In the last posts we made the following definitions:
Now we will address literary genres and literary schools. It is very important not to confuse these three terms.
Textual Genre - covers all types of text, except literary ones. Literary genres are classified according to their form, and can be epic or narrative, lyrical and dramatic. The concept covers only literary texts. For example, culinary recipes are a textual genre, but it is not a literary genre.
Text is man's way of expressing himself, not just in writing. Everything that expresses a feeling, an order, and an action is a text, even if it is not written. For example, a movie, a play or even a traffic light (!). That is right, a traffic light. When the traffic light is red, the driver stops the car (or should stop). When the traffic light turns green, it starts. Realize that there was communication, and if there was communication that is a text.
Aristotle and The Literary Genres
Literary genres - are categories established for all types of literary texts, according to common formal characteristics. These texts are grouped according to structural, contextual, and semantic criteria. Aristotle defined the following three literary genres:
Narrative or epic genre;
Lyrical genre;
Dramatic genre.
The classification of literary genres has undergone some changes over the years. Today it is more flexible, being possible to mix genres and subdivision into several subgenres. Despite the division into lyrical, narrative, and dramatic, there is a common characteristic to the three genres: literature.
These genres have common aspects that define literature as an artistic expression that has recreational, social, and critical functions. Therefore, in addition to the expression of feelings and the invention of stories by the author, there is also social, political, and historical criticism.
The literary text conveys the author's artistic notion by using the connotative and poetic function of language, in prose or verse. The literary text also respects structures in style and form, such as meter and rhyme.
Narrative Epic Genre
Defined as the “epic genre” by Aristotle, it included epics, historical-literary narratives of great events. The Greek poet Homer (9th or 8th century BC) was the founder of epic poetry, to whom the masterpieces Iliad and Odyssey are attributed. Another great example of epic is the work Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) by the Portuguese writer Luís de Camões. In Brazil, the epic poems Caramuru, by Santa Rita Durão (1722-1784), and O Uruguai by Basílio da Gama (1741-1795), both writers belonging to Arcadianism in Brazil, deserve to be highlighted.
With the passage of time, these poetic narrations fell into disuse and the term epic gave way to the term narrative. It is a modern literary genre in prose, which aims to narrate a story with real or imaginary events. To be considered narrative, a text needs the following elements:
Elements needed to be a narrative text
Plot | Story that narrates a succession of events, with an introduction, development, and conclusion. |
Narrator | One who narrates the story. Uses direct, indirect and/or free indirect speech. |
Characters | People who are present in the story. |
Time | The period in which the story takes place. |
Space | Where the story takes place. |
Epic and Narrative Subgenres
Epic - long narrative about the great deeds of a hero or people.
Romance - long narrative written in prose that reveals two characters within a story.
Novel - written in prose, it is a long narrative, shorter and more dynamic than a novel.
Short story - written in prose, it is a more objective and brief narrative than a novel and a short story.
Chronicle - short narrative that focuses on everyday events.
Fable - fantasy narrative that seeks to teach about something.
Lyrical Genre
The term "lyrical" refers to the lyre, a musical instrument that accompanied the recitation of poetry in antiquity. It includes poetic texts of a sentimental character that reveal the author's emotions. It is characterized by the poetic function of language and the use of words in their connotative sense with a predominance of the first person.
They are brief texts because they do not present a plot, but rather the externalization of the poet's inner world (lyrical self). The lyrical self, also called lyrical subject or poetic self, does not refer to the author of the text (real person) because it is a fictitious entity (female or male), a creation of the poet, who plays the role of narrator or enunciator of the poem. In other words, the lyrical self represents the "voice of poetry".
The poems have a subjective character and musicality. They are always divided into lines and stanzas. Verses are lines of text; stanzas are sets of lines. The scansion is a syllabic division of verses that can be termed as major roundness, with seven syllables or more and minor roundness, with six syllables or less.
Suggestions of the Lyrical Genre
Eclogue - a lyrical poem about pastoral and bucolic life, which uses dialogues.
Elegy - a melancholic lyrical poem about death and sadness.
Epigram - a short poetic composition that ends with an ingenious or satirical thought. An inscription placed on an object - a statue or a tomb, for example.
Epithalamium - a lyrical poem for celebrating a wedding, which pays homage to the bride and groom and the conjugal bond.
