The Most Important Literary Genres 

Introduction:

Literature, in general, can be any written work, but it's notably a creative or intellectual piece of writing. Sometimes the way language is used in literature deviates from how it is typically used. The distinction is the application of innovative techniques to produce textual beauty. Society is portrayed in literature. It is an excellent instrument for educating a culture about morality.

Various genres of writing enable multiple authors to achieve their individual goals. To fulfil challenging literary tasks or write a dissertation on literature, students from multiple language schools call for assistance with requests like "write my thesis."

Here is a thorough analysis of different literary genres.

Keywords: literary genre, what is a literary genre, importance of different genres

 

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1. Drama:

 

the term drama comes from Greek words meaning 'to do' or 'to act.' Drama is a form of literature in which a story is acted out through dialogues, actions, and other dramatic instruments. It shows people going through an eventful period in their lives, seriously or humorously. Drama means action or deeds. We use drama as a synonym for plays or movies, but the word has several meanings. In terms of Dryden,

 

"A play out to be a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passion and humour, and the changes of fortune to which it is subject, for the delight and instruction of mankind."

History of Drama

Ancient Greek Drama:

Western drama can be traced back to Greek music of the 6th century BC as its origin. Out of hundreds of theatres or playwrights, only 32 plays by three foremost innovators survived today. The most crucial Greek dramatist of the time was Aeschylus. He introduced the element of conflict in his dramatic tragedy Oedipus Rex.

 

Development of English Drama:

 

English drama has its origins in the Church. In medieval times, religious scholars seek to guide the audience about religion through acting. They started performing different roles by taking themes from the holy book of "The Bible." 

The first ever performed dramas are called Miracle plays. Here they took the miracles of Jesus Christ and adopted them in their theaters. Different saints performed it. The audience was limited, and real action took place in church rooms. 

After some development, they introduced Mystery plays. They used to highlight the miracles of different saints. In such types of plays, the life of various saints was portrayed. The audience was enhanced, and plays started to be performed in churchyards. 

Afterward, morality plays appeared. A great deal of stuff had now been replaced. It was left in the hands of professional actors to perform the drama. It was no longer arranged inside the Church. The number of the audience had now increased. The themes also shifted from religious nature to moral nature. The dramatists liberated the themes. The most important theme was the conflict between virtue and vice. 

 Types of Drama:

There are four types of drama: comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy, and melodrama. These genres originated in different times, but each has its characteristics.

Comedy:

The drama that seeks to make the audience laugh is comedy. It has a pleasant tone and, most importantly, a cheerful ending. Such a custom originated in the Greek theatre of antiquity, where comedy originally developed as a kind of drama. Dramatic irony, farce, sarcasm, black humor, etc., are only a few examples of subcategories that can be used to categorize comedy further. The audience for each kind of humor is different. It's interesting to note that a person's cultural upbringing may also influence these choices.

Tragedy:

The most prevalent themes in tragedies are murders, demises, madness, and suffering. The main characters' weak points or flaws lead to their end.

Tragic performances initially emerged in Greek theatre. Like comedy, it endured the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and later periods. According to Aristotle, the primary element of a tragedy is the main character's change of fate due to his defects. The philosopher thought that watching such a theatre required the audience to develop feelings of dread and sympathy.

As theatre developed, more contemporary script authors believed that showing a regular person's fall would elicit stronger emotions from the audience since they would be more able to identify with the character as belonging to their socioeconomic class.

 

Tragicomedy:

A unique genre of drama known as "tragicomedy" combines the traits of tragedy with comedy. It implies that such a play might be depressing yet have a joyful conclusion, or it might be severe with some comedic components that appear throughout the play.

 

Tragicomedy, as opposed to comedy and tragedy, developed a little later, under the Roman Empire. The Roman playwright Plautus wrote the first tragicomedy and also coined the term. He exploited comedy's lightheartedness but chose gods and monarchs as the central protagonists in his play Amphitryon. He did something truly revolutionary here.

 

The first was Plautus. There were rigid guidelines for writing drama before Plautus; it was either comedy or tragedy. Never were these genres combined.

 

Melodrama:

The fourth and last type of drama is melodrama. It is a particular style of drama when everything is exaggerated. Melodramatic themes are typically straightforward and devoid of unexpected plot turns. In these dramas, there are a lot of stereotypes. However, the primary goal of a melodrama is to evoke strong emotions in the audience rather than to communicate a tale. Most feature gorgeous heroines, endearing heroes, and spooky antagonists in love stories.

