…”, “I remember the golden time…”, “What are you talking about howling, night wind?", "The gray-gray shadows have shifted…", "How sweetly the dark green garden slumbers…"; other verses of your choice
• A.A. Fet. Poems: "I came to you with greetings ...", "Another May night ...", "Whisper, timid breathing…”, “This morning, this joy…”, “Sevastopol rural cemetery"," A wavy cloud ...", "Learn from them - from an oak, from a birch ...", "To poets", "Autumn", "What a night, how clean the air ...", "Village", "Swallows", "On railway"," Fantasy "," The night shone. The garden was full of moon…"; other verses of your choice
• I.A. Bunin. Poems: "The Last Bumblebee", "Evening", "Childhood", "It's Still Cold and Cheese...", "And Flowers, and Bumblebees, and Grass...", "The Word", "The Knight at the Crossroads", "The Bird Has a Nest …", "Twilight"
• A.A. Blok. Poems: "I enter the dark temples ...", "Stranger", "Solveig", "You are like the echo of a forgotten hymn ...", "The earthly heart freezes again ...", "Oh, spring without end and without edge ...", " About valor, about exploits, about glory…”, “On the railway”, cycles “On the Kulikovo field” and “Carmen”, “Rus”, “Rodina”, “Russia”, “Morning in the Kremlin”, “Oh, I I want to live crazy ... "; other verses of your choice
• A.A. Akhmatova. Poems: "Song last meeting"," You know, I'm languishing in captivity...", "There are such days before spring...", "Tearful autumn, like a widow...", "I learned to live simply, wisely...", " Motherland"; "I do not need odic rati…", "I am not with those who left the earth…", "Courage"; other verses of your choice
• S.A. Yesenin. Poems: "Goy you, my dear Russia ...", "Do not wander, do not crush in the crimson bushes ...", "I do not regret, I do not call, I do not cry ...", "We are now leaving little by little ...", "Mother's letter", " The golden grove dissuaded ... "," I left native home…”, “Kachalov’s Dog”, “Soviet Russia”, “Hewn drogs sang…”, “Uncomfortable liquid moonlight…”, “Feeding is sleeping. Dear plain…”, “Goodbye, my friend, goodbye…”; other verses of your choice
• V.V.Mayakovsky. Poems: “Could you?”, “Listen!”, “Nate!”, “To you!”, “Violin and a little nervously”, “Mom and the evening killed by the Germans”, “Gift sale”, “ Good relationship to the horses", "Left march", "On rubbish", "To Sergei Yesenin", "Jubilee", "Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva"; other poems of your choice
• 10-15 poems each (of your choice): M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak, N. Gumilyov.
• A. Tvardovsky. Poems: "I was killed near Rzhev ...", "I know, no fault of mine ...", "The whole point is in one single testament ...", "In memory of the mother", "To bitter insults of my own person ..."; other verses of your choice
• I. Brodsky. Poems: "I entered instead of a wild beast...", "Letters to a Roman friend", "To Urania", "Stans", "You will ride in the darkness...", "On the death of Zhukov", "From nowhere with love...", "Notes of a fern "

Try everything literary works that are named in the work, read in a book, not in electronic form!
When completing tasks for work 7, pay special attention to theoretical materials, since performing the tasks of this work by intuition means dooming yourself to a mistake.
Do not forget to draw up a metric scheme for each analyzed poetic passage, checking it many times.
The key to success in this complex work is attention and accuracy.

• Kvyatkovsky I.A. Poetic dictionary. - M., 1966.
• Literary encyclopedic Dictionary. - M., 1987.
• Literary criticism: Reference materials. - M., 1988.
• Lotman Yu.M. Analysis poetic text. - L .: Education, 1972.
• Gasparov M. Modern Russian verse. Metrics and rhythm. - M.: Nauka, 1974.
• Zhirmunsky V.M. The theory of verse. - L .: Nauka, 1975.
• Poetic structure of Russian lyrics. Sat. - L .: Nauka, 1973.
• Skripov G.S. About Russian versification. Student aid. - M.: Enlightenment, 1979.
• Dictionary literary terms. - M., 1974.
• Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Literary Critic. - M., 1987.

