A literary genre is a type of writing. Genres are based on writing style, tone, subject matter, or length, especially in stories. They start with broad groups and are divided into more specific types. The differences between genres and categories are not always clear and can change over time.

Genres can be written as prose or poetry. Types like satire, allegory, or pastoral can appear in any of these forms, not just as smaller categories, but as a mix of different genres. They are connected to the cultural trends of the time when they were created.

History of genres

The idea of genre started with Aristotle, who used ideas from biology to classify types of writing, which he called "species" (eidē). These classifications are mainly found in his writings Rhetoric and Poetics.

Genres are groups that help organize different types of writing. The genres Aristotle discussed include the epic, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and phallic songs. Genres are often divided into smaller groups. For example, the novel is a large group of storytelling; within the novel category, the detective novel is a smaller group, and the "hard-boiled" detective novel is a smaller group within the detective novel.

In Rhetoric, Aristotle described three types of public speaking: deliberative, forensic, and epideictic. These are divided based on the speaker’s purpose: to discuss future actions (deliberative), to talk about past actions (forensic), or to give praise or blame during a ceremony (epideictic).

In Poetics, Aristotle divided poetry into three main types: the epic, tragedy, and comedy. These divisions are based not on purpose, but on structure, content, and storytelling style. For each type, he explained what it was and how it should be written.

After Aristotle’s time, literary criticism continued to grow. For example, the first-century Greek work On the Sublime discussed the writings of more than 50 authors and how they influenced emotions.

The Roman writer Cicero did not simply use Aristotle’s ideas about genres or follow earlier ideas from Plato. Instead, he created a new understanding of genres based on how language expresses ideas.

Modern Western genre theory began during the European Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when the idea of genre was studied closely.

At this time, some people believed it was possible to ignore genre rules and see each work as unique. They thought genre definitions were too simple.

During the Romantic period, a new type of writing called the "imaginative" genre appeared. This change is often linked to social events like wars, conflicts, and changes in leadership. People wanted to escape their difficult situations.

In 1957, Canadian scholar Northrop Frye published Anatomy of Criticism, where he created a system to classify genres and describe their rules. He grouped genres like myth, legend, high mimetic, low mimetic, irony, comedy, and tragedy based on how the hero relates to the reader or natural laws. He also used the contrast between the "real" and the "ideal" to classify genres: romance (ideal), irony (real), comedy (moving from real to ideal), and tragedy (moving from ideal to real). He also divided genres by audience: drama (performed), lyric poetry (sung), and epic poetry (recited).

Since the Romantic period, modern genre theory often tried to move away from old ways of classifying genres. However, in the 21st century, genre has become less associated with losing individuality or following rules too closely.

Genres

Genres group literary works based on shared features like style, mood, length, and structure. These genres are further broken down into smaller groups called subgenres.

Western literature is often divided into three main forms from Ancient Greece: poetry, drama, and prose. Poetry can be further grouped into lyric, epic, and dramatic types. Lyric poetry includes shorter forms, such as songs, odes, ballads, elegies, and sonnets. Dramatic poetry may include comedy, tragedy, melodrama, and combinations like tragicomedy.

The way drama is divided into tragedy and comedy comes from Greek drama. This division can continue further: comedy has its own smaller groups, such as comedy of manners, sentimental comedy, burlesque comedy, and satirical comedy.

The genre of semi-fiction includes works that mix both fiction and nonfiction. A semi-fictional work might retell a true story with names changed, or it might tell fictional events with a character based on real life, like the TV show Seinfeld by Jerry Seinfeld.

Sometimes, the rules for dividing works into genres are not clear and can be debated or changed by writers and critics. However, some basic differences are widely agreed upon. For example, fiction—stories made up from the imagination, even if they are based on real events—is usually not used for all made-up stories. Instead, it applies only to prose works like novels, novellas, and short stories, not to fables.

Related methods of categorization of literature

Books can be grouped in ways that are not usually called "genres." For example, they can be sorted by age groups, such as adult books, young adult books, or children's books. Another way to group books is by their format, such as graphic novels, picture books, radio plays, and others.