Types of Literature in the Way of Critical Reading: Fiction

Types of Literature: Fiction

In This Page:

• Why categorize literature into genres?
• Fiction genres and subgenres
• The origins, change, and growth of genres
• How critics have influenced the uses and meanings of genres
• What genre means to you, the reader

In life we tend to categorize things to make them easier to understand.We categorize jobs, art, news, and, unfortunately, sometimes even people.

Literature is no different, and the study of literary categories (or genres) is an art in itself.

In this page, you will learn about different types of literary genres with a broad look at how you should approach them as a reader. After giving

you an overview of genres, I'll focus on fiction & some about nonfiction in this page.

Genres in General

As a reader, you may already know that there are several different categories of literature, but let's start from the beginning anyway.

Literature basically falls into two category types:

fiction and nonfiction. Within the fiction and nonfiction categories are several other subcategories that help to define literature in terms of its type. These subcategories are called genres.

Fiction comprises the following genres and subgenres:

1. Prose fiction. Stories that are invented

• Novel
• Novella
• Short story

2. Poetry. The use of words that tell a story, create an image, or reveal an emotion

• Dramatic poetry
• Lyric poetry
• Epic poetry
• Prose poetry
• Haiku

3. Drama (plays and film). A performance on stage or in film using dialogue and/or scene setting to tell a story

• Comedy
• Romance
• History
• Tragedy
• Horror

Nonfiction comprises the following genres and subgenres:

1. Autobiographies/biographies. True stories about a real person's life either written by that person or by someone else

• Memoirs
• Diaries (or journals) and letters

2. Essays. Commentaries that build an argument or hold to an opinion about any topic (often found in academic journals)

• Social commentary
• Political commentary
• Philosophical essays
• Satiric essays
• Theological essays
• Literary criticism/reviews

3. Journalism. Current information about events and people in the world

• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Internet

All creative arts fall into specific categories—for example, painting, writing, music, and film. Each category is represented by a genre. Literature is classified into genres as a means of better understanding what to expect from the writing and a means by which to compare similar types of literary forms.

Why Bother with Genre?

There are many reasons for categorizing art forms, but let's start with the most basic. Think of it this way: A friend tells you there's a great new movie starring Nicole Kidman. You haven't heard of the movie so you ask what it's about. You're not asking for a detailed plot summary; what you really want to know is what genre of film it is.

When you're told the movie is about a woman who lives with her children in a haunted house, you say, "Thanks, but no thanks." You hate scary movies; they give you the willies. By placing the film into a horror genre, you know what to expect when you get there (and you'll make sure you aren't there, in this case). Let's turn to categorizing literature. Your sister happens to know that you enjoy history and you love a good romance, so she recommends a historical romance that she has recently read. If it were just history or just romance, maybe it wouldn't interest you as much, but put the two together and it's a slam-dunk must-read for you.

You and Your Great Expectations

Let's say you've read the poems of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)—British poets who are often compared to each other by literary scholars. In fact, most romantic poetry classes spend some time focusing on and comparing these two poets. The question is: What do they have in common? Wordsworth and Coleridge were both poets of the romantic era—a time when nature, love, and life were introspectively reflected as intertwining entities. Nature is love; nature is life; life is nature and love, and so on. The romantic poets not only personalized romantic ideals, but translated them into a form that their readers could relate to.

Although Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote quite differently from each other, they basically wrote in the same genre—not just as romantic poets but as lyric poets as well. Coleridge is best known for epic poems such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. Wordsworth is best known for his Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Together they published Lyrical Ballads in 1798— a combination of their work.

They were contemporaries—friends who often wrote together and influenced each other's work, ideas, and styles. But they shouldn't be pigeonholed as lyric romantic poets. They were known to cross genres as well.

Although it's important to recognize the uniqueness of each writer in terms of his or her style and artistry, it's also important to realize how genre can affect writing styles as well as evoke further expectations of the reader. Pick up a Stephen King book and you're ready to have your wits scared right out of you, but King is also responsible for the short story that went on to become the movie Stand By Me. Because it's not gruesome or terrifying, many people have no idea that the master of the horror novel penned this story as well. They just don't expect such a tame tale from him.

The Origins of Genre

In A Glossary of Literary Terms (1957), M. H. Abrams describes genre as follows: "The genres into which literary works have been classified are numerous, and the criteria for classification have been highly variable; but the most common names still are such ancient ones as tragedy, comedy, epic, satire, lyric, plus some relative newcomers, like novel, essay and biography." Not much has changed since the 1950s. Categorizing literature into specific genres has always been a useful tool for writers, readers, reviewers, critics, and scholars.