Genres of literature

Literary genres- historically emerging groups of literary works, united by a set of formal and content properties (in contrast to literary forms, the selection of which is based only on formal features). The term is often incorrectly identified with the term "type of literature".

The genera, types and genres of literature do not exist as something immutable, given from the ages and eternally existing. They are born, are theoretically realized, develop historically, change, dominate, freeze or retreat to the periphery, depending on the evolution of artistic thinking as such. The most stable, fundamental is, of course, the extremely general concept of “genus”, the most dynamic and changeable is the much more specific concept of “genre”.

The first attempts at a theoretical substantiation of the genus make themselves felt in the ancient doctrine of mimesis (imitation). Plato in The Republic, and then Aristotle in Poetics, came to the conclusion that poetry is of three kinds, depending on what, how and by what means it imitates. In other words, the generic division of fiction is based on the subject, means and methods of imitation.

Separate remarks about the ways of organizing artistic time and space (chronotope), scattered in the Poetics, form the prerequisites for further division into types and genres of literature.

Aristotle's idea of ​​generic characteristics is traditionally called formal. His successors are representatives of German aesthetics of the 18th-19th centuries. Goethe, Schiller, Aug. Schlegel, Schelling. Approximately at the same time, the principles of the opposite - a meaningful approach to the generic division of fiction were laid. It was initiated by Hegel, who proceeded from the epistemological principle: the object of artistic knowledge in the epic is the object, in the lyrics - the subject, in the drama - their synthesis. Accordingly, the content of the epic work is being in its entirety, dominating the will of people, therefore the event plan prevails in it; the content of the lyrical work is the state of mind, the mood of the lyrical hero, therefore the eventfulness in it recedes into the background; the content of a dramatic work is striving for a goal, a person's volitional activity, manifested in action.

Derived from the category of the genus, or rather, clarifying, concretizing its concepts are the concepts of "species" and "genre". By tradition, we call species stable structural formations within a literary genus, grouping even smaller genre modifications. For example, the epic consists of small, medium and large species such as short story, essay, short story, story, novel, poem, epic. However, they are often called genres that, in a strict terminological sense, specify species either in a historical, or in a thematic, or in a structural aspect: an ancient novel, a Renaissance short story, a psychological or production essay or novel, a lyrical story, an epic story (“Fate Man" M. Sholokhov). Some structural forms combine specific and genre features, i.e. types of genre varieties do not have (such, for example, are the types and at the same time the genres of the medieval theater soti and moralite). However, along with the synonymous word usage, the hierarchical differentiation of both terms is relevant. Accordingly, the types are divided into genres according to a number of different characteristics: thematic, stylistic, structural, volume, in relation to the aesthetic ideal, reality or fiction, the main aesthetic categories, etc.

Genres of literature

Comedy- type of dramatic work. Displays everything ugly and ridiculous, funny and awkward, ridicules the vices of society.

Lyric poem (in prose)- a type of fiction, emotionally and poetically expressing the feelings of the author.

Melodrama- a type of drama, the characters of which are sharply divided into positive and negative.

fantasy subgenre of fantasy literature. The works of this subgenre are written in an epic fairy-tale manner, using the motifs of ancient myths and legends. The plot is usually based on magic, heroic adventures and travel; the plot usually contains magical creatures; The action takes place in a fairy tale world reminiscent of the Middle Ages.

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

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

Tale- medium form; a work that highlights a series of events in the life of the protagonist.

Poem- type of lyrical epic work; poetic storytelling.

Story- a small form, a work about one event in the life of a character.

Novel- large form; a work, in the events of which many characters usually take part, whose fates are intertwined. Novels are philosophical, adventure, historical, family and social.

Tragedy- a type of dramatic work that tells about the unfortunate fate of the protagonist, often doomed to death.

Utopia- genre of fiction, close to science fiction describing the model of an ideal, from the point of view of the author, society. In contrast to dystopia, it is characterized by the author's belief in the impeccability of the model.

epic- a work or a cycle of works depicting a significant historical epoch or a major historical event.

