Genres of literature table with examples. Dramatic genres of literature

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. The question of genre as a variety of a particular sphere of art 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:

genre is a historically established variety literary works, 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 in an original way express new ideas (content criterion);
3. distinguish one type of work from another helps external signs: volume, plot, structure, composition (formal criterion).

All genres of literature can be represented this way:

These are three typology options that help 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', one can notice how chronicles, patericons, lives of saints and patristic writings are gradually being replaced by new forms of storytelling.

At the turn of the XIV-XV centuries such genres ancient Russian literature , as a word, walking (ancestor of the travel novel), (everyday “splinter” 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: novel, secular philosophical story, author's fairy tale, and in the era of romanticism - a poem, lyric poem, ballad.

The realistic canon brings to life a problematic 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.

Powerful influence on development genre system provides dramatic art. Installation for theatricality changes the appearance of genres familiar to the average reader such as poem, story, short story and even short lyric poem(in the era of the “sixties” poets).

IN modern literature the genre canon 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 multicomponent plot, connections between generations, and the presence of heroes and antiheroes 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.

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

On turn of XIX-XX centuries the following appear 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 “The Overcoat” by N.V. Gogol. V.G. Belinsky spoke about the primacy of narrative literature in XIX culture century.

Small epic forms(story, essay, short story, essay) have one plot line, a limited number of characters and are distinguished 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 are 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 varieties 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 one was pushing characters 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 I set out to bring tears to my eyes. 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 is Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” 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.

Historically, three types of literature have developed in literature: epic, dramatic and lyrical. These are groups of genres that have similar structural features. If the epic in the story fixes the external reality (events, facts, etc.), then the drama does the same in the format of a conversation, not on behalf of the author, and the lyrics describe the inner reality of a person. Of course, the division is arbitrary and to a certain extent artificial, but, nevertheless, our acquaintance with the book begins with the fact that we see the genre, gender or combination thereof on the cover and draw the first conclusions. For example, a person only likes to watch plays in the theater, which means that he does not need a volume of Moliere and will pass by it without wasting time. Knowledge basic principles literary criticism also helps during reading, when you want to understand the author, to penetrate into his creative laboratory, to unravel why his plan was realized this way and not otherwise.

An example is selected for each genre and theoretical basis, the most concise and simple.

The novel is a large form of the epic genre, a work with expanded themes and many themes. Usually, classic novel depicts people participating in various life processes that give rise to external and internal conflicts. Events in the novel are not always described sequentially, for example, Lermontov in the novel “A Hero of Our Time” deliberately breaks the sequence.

By thematic basis novels are divided into autobiographical (Chudakov's "Darkness Falls on the Old Steps"), philosophical (Dostoevsky's "Demons"), adventure (Dafoe's "Robinson Crusoe"), fantastic (Glukhovsky's "Metro 2033"), satirical (Rotterdam's "In Praise of Stupidity"), historical (Pikul “I have the honor”), adventurous (Merezhko “Sonka Golden Pen) etc.

According to the structure of novels are divided into a novel in verse (Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin"), a novel-pamphlet (Swift's "Gulliver's Travels"), a novel-parable (Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea"), a novel-feuilleton ("The Countess of Salisbury" by Dumas), an epistolary novel ( Rousseau “Julia or the new Heloise”) and others.

An epic novel is a novel with a panoramic depiction of the life of the people at turning points in history (Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”).

The story is average (between a short story and a novel) in size epic work, which sets out a narrative about a particular event in a natural sequence (Kuprin “The Pit”). How is a story different from a novel? At least in that the material of the story is presented chronically, and not for the sake of the action-packed composition of the novel. In addition, the story does not pose the tasks of global historical nature. In the story, the author is more constrained, all his inventions are subordinated to the main action, but in the novel the writer is carried away by memories, digressions and analysis of the characters.

The story is small epic prose form. The work has a limited number of characters, one problem and one event (Turgenev “Mumu”). How is a novella different from a short story? The boundaries between these two genres are very arbitrary, but in the short story the ending most often develops unpredictably (O'Henry's "The Gift of the Magi").

Essay is small epic prose form (many classify it as a type of story). The essay usually concerns social problems and tends to be descriptive.

The parable is moral teaching in allegorical form. How is a parable different from a fable? A parable draws its material primarily from life, while a fable is based on fictitious, sometimes fantastic plots (gospel parables).

Lyrical genres are...

A lyric poem is small genre form lyrics written on behalf of the author (Pushkin “I loved you”) or on behalf of lyrical hero(Tvardovsky “I was killed near Rzhev”).

Elegy is a small lyrical form, a poem that is imbued with a mood of sadness and melancholy. Sad thoughts, sorrow, sad reflections make up the repertoire of elegies (Pushkin’s elegy “On the rocks, on the hills”).

The message is poetic letter. According to the content of the messages, they can be divided into friendly, satirical, lyrical, etc. They can be dedicated to either one person or a group of people (Voltaire’s “Message to Frederick”).

Epigram is a poem that makes fun of a specific person (from friendly ridicule to sarcasm) (Gaft “Epigram on Oleg Dahl”). Features: wit and brevity.

Ode is a poem distinguished by its solemn tone and sublime content (Lomonosov “Ode on the day of Elizabeth Petrovna’s accession to the throne, 1747”).

A sonnet is a poem of 14 verses (“Twenty Sonnets to Sasha Zapoeva” by Timur Kibirov). The sonnet is one of the strict forms. A sonnet usually consists of 14 lines, forming 2 quatrains (with 2 rhymes) and 2 tercets (with 2 or 3 rhymes).