 

Comedy, tragedy, and tragicomedy have their beginnings much earlier than melodrama. It was first introduced in France at the end of the 18th century. Later, it spread to Britain, becoming one of the 19th century's most common forms of play.

The theatre was the most widely used form of entertainment and was frequented by large crowds, especially during the 19th century. This is because theatres started to be accessible to the general public throughout those periods. Melodrama was especially popular since it was directed at this social stratum. Melodrama had such a profound impact on society that it has endured to the present day and has even permeated other genres of literature and entertainment.

KPPSC PPSC FPSC English Lecturer Interview Questions and Answers Part 2

KPPSC PPSC FPSC English lecturer Interview Questions and Answers

    2. Poetry:

Verse or poetry is one of the oldest genres of literature.in poems, words are arranged in such a way to create rhythm and music. it is a metrical composition of words. in poetry, words are placed in their best order. S.T Coleridge describes poetry as: 

"Best words in the best order"

poetry mostly follows meter and rhyme schemes. It is full of powerful feelings and emotions. Wordsworth describes poetry as:

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it originates from emotions recollected in tranquillity".

A stanza, or group of verses, is the fundamental unit of a poem. A stanza, a collection of lines alluding to the same idea or subject, is comparable to a paragraph in prose. Depending on how many lines a stanza has, it can be broken into smaller sections. A couplet, for instance, is a stanza with just two lines.

Different Types of Poetry:

Blank Verse: 

Poetry without rhyme written in a specific meter, nearly always iambic pentameter.

Rhymed poetry: 

Rhymed poetry is a form of poetry with rhymes by definition, although the scheme may differ from poem to poem.

Free Verse:

In free verse, there is no rhyme scheme, metrical structure, or musical form.

Epics: 

A long, narrative poem is an epic poem. These lengthy poems often recount the heroic deeds and adventures of figures from a bygone era.

Sonnet:

 A sonnet is a 14-line poem that often, though not always, addresses the subject of love. Within their 14 lines, sonnets have internal rhymes; the specific rhyme scheme depends on the sonnet's style.

Elegies:

An elegy is a poem that laments loss or death. Generally, it deals with lamentation, loss, and introspection. It can, however, also examine topics like atonement and solace.

Ode:

Ode is a kind of tribute, as is an elegy, but unlike an elegy, the subject need not be deceased or even conscious, as in John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn."

Ballad: 

An example of a narrative verse that can be both lyrical and melodic is a ballad (or ballade). It represents a musical narrative style, with illustrations from John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Bob Dylan. It usually proceeds in a rhymed-quatrain format.

    3. Novel:

A novel is a prose narrative work of fiction that spans a sizable amount of time and conveys a story about particular human experiences. It gets its story in prose rather than verse, unlike works of epic poetry, and it tells a lengthy narrative rather than a condensed selection, unlike short stories. However, the book is a distinct literary form because of other distinctive features. The most blatantly distinguishing features of a novel are its prose structure and length and its fictional or mostly fictional subject matter.

Types of Novels:

Realistic Novel:

A novel that tries to convey realism through fiction is called a realistic novel. A novel of manner is another name for this genre of book. A realistic novel can be identified by its complex characters with conflicting motivations rooted in socioeconomic class and behaving under an intricate social system. In a real narrative, the characters interact and go through believable, commonplace experiences.

Picaresque Novel:

A picaresque novel chronicle the exploits of a peculiar or shady hero in a series of short stories. The word "rogue" or "picaro" in Spanish is whence the genre gets its name.

Historical Novel:

Historical fiction is a book set in a time frame earlier than the one in which it was written.

 

Epistolary Novel: 

Epistolary fiction, a familiar genre, tells a story through a collection of documents. The Latin word for the letter Epistola is whence the English word epistolary originates. The most common source for epistolary books is a letter. However, many people also use diary entries.

 

Bildungsroman Novel:

German terminology for a story on growth is "bildungsroman." From birth to age, the protagonist's intellect, spirit, and characters develop in this fictitious autobiography.

Gothic Novel: Gothic literature includes elements of dread, mystery, horror, thriller, supernaturalism, doom, death, decay, and ghostly, ancient haunted buildings, among others.

 

Autobiographical Novel: 

A novel that is based on the author's life is referred to as autobiographical.

 

Novel with Allegory: 

An allegory is a narrative with both symbolic and surface-level significance. An allegory's symbolic meaning can be intellectual, historical, or political.