Drama- (in the narrow sense) one of the leading genres of dramaturgy; a literary work written in the form of a dialogue of characters. Designed to be performed on stage. Focused on spectacular expression. The relationship of people, the conflicts that arise between them are revealed through the actions of the characters and are embodied in a monologue-dialogical form. Unlike tragedy, drama does not end in catharsis.

literary genre- this is a form, an abstract model on which the text of a literary work is built. A genre is a set of certain features that make it possible to classify a literary work as an epic, lyric or drama. Genres were not invented. They have existed and continue to exist in the very nature of human thought.

The main types of literary genres

Literary genres are divided into three types: epic, lyrical and dramatic. To epic genres include: fairy tale, epic, epic, epic novel, novel, story, essay, story, anecdote. Lyrical genres called an ode, an elegy, a ballad, a message, an epigram, a madrigal. Dramatic genres are tragedy, comedy, drama, melodrama, vaudeville and farce.

Literary genres have certain characteristics, which are divided into genre-forming and additional. Genre-forming features determine the specifics of a particular genre. For example, the genre-forming feature of a fairy tale is a setting for fiction. The events of the fairy tale are obviously perceived by the listener as magical, fictional, not directly related to reality. The genre-forming feature of the novel is its connection with objective reality, coverage a large number events that happened in reality or could happen, a lot of acting characters, a focus on the inner world of the characters.

Literature is called works of human thought, enshrined in the written word and having a social meaning. Any literary work, depending on HOW the writer depicts reality in it, is attributed to one of three literary genera: epic, lyric or drama.

epic (from the Greek "narrative") - a generalized name for works in which events external to the author are depicted.

Lyrics (from the Greek "performed to the lyre") - the generalized name of works - as a rule, poetic, in which there is no plot, but the thoughts, feelings, experiences of the author (lyrical hero) are reflected.

Drama (from Greek "action") - a generalized name for works in which life is shown through conflicts and clashes of heroes. Dramatic works are intended not so much for reading as for staging. In drama, it is not the external action that matters, but the experience. conflict situation. In drama, epic (narration) and lyrics are merged into one.

Within each type of literature, there are genres- historically established types of works, characterized by certain structural and content features (see table of genres).

Tragedy (from the Greek "goat song") - a dramatic work with an insurmountable conflict, which depicts a tense struggle strong characters and passions, ending with the death of the hero.

Comedy (from the Greek. "fun song") - a dramatic work with a cheerful, funny plot, usually ridiculing social or domestic vices.

Drama is a literary work in the form of a dialogue with a serious plot, depicting a personality in its dramatic relationship with society.

Vaudeville – light comedy with singing couplets and dancing.

Farce – theatrical play light, playful character with external comic effects, designed for rough taste.

Oh yeah (from Greek “song”) - a choral, solemn song, a work that glorifies, praises any significant event or heroic person.

Hymn (from Greek “praise”) - a solemn song to verses of a programmatic nature. Initially, hymns were dedicated to the gods. The anthem is currently one of the national symbols states.

Epigram (from the Greek. "Inscription") - a short satirical poem of a mocking nature, which arose in the 3rd century BC. e.

Elegy - a genre of lyrics dedicated to sad thoughts or a lyric poem imbued with sadness. Belinsky called an elegy "a song of sad content." The word "elegy" is translated as "reed flute" or "mournful song". The elegy originated in ancient Greece in the 7th century BC. e.

Message - a poetic letter, an appeal to a specific person, a request, a wish.

Sonnet (from Provence. "song") - a poem of 14 lines, which has a certain rhyming system and strict stylistic laws. The sonnet originated in Italy in the 13th century (the creator is the poet Jacopo da Lentini), appeared in England in the first half of the 16th century (G. Sarri), and in Russia in the 18th century. The main types of sonnets are Italian (from 2 quatrains and 2 tercets) and English (from 3 quatrains and the final couplet).