In the Olden Days

We can take the concept of genre back even further. Plato and Aristotle placed literary works into three different genres: lyric, drama, and epic. Believe it or not, these genres, which are well over 2,000 years old, are still useful today. What makes them different from each other, according to Plato and Aristotle, is the way they are presented in terms of action and characterization:

• Lyric. Poetry usually written in the first person (using I) with the "I" being either the author or another character telling the story.
• Drama. A play with different characters who have separate identities from the author. Their dialogue reflects their respective personalities, and the author is invisible except in stage direction.
• Epic. Poetry written as a long narrative in the third person with the poet occasionally making his or her presence known through using first person references.

Keep in mind that there were not as many styles of writing in ancient times as we have now. They had poetry, plays, and nonfiction writing (usually philosophy). Now we have short stories, novels, novellas, autobiographies, memoirs, prose poetry, and so on. Within each of those literary forms are a host of genres and subgenres. We take a closer look at each of these types of classifications in later pages.

The Bard and His Genres

If you've ever studied the writing of William Shakespeare, you may know that he is one of the most heavily categorized writers in history, not only because he has been so intensively studied, but because he crossed so many genres in his writing.

Shakespeare's plays generally fall into four main genres: history, tragedy, comedy, or romance.

Teachers often find that categorizing Shakespeare's work is a helpful way to introduce students to his plays, which are heavily laden with unfamiliar words, antiquated expressions, and archaic theatrical conventions. As a result, educators often have their students begin with one of the lightest Shakespeare genres as an introduction—the comedy (maybe Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Nights Dream). These plays tend to focus on comical errors and are even fun to read, which makes diving into sixteenth-century England all the more appealing. Teachers then move on to his tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. Finally, students are ready to begin reading the "heavies"— histories such as Richard III or Henry V. If you decide to take your Shakespearian studies even further, you

will probably find yourself reading the romances like Pericles, The Tempest, or Cymbeline.

Genres and the Critics

Critics have employed the genre approach to literature in a number of ways over the centuries. From the Renaissance through most of the eighteenth century, for example, they often attempted to judge a text according to what they thought of as the fixed "laws of kind," insisting upon purity—meaning staying loyal to a type of writing. In other words, there was a tendency to pigeonhole various types of writing. So the placement of comic episodes in otherwise serious works was frowned upon, and

hybrid types of genres such as tragicomedy were dismissed.

There was also a tendency to rank the genres in a hierarchy, usually with epic or tragedy at the top and shorter forms such as the lyric at the bottom. Over the ages, literary genres have taken on many forms from the logical to the ridiculous. When Shakespeare was alive, he used to poke fun at some of the critics who categorized, subcategorized and even sub-subcategorized his plays. For some scholars, this kind of categorization helped them understand not only the writing, but the writer himself. But try telling that to Shakespeare!

Genres Through the Ages

Genres cannot be set in stone. Wouldn't it be easy—and boring!—if you could put things in their place and leave them there? Easy, because you would have a clear-cut idea about where it belonged and how to understand it, and boring for the same reasons. If things could be so easily grouped and labeled, there would be no room for growth and exploration.

When studying genres, it's tempting to look for a theory that will hold fast. But it's just not possible. The whole point of reading is to be able to change and grow as a person. If new ideas don't emerge, and genres don't intersect, there will be no room for new interpretations.

Time marches on, people change, writing develops, readers grow, and new critics come into the picture bearing new ideas. This automatically forces genres to shift and to change as well. Writing styles and themes have taken on different forms over the ages, and so the way we classify literature has changed, too.

 

A Great Leap Forward

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, a drastic alteration took place in the ranking of genres in English literature when the short lyric poem came into existence, which shifted critical theories about genres.

The theory of the big three genres of ancient Greece—lyric, epic, and drama— suddenly shifted when the English romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and Lord Byron came on the scene. Suddenly they were writing introspectively with new ideas and themes—and keeping it brief. Their intention in the short-form lyric style was not to tell an epic tale, but to take a snapshot of a smaller piece of life and give it a philosophical or emotional perspective. They spoke to the everyday persons in terms that they could relate to.

Here is an example of a short lyric poem of the romantic era. It is titled O Do not Love too Long:

SWEETHEART, do not love too long:

I loved long and long,

And grew to be out of fashion

Like an old song.

All through the years of our youth

Neither could have known

Their own thought from the other's,

We were so much at one.

But O, in a minute she changed

O do not love too long,

Or you will grow out of fashion

Like an old song.

—William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

This romantic era of writing changed the concept of genres for eternity. Since then, genres have become arbitrary and convenient ways to classify works of literature.

