Lyrical, Narrative, and Dramatic Texts: Key Features
Lyrical Texts: Characteristics and Devices
Lyrical texts are an expression of the author’s subjectivity. The expressive or emotive function of language predominates. Themes are universal, relating to human beings and their concerns. There is almost no action. Verse is generally used, and it is very common to see lexical repetition and the use of rhetorical figures.
Figures of Speech in Lyrical Texts
Phonetic Level
- Alliteration: Repetition of a sound in a short space.
- Paronomasia: Using words that are similar for technical or aesthetic effect.
Morphological Level
- Repetition of words: Anaphora (beginning), Anadiplosis (start-end), and Epiphora (final).
- Enjambment: Occurs when the metrical pause at the end of a line extends into the following verse.
- Hyperbaton: Involves disrupting the natural syntactic order of a sentence.
Morphosyntactic Level
- Parallelism: Repeating the same structure.
- Chiasmus: Repeating words or phrases in a mirrored, crossed pattern.
Lexical-Semantic Level
- Metaphor: Using an expression with a meaning different from its usual one.
- Metonymy: Referring to a thing or idea with the name of another related concept.
- Hyperbole: Making a very large exaggeration.
- Synesthesia: The union of two words belonging to different sensory experiences.
Linguistic Characteristics of Lyrical Texts
- Customary use of the first person.
- Subjectivity expressed through exclamations, rhetorical questions, etc.
- Lack of action and dominance of the expression of feelings.
- Verb and noun constructions, often with evaluative adjectives.
Narrative Texts: Structure and Narration
Narrative texts recount events that happen to characters in a specific space and time. The author invents a story and tries to make it believable. Objectivity prevails. The action is what happens to the characters; the story itself is not the most important element.
The Narrator in Narrative Texts
The narrator is the voice that tells the story, using different perspectives:
- When the narrator participates in the story:
- Narrator protagonist (main character)
- Narrator witness (secondary character)
- Narrator transcriber (editor of what a fictional person has written)
- When the narrator is not involved in the story (third-person narrator):
- Narrator observer (secondary role, has heard or seen the characters)
- Equiscient narrator (knows reality from the viewpoint of one character)
- Omniscient narrator (knows everything about the characters)
The contemporary novel has also used the second-person narrator.
Action and Order of Events
- Linear: Introduction – Climax – Resolution
- In medias res: Climax – Introduction – Resolution
- In extremis res: Resolution – Introduction – Climax
- Flashback (Sliver)
Dramatic Texts: Performance and Dialogue
Dramatic texts are distinguished by two main aspects: the text, which can be read individually, and the representation, which brings the written work to life on stage.
Dialogues, or conversations between characters, are often the driving force of the action. Their main function is to introduce the characters, reveal their personalities, and advance the plot.
Quotations, or stage directions, are also included. These are indications that the author provides to point out certain aspects of the play’s staging.
Theatrical dialogues are characterized by the following linguistic features: an abundance of personal pronouns and vocatives, a variety of intonations, the use of different registers, and the presence of conversational markers.