The poem is the average lyric-epic form, in which there is a detailed plot and several experiences are embodied, that is, attention to the inner world of the lyrical hero (Lermontov’s “Mtsyri”).

Ballad is average lyric-epic form, story in verse. Often a ballad has a tense storyline(Zhukovsky “Lyudmila”).

Dramatic genres are...

Comedy is a type of drama in which the content is presented in a funny way, and the characters and circumstances are comical. What types of comedies are there? Lyrical (" The Cherry Orchard"Chekhov), high ("Woe from Wit" by Griboyedov"), satirical ("The Inspector General" by Gogol).

Tragedy is a type of drama based on an acute life conflict that entails the suffering and death of the heroes (Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”).

Drama is a play with an acute conflict that is ordinary, not so sublime and resolvable (for example, Gorky “At the Depths”). How does it differ from tragedy or comedy? Firstly, the material used is modern, not from antiquity, and secondly, it appears in the drama new hero rebelling against circumstances.

Tragifars - dramatic work, where tragic and comic elements are combined (Ionesco, “The Bald Singer”). This is a postmodern genre that has appeared relatively recently.

Literary genre- this is a form, an abstract pattern according to which the text of a literary work is built. A genre is a set of certain characteristics that allow us to classify a literary work as an epic, lyric or drama. Nobody invented genres. They existed and continue to exist in the very nature of human thinking.

Main types of literary genres

Literary genres are divided into three types: epic, lyrical and dramatic. Epic genres include: fairy tale, epic, epic, epic novel, novel, story, essay, story, anecdote. Lyrical genres called ode, elegy, ballad, message, epigram, 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, a genre-forming feature of a fairy tale is its focus on fiction. The events of a fairy tale are obviously perceived by the listener as magical, fictitious, and not directly related to reality. The genre-forming feature of a novel is its connection with objective reality, its scope large quantity there are many events that happened in reality or could happen acting characters, focus on inner world heroes.

The story is epic genre small volume. Let’s define its features and, using the example of A.P. Chekhov’s story “Chameleon,” consider them.

Features of the story

• Small volume
• Limited number of actors
• One storyline is often the fate of the main character.
• The story tells about several, but more often one, important episode from a person's life.

• Secondary and episodic characters in one way or another reveal the character of the main character, the problem associated with this main character.
• In terms of the number of pages, the story may be voluminous, but the main thing is that all the action is subordinated to one problem, connected with one hero, one storyline.
• Details play a big role in the story. Sometimes one detail is enough to understand the character of a hero.
• The story is told from one person. This could be the narrator, the hero, or the author himself.
• The stories have an apt, memorable title, which already contains part of the answer to the question raised. .
• The stories were written by authors in a certain era, so, of course, they reflect the characteristics of the literature of a particular time. It is known that until the 19th century, stories were close to short stories; in the 19th century, subtext appeared in stories, which could not have happened in an earlier era.

Example.

Illustrations by Gerasimov S.V. to the story by Chekhov A.P.
"Chameleon". 1945

Story by A.P. Chekhov's "Chameleon"

• Small in volume. Chekhov is generally a master of the short story.

• The main character is the police warden Ochumelov. All the other characters help to understand the character of the main character, including the artisan Khryukin.
• The plot is built around one episode - the dog biting the finger of the goldsmith Khryukin.
• The main problem is ridicule of veneration of rank, sycophancy, servility, evaluation of a person by the place in society that he occupies, the lawlessness of people in power. Everything in the story is subordinated to the disclosure of this problem - all the changes in Ochumelov’s behavior in relation to this dog - from the desire to restore order so that there are no stray dogs, to his affection for the dog, which, as it turned out, belonged to the general’s brother.
• Details play an important role in the story. IN in this case This is Ochumelov’s overcoat, which he either takes off or puts back on his shoulders (at this time his attitude to the current situation changes).
• The narration is told on behalf of the author. In a small work, Chekhov was able to express his indignation, satirical, even sarcastic attitude towards the order in Russia, in which a person is valued not by his character, deeds and actions, but by the rank he holds.
• The title of the story, “Chameleon,” very accurately reflects the behavior of the main character, who changes his “color,” that is, his attitude to what is happening, in connection with who owns the dog. Chameleonism like social phenomenon ridiculed by the author in the story.
• The story was written in 1884, during the heyday critical realism in Russian literature of the 19th century. Therefore, the work has all the features this method: ridiculing the vices of society, critical reflection of reality.

Thus, using the example of Chekhov’s story “Chameleon”, we examined the features of this genre literature.

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, it began to appear that 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 existing classifications and the characteristic features of each of them.

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

Division of genres by content

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

Comedy is a type of literature, which provides 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 of the most intense nature. 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 dates back to the 12th century, when knightly stories arose “in the folk Romance language” as the opposite of Latin historiography. Plot variety The novel began to be considered a short story. IN late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century such concepts as detective novel appeared in literature, women's novel, a fantasy novel.

Novella

Novella - a variety 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 sharp plot has become a characteristic genre for American literature.

Characteristics the novellas 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. Classic example- “Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by A.S. Pushkin.

Story

It's called a story small form a prose work that 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

A play is a dramatic work that 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 environment or the actions of the heroes. 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 more small elements– scenes, episodes, paintings.

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

A poem is a large work of poetry that has a lyrical plot or describes 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 the Leopard’s Skin” by Shota Rustaveli, “ Furious Roland» 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 unique 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 has come to be used to introduce elements of fantasy.