Crisscrossing Genres

As you saw with William Shakespeare, genres are not always so cut and dry. Sometimes a novel (or a movie, or a poem, or any work of art) can fall into a couple of different subgenres. For example, let's return to the Harry Potter series, written by J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter is an unusual coming-of-age story. A boy who discovers he is actually a wizard (and perhaps one of the greatest wizards of all time) and learns the hardship, joy, and  responsibility that go along with it. Although it's highly unlikely that any adult or child will relate to this specific revelation, that's not what makes people read the books. It's a story that almost anyone can identify with: The aches and pains of growing up, the sadness of loss, the joys of friendship, dealing with bullies and unfavorable teachers—all are depicted in a realm of magical imagination. Within the stories, Harry and his friends usually encounter some horrifying evil that they must conquer to save themselves and sometimes the rest of the world. There is also often some secret that is disclosed in the book that helps Harry understand more about himself and where he comes from. So how many fiction genres does this series of novels fall into?

• Coming of age
• Horror
• Mystery
• Fantasy

You can look at the books from each of these perspectives. The books crisscross genres, making them more interesting to evaluate as works of literature.

What It Means to You

Think about some of the books you've read in your life and try to categorize them. Why? Well, aside from it being a fun exercise, it's a way for you to really grasp the concept of genre. If you can understand the classification of books, you will be a much better critical reader. For example, if I said the word Frankenstein to you, you would most likely conjure up images of a seven-foot monster with green skin, nodes on the side of his neck, walking without bending his legs, his arms outstretched, moaning as he totters from side to side on stiff legs.

But did you know that long before Frankenstein was a popular Halloween costume, Boris Karloff look alike, or Herman Munster derivative, he was a character in a book, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, written in 1818Frankenstein wasn't even the monster, but the creator. Dr. Frankenstein decided to experiment and create a human being using body parts from cadavers. The result was a "monster" that the doctor immediately rejected out of horror at its hideous appearance. The creature was then left on his own to negotiate a world that didn't want him. Contrary to popular belief, the monster didn't choose victims arbitrarily. Dr. Frankenstein became the focus of the creature’s revenge.

The Nature of the Beast

So you've picked up Frankenstein and started out with the wrong impression, thanks to pop culture. You have this image of a heartless, murdering giant, so immediately you may think you're picking up a horror novel. And you are, sort of. It's a tale of horror because of the gruesome descriptions of Dr. Frankenstein's work while creating his "monster." But when you read it, you might find that you have a different reaction to the story—one that makes you think the story fits another category as well, such as drama or tragedy.

You can even make the argument that the book is also a Bildungsroman, or novel of formation. Frankenstein begins with a creature who is given a brain and is able to think, learn, and feel strong emotions. When he is abandoned by his creator, he is like a sad orphaned child left to learn the hard, cruel ways of the world all alone. All he wants is to be loved by the man who made him. He is innocent when he begins his "human" existence, and by the end he is bitter and angry. His experiences, then, form him. It's possible that you will relate to the lost monster in some way. After all, many of us, at some point in our lives, have felt the same way.

In most horror stories, the author writes so that you sympathize with the victim and not the assailant. Shelley, however, makes us think beyond that. She takes a risk, as every good author should, to make us see the horror with more pathos. By allowing us to know the monster, by allowing us to hear his thoughts and experience his feelings, Shelley is allowing her readers to empathize with the creature and question the behavior of the creator. The reader is left wondering what the heck happened to their preconceptions about the book, and just who the heck the bad guy is in the story. That's an interesting twist on the traditional horror story, isn't it? This is a great example of how pigeonholing a book into a single genre can end up being a wildly inaccurate practice.

In the Eye of the Creator

Isn't it amazing that you can empathize with a monster? Because of this newfound angle on the story, don't you want to find out more about Mary Shelley, the author of the book? Why did she take this approach? Was it intentional, to make you feel sorry for the monster, or did she want you to feel sorry for the doctor? Did she feel that she was like Dr. Frankenstein in that she was the creator, too, by virtue of being its author?

Scholars have surmised that the monster was actually Shelley herself. She ran away from home at the age of 16 to be with her future husband. As a result, she was cast out of society and shunned by her parents. Perhaps Shelley created the monster from her own painful real-life circumstances. Does this knowledge change what genre you think the book might fall into? Shelley may have written this book as a condemnation of the restrictive society she was a part of; maybe she wrote it as a way to purge her own demons, seeking her own kind of revenge on the family who abandoned her. It might also be interesting to look at the book from a strictly historical perspective. How did

the early-nineteenth-century readers view the book? Did they feel sorry for the monster, or is

that a modern-day concept? Would nineteenth century people feel sorry for the doctor the way you might have? Did they see any analogies to their political or social climate?

By knowing more about the author's life and intentions, you have a better shot at correctly categorizing any work of art. And when you understand genre, you will be able to define the book in so many different ways. Some books will remain in one genre, whereas others will span over several different ones—depending on your interpretation and your ability to build a case for your arguments.

The Least You Need to Know

• Categorizing books into genres means to find the type (or kind) of book it is.
• You will know what to expect from a book if you know what genres it fits into.
• The concept of the genre has its roots in ancient Greece.
• The standard for genres took a drastic turn in the eighteenth century with the introduction of the short lyric poem.
• Some books fit more than one genre.