Poem (from the Greek “I do, I create”) - a lyrical-epic genre, a large poetic work with a narrative or lyrical plot, usually on a historical or legendary theme.

Ballad - lyrical-epic genre, plot song of dramatic content.

epic - a major work of art that tells about significant historical events. In antiquity - a narrative poem heroic content. In the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, the epic novel genre appears - this is a work in which the formation of the characters of the main characters occurs in the course of their participation in historical events.

Novel - a large narrative work of art with complex plot, in the center of which is the fate of the individual.

Tale - a work of art that occupies a middle position between a novel and a short story in terms of volume and complexity of the plot. In ancient times, everything was called a story. narrative work.

Story - a work of art of a small size, based on an episode, an incident from the life of a hero.

Story - work about fictional events and heroes, usually involving magical, fantastic forces.

Fable - This is a narrative work in poetic form, of a small size, moralizing or satirical nature.

At school, in literature lessons, they study stories, novels, novels, essays, elegies. In cinemas, various films are shown - action films, comedies, melodramas. And how can all these phenomena be united in one term? For this, the concept of "genre" was invented.

Let's figure out what a genre is in literature, what types of them exist and how to determine which direction a particular work belongs to.

The division of works by genre has been known since antiquity. What is a genre in ancient literature? It:

• tragedy;
• comedy.

Fiction was practically inseparable from the theater, and therefore the set was limited to what could be embodied on the stage.

In the Middle Ages, the list expanded: now it includes a short story, a novel and a story. The emergence of the New Age romantic poem, epic novels, and ballads.

The 20th century, with its tremendous changes in the life of society and the individual, gave birth to new literary forms:

• thriller;
• action movie;
• fiction;
• fantasy.

What is a genre in literature

The totality of some features of groups of literary forms (signs can be both formal and meaningful) - these are the genres of literature.

According to Wikipedia, they are divided into three large groups:

• by content;
• in form;
• by birth.

Wikipedia names at least 30 different directions. These include (of the most famous):

• story;
• story;
• novel;
• elegy,

and others.

There are also less common ones:

• sketch;
• opus;
• stanzas.

How to define a genre

How to determine the genre of a work? If we are talking about a novel or an ode, then we will not get confused, but something more complex - a sketch or stanzas - can cause difficulties.

So we have an open book. It is immediately possible to correctly name well-known literary forms, the definition of which we do not even need. For example, we see a three-dimensional creation that describes a large period of time in which many characters appear.

There are several storylines - one main and an unlimited number (at the discretion of the author) of secondary ones. If all these requirements are met, then every high school student will say with confidence that we have a novel.

If this is a short narrative, limited to a description of an event, while the author’s attitude to what he is talking about is clearly visible, then this is a story.

More difficult, for example, with opus.

The interpretation of the concept is ambiguous: most often it means something that causes ridicule, that is, an essay, story or story, the merits of which are doubtful.

In principle, many literary works can be attributed to the concept of "opus", if they do not differ in clarity of style, richness of thought, in other words, they are mediocre.

What are stanzas? This is a kind of poem-remembrance, a poem-reflection. Remember, for example, Pushkin's Stanzas, written by him on a long winter journey.

Important! In order to correctly classify this or that literary form, be sure to take into account both external signs and content.

Let's try to bring literary genres together, and for this we will collect the types of works known to us in a table. Of course, we will not be able to cover everything - the most complete literary trends are presented in serious philological works. But a small list can be made.

The table will look like this:

Types of genres by content

Before, we touched on the question of the form of writing and divided the genres of literature precisely on this basis. However, directions can be interpreted more broadly. The content, the meaning of what is written is very important. At the same time, the terms in both lists can "echo", intersect.

Let's say a story falls into two groups at once: stories can be distinguished by outward signs(short, with a clearly expressed attitude of the author), and in content (one bright event).

Among the areas divided by content, we note:

• comedy;
• tragedy;
• horrors;
• drama.

Comedy is perhaps one of the most ancient genres. The definition of comedy is multifaceted: it can be a sitcom, a comedy of characters. There are also comedies:

• household;
• romantic;
• heroic.

