A Guide to the Three Major Literary Genres: Poetry, Novel, and Theatre
Lyric Poetry
One of the three major literary genres, lyric poetry is characterized by transmitting the author’s experiences, feelings, and thoughts, making it a subjective genre in contrast to the objectivity of the novel.
Consequently, it typically emphasizes the expressive or emotive function, linked to the speaker, as well as the poetic function. Sometimes the receiver may appear in a lyrical text as a projected figure for the recipient the author has in mind, who need not always be human.
A precise definition of poetry is almost impossible because each author has their own poetry, their own way of understanding creation. For Juan Ramón Jiménez, however, poetry is an expression of beauty and a way of knowledge, an insight into the essence of things.
The name “lyric” comes from the lyre, the Greek instrument used to accompany poems with music.
Its own form of expression is verse. However, some authors prefer prose to express their feelings. This is called poetic prose, cultivated, for example, by Juan Ramón Jiménez in “Platero and I”.
Poetry is considered one of the oldest popular literary manifestations of any advanced oral civilization because it captures the feelings of the people. The learned lyric evolved later from this popular form.
In lyrical texts, specifically in texts in verse, the figures of speech related to the poetic function of language are most clearly manifested.
Different sub-genres of lyric are distinguished:
- The hymn expresses collective sentiments.
- The ode is a lyric poem of some length that can address different issues and tones.
- The elegy expresses feelings of grief over the death of a loved one.
- The eclogue is a romantic composition in the mouths of shepherds.
- The satire presents a humorous take on individual or social defects.
During the twentieth century, technical innovations emerged in lyric poetry that provide a fresh and original approach, among which we highlight two:
- Free verse, characterized by dispensing with rhyme, which is no longer needed as a characterizing element of the poem, and the use of the subway.
- Visual poetry of experimentalism, which expresses the highest degree of rejection of tradition, incorporating graphic elements such as newspaper clippings or a combination of seemingly meaningless words to form new images.
Novel
The novel is a prose narrative genre of undefined and variable length. The meaning we give to this term today in Spain was forged in the nineteenth century with Realism.
According to Benito Pérez Galdós, the novel is “an image of life,” aiming to reproduce human characters, passions, weaknesses, big and small, spiritual and physical, that make us who we are and surround us. Not very different is the view of Ricardo Gullón, for whom the novel is intended to reflect a world with all its diversity and complexity.
Its origin must be sought in the epic. The novel is the place of the renegade or the expelled from the epic, so its heroes are the reverse of heroism, a rogue with no future, like Lazarillo de Tormes, or a mad hidalgo, like Don Quixote.
In the narrative that a novel comprises, the representative or referential function tends to predominate, as well as the poetic function, because in principle, it is interested in facts, events, that is, references that are part of the situation. This happens in “The Family of Pascual Duarte,” where the narrator, Pascual—other than the author of the work—tells Joaquín Barrera fragments of his particularly sad life that serve to explain his crimes.
Among the most notable features of the novel are the following:
- It is a work of fiction in which aspects of the lives of the characters are told, usually by developing an action.
- It can explore the psychology of these characters or view them from the outside.
- It can be written from different perspectives: the omniscient narrator, the editor, the outside observer, the main character, a supporting character, in the second person, etc.
- It can cover extended periods or be very short.
- It can have a large scope or be brief.
- It can narrate contemporary events or not, as the author sometimes recreates the past or the future.
- It can have one or more protagonists, or an entire community.
- It can present a classic exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, or it can fragment and juxtapose scenes or episodes.
- It can use predominantly narrative and description, or dialogue, or vice versa, or be entirely through dialogue or a monologue from beginning to end.
- It can present an orderly temporal evolution or the reverse.
- It can narrate events in sequence or simultaneously.
- It can relate fast-paced action or apparent suspension of time.
- It can be divided into parts, chapters, sequences, or may not have any division.
The novel is usually distinguished from the short story in that it has more length, more depth in monitoring the problems of the characters, a longer time frame, greater spatial variety, and greater effort in supporting an intrigue.
Throughout the history of literature, different types of novels have emerged:
- In the Middle Ages: the verse novel that gives rise to books of chivalry.
- In the Renaissance: the sentimental novel, the pastoral novel, and the picaresque novel.
- In the seventeenth century appears Don Quixote, which will be the source of all novels written today.
- In the nineteenth century: the historical novel, the realist novel, and the naturalist novel.
- In the twentieth century, the experimental novel, with Joyce’s Ulysses at the forefront, is the novel of the most innovations and contributions, after Don Quixote.
Theatre
The word “theatre” comes from the Greek “theatron,” meaning “place from which to look,” but today it has several meanings: a building built to represent drama, a literary genre consisting of dramatic works, all dramatic works written in a particular language or by a particular author, etc.
Plays have a peculiarity compared to other literary genres: they are written to be performed by actors who pretend to be characters that act as issuers and intermediaries between the author and the audience. The audience, who are the recipients, must have a minimal competence to decode everything that the play aims to transmit through the dramatic text.
Dialogues are used as the verbal vehicle, which can be written in verse, as was required in the classical period, or in prose, which is preferred today. Then there are the stage directions, which play a dual role: on the one hand, they are intended for the staging of the text and, on the other hand, they facilitate the task of the reader, providing information on when and where the action unfolds. Despite the stage directions, the play is a text open to the interpretations of the director and actors, who may introduce small changes.
The representation of a work is somewhat unique because the representation will never be exactly the same again, and it will be difficult to have the same audience members at the same time and day.
The play, which can usually be distinguished by its exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution, is often formally divided into acts, pictures, scenes, parts, etc.
Traditionally, the genre of theatre is divided into three subgenres. This tripartite division is still valid today, although comedy and drama are the predominant forms.
- Characters in tragedy, usually belonging to a higher social class, face a struggle against fate. The theme developed is grand and sublime, and the outcome is a fatal death.
- Comedy revolves around everyday events featuring common characters without great virtues, in a humble or low style. The conflicts and situations are resolved in a happy ending.
- Drama shares features of tragedy and comedy, presenting a painful conflict but incorporating comic scenes to support its development.
The origins of Western theatre are usually found in the Greek festivals of Dionysus, but there are records of dialogue texts from as far back as ancient Egypt (5th millennium BC), where, before the Greeks, an important religious drama about Osiris developed. In the Middle Ages, theatre was reborn again linked to religion. In the eighteenth century, influenced by, among others, the two authors mentioned above, content was emphasized, and a sleek theatre was created, very attentive to the values of the text. In the nineteenth century, during Romanticism (Goethe, Schiller, the Duke of Rivas…), attention turned to the baroque spectacle and the enhancement of the actors’ brilliance. During the twentieth century, innovations, first…