Haiku - a genre of poetry of Japanese origin with a fixed form. It has three verses. It is an objective and synthetic poem. The traditional haiku has no title or rhymes and presents a bucolic theme.
Hymn - a lyrical poem of glorification, homage and praise to divinities and the homeland.
Idyll - a lyrical poem about pastoral and bucolic life.
Madrigal - a delicate and graceful composition that celebrates feminine beauty and grace.
Ode - a lyrical poem of exaltation, enthusiasm, and joy.
Satire - a lyrical poem whose objective is to ridicule people and situations, criticizing and ironizing defects and vices.
Sonnet - a poem in fixed form that presents itself with fourteen verses and four stanzas, two quatrains and two tercets. The word sonnet means "little song", or “little sound".
Dramatic Genre
Since Antiquity, the dramatic genre, originating in Greece, were theatrical texts essentially staged as a worship of the gods, which were represented in religious festivals. Among the main authors of the dramatic genre (tragedy and comedy) in ancient Greece are Sophocles (496-406 BC), Euripides (480-406 BC) and Aeschylus (524-456 BC). The staging of dramatic genre texts aimed to arouse emotions in the audience, a phenomenon called catharsis.
Its main feature is that it is made to be staged. There is no narrator who tells the action, the plot being presented through the speeches of the characters, represented by actors who experience the events. Therefore, dialogues and monologues are of crucial importance.
The playwrights (authors of this type of text) and the actors (who stage the text) are the transmitters. The receivers are the audience that watches the play. In addition to being made up of characters (protagonists, secondary characters, or extras), they are made up of the scenic space (theatrical stage and sets) and time.
Dramatic texts are subdivided into acts – when the actions take place in the same space – and scenes – when there is a change of location and characters – and present the name of the character who dialogues before his speech, thus marking his entry into the scene. Generally, texts intended for theater have the following basic internal structure:
Presentation – both the characters and the action to be developed are exposed.
Conflict – the moment when the shenanigans of dramatic action arise.
Denouement – moment of conclusion, closure, or denouement of the dramatic action.
In addition to the internal structure inherent to the dramatic text, there is the external structure of the dramatic genre, such as the acts (change of scenarios necessary for the representation) and scenes (entry or exit) of the characters. Note that each scene corresponds to a unit of dramatic action.
The structure of the dramatic text, in verse or in prose, acts as a facilitator of dramatization as it provides elements that help the representation, such as indications of the scenario, music, lighting, costumes and other scenic indications, called rubrics or didascalies, which guide the actor during the play.
Subgenres of the Drama Genre
Tragedy - representation of tragic events, usually with disastrous endings. The themes explored in tragedy are derived from human passions, which include noble and heroic characters, whether gods or demigods.
Comedy - representation of humorous texts that make the audience laugh. These are texts of a critical, jocular, and satirical nature. The main theme of comedy texts involves everyday actions that involve stereotypical human characters.
Tragicomedy - union of tragic and comic elements in theatrical representation.
Farce - emerged around the 14th century, farce designates a short theatrical play of a critical nature, formed by simple dialogues and represented by caricatured characters in everyday, comic, and burlesque actions (which provoke laughter or mockery).
In ancient Greece, didascaly (from the Greek didaskália = instruction, teaching) were the instructions that dramatic poets gave to actors for the scenic representation; sometimes they referred to theatrical performances or tragic festivals themselves. Thus, a text of the dramatic genre presents these two types of content: the direct speech of the characters and the scenic indications.
Literary Schools
Literature is traditionally divided into Literary Schools. This division may also be known as Literary Movements or Period Styles. In this way, the subject becomes more didactic for the students.
Literary schools in Europe and Brazil
This systematization aims to facilitate the study of the discipline, as well as its teaching, since it groups writers according to their stylistic and thematic characteristics, among other aspects, according to the historical context in which they are inserted. It would be impossible to dissociate literature from history: these two areas of human knowledge go hand in hand, and the influence of historical facts on the literary work of each period is unquestionable ֎
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Mundos possíveis ֎ Literatura com Alencar 1 ֎ Literatura com Alencar 2 ֎ Professor Noslen - Gêneros literários ֎ Litera - gêneros literários ֎ Cultura Villana ֎ Stav Guxten - escuelas literarias ֎ Literature - literary genres ֎ OSU School - what is a genre? ֎ Learning Literature - literary schools ֎ EngLIT Zone - literary movements
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