Literary Genres and Devices
Literary Genres
Epic or Narrative
Epic Genres: Verse plays that tell historical or legendary feats of heroes.
- Epic (Heroic Deeds): Narratives like the Iliad and the Odyssey.
- Epic (Civilization): Tells of a people or civilization, such as the Lusiads.
- Chanson de Geste: Praising a hero (e.g., The Song of Mio Cid).
- Romances: Diverse topics of popular character.
Narrative Genres: Prose works that tell stories or adventures.
- Novel: Relatively extensive. Originated with Don Quixote.
- Short Story: Brief narratives, prominent in the 20th century. If intended for teaching, it’s called a fable.
- Short Fiction: Longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel.
- Legend: Historical or pseudo-historical, where the marvelous element prevails.
Lyric
Expresses the author’s feelings.
Formal Lyric
- Poem: The textual unit; many can be collected in one book.
- Verse: The unit of measure, rhythm, and rhyme. Usually occupies one line.
- Meter: Number of syllables (e.g., seven-syllable).
- Rhyme: Coincidence of sounds at the end of two or more lines (consonant or assonance).
- Rhythm: Combination of stressed and unstressed syllables, giving musicality to the verse.
- Stanza: Combination of a number of verses.
Poetic Forms
- Eclogue: Feelings of love expressed by shepherds.
- Elegy: Expresses pain of death or misfortune.
- Ode: Expresses feelings of love, sadness, etc.
- Satire: Criticizes defects humorously.
Drama
Begins with a written text.
Elements of Dramatic Text
- Acts: Major divisions of a work, marked by the rise and fall of the curtain. Usually involve breaks, changes in space and time.
- Scenes: Divisions of acts. No curtain fall.
- Tables: Parts of a scene. Marked by a character’s entrance or exit.
- Dialogue: The most important feature.
- Monologue: When a single actor speaks.
- Characters: Drive the drama. Usually represent people, divided into primary and secondary.
- Stage Directions: Author’s indications (decoration, furniture placement, etc.).
- Asides: Messages to the audience, where actors pretend other characters don’t hear, to reveal thoughts.
Elements of Role-Playing
- Setting: Where actors are located.
- Audience: Essential for a real representation.
- Actors: Individuals who play the characters.
Time and Space: The Rule of Three Unities
- Unity of Action: Each work develops a single story or argument.
- Unity of Place: All action occurs in one place.
- Unity of Time: Action lasts no more than a day.
Literary Topics
- Carpe Diem: Seize the moment.
- Collige, Virgo, Rosas: Gather, maiden, the roses (enjoy your youth).
- Beatus Ille: Contempt for material goods.
- Aurea Mediocritas: Not to envy or overshadow anyone.
- Amoenus Locus: Description of beautiful scenery.
Theatrical or Dramatic Genres
Major Genres
- Tragedy: Depicts significant conflicts and passions, ending in death. Characters are typically upper class, and conflicts are philosophical or existential, often involving fate.
- Drama: Conflicts and passions of lower intensity. Characters are not upper class and are not guided by fate. Tragic ending.
- Comedy: Deals with lighthearted and festive affairs, aiming to entertain. Happy ending.
Minor Genres
- Auto Sacramental: Religious, often allegorical about Catholic truths.
- Entremés: Short, festive work performed between acts of longer works.
- Farce: Short, comic piece with popular characters.
Mixed Genres
- Opera, Operetta, Zarzuela: Combine music and text.
Didactic Genres
Intended to teach.
- Fable: Short story, often with animal characters.
- Epistle: Composition in prose or verse, like a letter.
- Dialogue: Characters exchange views on a topic.
- Essay: Prose work presenting and discussing a topic based on observation and experience.
Essay Characteristics
- Defends one or more points of view.
- Argumentative; the author expresses their opinion.
- Attempts to influence the reader’s thinking.
- Strives for literary quality.
- Follows a structure of exposition and argumentation.
Literary Resources
- Alliteration: Repetition of nearby sounds.
- Onomatopoeia: Imitates real sounds.
- Paronomasia: Repetition of words with similar sounds.
- Anaphora: Repetition of a word at the beginning of verses.
- Parallelism: Repetition of syntactic structures.
- Anadiplosis: Repeating the last word of a verse at the beginning of the next.
- Concatenation: Multiple anadiplosis.
- Epanadiplosis: Repeating a word at the beginning and end of a verse.
- Antimetabole: Repeating words in reverse order.
- Hyperbaton: Altering sentence structure.
- Pun: Using words with similar sounds for humorous effect.
- Epithet: Adjective expressing a quality.
- Tautology: Redundancy through repetition.
- Simile: Comparison using “like” or “as.”
- Metaphor: Implied comparison.
- Synonyms: Consecutive or nearby words with similar meanings.
- Synesthesia: Combining realities perceived by different senses.
- Metonymy: Referring to something by a related term.
- Symbol: A word representing another reality.
- Hyperbole: Exaggeration.
- Litotes: Denying the opposite of what is meant.
- Synecdoche: Part representing the whole.
- Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human entities.
- Antithesis: Juxtaposition of opposing words.