Tragedies were also known ancient world. The definition of this genre of literature is a work, the outcome of which will certainly be sad, hopeless.

Genres of literature and their definitions

List literary genres can be found in any textbook for students of philology. Who cares to know in what directions literary forms stand out?

This information is needed by the following professionals:

• writers;
• journalists;
• teachers;
• philologists.

While creating artwork the author submits his creation to certain canons, and their framework - conditional boundaries - allow us to attribute the created to the group "novels", "essays" or "odes".

This concept is relevant not only to works of literature, but also to other types of art. Wikipedia explains: this term can also be used in relation to:

• painting;
• Photo;
• movie;
• oratory;
• music.

Important! Even the game of chess obeys its genre standards.

However, these are very large separate topics. We are now interested in what genres there are in literature.

Examples

Any concept should be considered with examples, and types of literary forms are no exception. Let's take a look at practical examples.

Let's start with the simplest - with a story. Surely everyone remembers Chekhov's work "I want to sleep" from school.

it scary tale, written in a deliberately simple, everyday style, it is based on a crime committed by a thirteen-year-old girl in a state of passion, when her mind was clouded from fatigue and hopelessness.

We see that Chekhov complied with all the laws of the genre:

• description practically does not go beyond one event;
• the author is "present", we feel his attitude to what is happening;
• in the story - one main character;
• The essay is short and can be read in a few minutes.

As an example of the story, we can take Turgenev's "Spring Waters". The author here argues more, as if helping the reader to draw conclusions, gently pushing him to these conclusions. In the story important place issues of morality, ethics, inner world heroes - all these problems come to the fore.

– is also quite specific. This is a kind of sketch, where the author expresses his own thoughts on a specific occasion.

The essay is characterized by vivid imagery, originality, frankness. If you have ever read André Maurois and Bernard Shaw, you will understand what we are talking about.

Novels and their character traits- the length of events in time, multiple storylines, a chronological chain, the author's periodic digressions from a given topic - do not allow confusing the genre with any other.

In the novel, the author touches on many problems: from personal to acute social. At the mention of novels, “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, “Fathers and Sons”, “ gone With the Wind"M. Mitchell," Wuthering Heights» E. Bronte.

Types and groupings

In addition to grouping by content and form, we can take advantage of the proposal of philologists and subdivide everything created by writers, poets and playwrights by gender. How to determine the genre of a work - what kind can it belong to?

You can create a list of varieties:

• epic;
• lyrical;
• dramatic.

The first are distinguished by a calm narrative, descriptiveness. Epic can be a novel, essay, poem. The second is everything that is connected with the personal experiences of the heroes, as well as with solemn events. This includes an ode, an elegy, an epigram.

Drama is comedy, tragedy, drama. For the most part, the theater expresses the “right” to them.

Summarizing what has been said, we can apply the following classification: there are three major areas in literature, covering everything that has ever been created by prose writers, playwrights and poets. Works are divided by:

• form;
• content;
• the birth of the written.

Within the framework of one direction, there can be many completely diverse works. So, if we take the division by form, then here we will include stories, novels, essays, odes, essays, novels.

We determine belonging to any direction by " external structure» works: its size, quantity storylines, the attitude of the author to what is happening.

The division by birth is lyrical, dramatic and epic works. Lyrical can be a novel, a story, an essay. The genus epic includes poems, fairy tales, epics. Dramatic - these are plays: comedies, tragicomedies, tragedies.

Important! The new time makes adjustments to the system literary trends. In recent decades, the detective genre, which originated in the 19th century, has developed. In contrast to the utopian novel that arose in the late Middle Ages, dystopia was born.

Useful video

Summing up

Literature continues to evolve today. The world is changing at a tremendous speed, and therefore undergo changes in the form of expression of thoughts, feelings, the speed of perception. Perhaps in the future, new genres will form - so unusual that it is still difficult for us to imagine them.

It is possible that they will be located at the junction of several types of art at once, for example, cinema, music and literature. But this is in the future, but for now our task is to learn how to understand literary heritage which we already have.