Literary genres
Main types are; prose and poetry
Prose has three common types
1.Drama
2.Non fiction
3.Fiction
Then comes;
Poetry
Prose:
written or spoken language in its ordinary form
1.Drama:
Main types are;
Comedies
Tragedies
Tragicomedies
Farce
Melodrama
Pantomime
Comedy:
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or
amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio,
books, or any other entertainment medium
Tragedy:
A play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning
the downfall of the main character.
Tragicomedy:
A play or novel containing elements of both comedy and tragedy.
Farce:
A comic dramatic work using buffoonery(behaviour that is ridiculous but amusing) and
horseplay( foolish behaviour) and typically including crude characterization and
ludicrously(unreasonable) improbable(doubtful) situations.
Melodrama:
A sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to
appeal to the emotions.
Pantomime:
A theatrical entertainment, mainly for children, which involves music, topical jokes, and
slapstick comedy (comedy based on deliberately clumsy actions and humorously
embarrassing events) and is based on a fairy tale or nursery story, usually produced around
Christmas.
2:Non fiction
Main types are;
Diary
Biography
Autobiography
Speech
Essay
Informational
Diary:
A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on
what has happened over the course of a day or other period.
Biography:
An account of someone's life written by someone else.
Autobiography:
An account of a person's life written by that person.
Speech:
The expression of or the ability to express thoughts and feelings by articulated sounds.
Essay:
🔵
A short piece of writing on a particular subject.
essays are further divided into 4 types
▪️Narrative:
▪️Descriptive
▪️Argumentative
▪️Expository
Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making
clear points, while narrative and descriptive essays are about exercising creativity and
writing in an interesting way.
Informational:
A nonfictional writing on a specific topic
Travelogue :a film, book, or illustrated lecture about the places visited by or experiences of a
traveller.
Articles:a piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other print or
online publication.
Billboards:a large outdoor board for displaying advertisements; a hoarding.
3:Fiction
Main types are;
🌈
Tales
Folktale
● Legends
● Tall tales
● Fable
● Parable
● Fairy tale
● Fantacy
Myths
Short stories
Novels
Mystery
Tale:
A fictitious or true narrative or story, especially one that is imaginatively recounted.
Folktale:
A belief or a story with exaggerated characters or obstacles, that is passed down over.
Legend:
A folk tale or a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not
authenticated.
Tall tale:
Folktale that is often humorous and assumed to be untrue… exaggerated events and
characters.
Fable:
A folktale that is used to teach a moral lesson using animals as characters
Parable:
A folktale that is used to teach a moral lesson using humans as characters.
Fairy tale:
A folktale that has magical forces and beings and also includes impossible events that leads
to a happy ending.(short length story)
Myth:
A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a
natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
Short story:
A story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel.
Fantasy:
A fictional story that is very imaginative and uses strange and unusual characters and
settings long length story)
Novel:
A fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with
some degree of realism.
Historical Fiction:
A fictional story with real and made up characters that is set in the past
Science-fiction:
Story that is often set in the future or in different worlds that include technology and science
Mystery :
A fictional story that revolves around discovering the secrets and solving the problem
especially crimes
● Allegory
An allegory is a story, poem, or other written work that can be interpreted to have a
secondary meaning.In other words a character, event, or place that represents a
real-world problem or occurrence
Examples:An ant and the grasshopper
Animal farm
3.Poetry
Needs to be corrected as it’s jumbled up
Iambic pentameter:Iambic pentameter (pronounced eye-AM-bik pen-TAM-i-ter) is a rhythmic
pattern that consists of ten syllables per line, with alternating stressed and unstressed
syllables.
▶️subjective/▶️objective:
Objective Poetry is impersonal and Subjective Poetry is Personal.
The Epic and the Drama are the forms of this objective poetry, in which, as in the ballad, the
writer's personality remains in the background. The Lyric, ode, sonnet and the elegy, which
belong to later times, represent the subjective variety.
Main types are,
Poem
Sonnet
Ballad
Pastoral
Lyrics
Song
Epic
Poem:
A piece of writing in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by
particular attention to diction (sometimes involving rhyme), rhythm, and imagery.
Sonnet:
A poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English
typically having ten syllables per line.
Ballad:
A poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. Traditional ballads are typically of
unknown authorship, having been passed on orally from one generation to the next.
Pastorals:
A work of literature portraying an idealised version of country life.
Lyrics:
A poem of a type that expresses the writer's emotions, typically briefly and in stanzas or
recognized forms; a lyric poem or the words of a song
Song:
a short poem or other set of words set to music or meant to be sung.
Epic:
A long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and
adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the past history of a nation.
Haiko:
A traditional Japanese haiku is a three-line poem
Hymns:
a religious song or poem of praise to God or a god.
Ode:a lyric poem, typically one in the form of an address to a particular subject,
Blank verse:Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines.
Limerick:a humorous five-line poem with a rhyme scheme aabba
Elegy:. : a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is
dead
Things to remember;
Dictionary:a reference source in print or electronic form containing words usually
alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciations, functions,
etymologies, meanings, and syntactic and idiomatic uses
Encyclopaedia:a book or set of books giving information on many subjects or on many
aspects of one subject and typically arranged alphabetically.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopaedia written and maintained by a
community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration ..
Thesaurus:A book or electronic resource that lists words in groups of synonyms and related
concepts.
Atlas:A book of maps or charts.
Map:A diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features,
cities, roads, etc.
Index:
(in a book or set of books) an alphabetical list of names, subjects, etc. with reference to the
pages on which they are mentioned.
