DIVISIONS OF LITERATURE
Cards (24)
- POETRY
- Uses metrical language with lots of rhythm and rhyme to create word pictures. Employs all kinds of wordplay, figurative language, and imagery to send its messages, which are often rather obscure and need to be dug out with some effort on the part of the reader
- Lyric
- Originally sung or recited with a musical instrument, called a lyre. Uses personal experiences, close relationships, and description of feelings as their material
- Elegy - a reflective poem to honor the dead
- Ode - an elevated poem that pays tribute to a person, idea, place or another concept
- Sonnet - a descriptive fourteen-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme (Ex: Shakespeare)
- Haiku - a seventeen-syllable poem that uses natural imagery to express an emotion
- Narrative
- Story telling developed from ritualistic chanting of myths
- Stories were not memorized as is generally assumed but instead bards improvised oral chants; relying on heavy alliterative and assonantal techniques
- Ballad - narrative poetry set to music
- Epic - a lengthy poem that tells a story of heroic adventures
- Metrical Tale - topics vary from romance, the quest for adventure, love, and various phases of life
- Metrical Romance - also called chivalric poems
- FICTIONAL PROSE
- Written in ordinary, non-metrical language, but it is the product of the writer’s imagination
- The meaning of fictional works can stretch all the way from obsecure and difficult to clear and direct
- Short story
- Marked by reactive shortness and density, organized into a plot and with denouement at the end
- The plot may be comic, tragic, romantic or satiric; may be written in the mode of fantasy, realism, or naturalism
- Novel
- An extended work of prose fiction
- Denotes a prose narrative about characters and their actions in what is recognizably everyday life
- NONFICTIONAL PROSE
- Written in ordinary, non-metrical language and communicates facts or opinions about reality
- Meanings are usually straightforward because the writer’s primary purpse is to convey information or persuade readers
- Biographical Narratives
- Examples are: Biography, Profile, Character Sketch, Interview
- Autobiographical Narratives
- Examples are: Autobiography, Memoir or Creative Nonfiction, Travel Writing, Food Writing, Nature Writing, Diaries and Journals
- DRAMA
- Combines elements of prose and poetry into plays that are usually intended to be performed on stage
- Joins monologues and dialogues by characters with stage directions and occasionally narrative sections that explain the action
- Comedy
- Lighthearted tone
- Clever wordplay or turns of phrase
- Serious topics addressed in a humorous way
- Comical misunderstandings
- Happy ending
- Silly, offbeat characters
- Often ends with a wedding, especially in romantic comedies
- Farce
- Exaggerated humor
- Slapstick gags
- Nonsensical storyline
- Improbable events
- One or two settings
- Humor is often crude and inappropriate
- Musical
- Originally referred to as opera
- Dramas in which the characters sing and dance while performing
- The entire production is set to a musical score
- Melodrama
- Periods of standard storyline interrupted by songs
- Dramatic or comedic storylines
- A sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions
- Tragedy
- A protagonist with a tragic flaw
- Circumstances that quickly get out of control - and not in a funny way
- Darker themes than a melodrama, such as human suffering, hatred, or poverty
- Features the downfall of a previously heroic or well-liked character
- An irredeemable ending that results in one or more characters’ deaths
- Reaches a tragic catharsis
- Tragicomedy
- A serious storyline told in a humorous, sardonic, or snide way
- Tragically flawed characters whose actions don’t result in ddeath
- An ambiguous theme
- Broad characters who act in classically comical ways
- Neither a happy nor a comic ending