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Essential Literary Forms and Poetic Devices

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Definition and Features of Literature

Literature is most commonly defined as an art material that uses language as its artistic work. It represents a set of literary works produced in a specific territory, language, nation, or around the world. In these works, the poetic function is predominant.

Key Features of Literature

  • Lexical richness and intensification of expressive procedures.
  • Rhythm, musicality, and the connotation of words.
  • Polysemy and references to a fictional world.
  • The frequent use of literary figures.

Verse and Stanza Structures

A verse is a structured set of lines where the type of verse, their number, and the distribution of rhymes are regular and fixed.

Stanza Classifications by Verse Count

  • 2 Verses: Detached/Couplet (aa, AA, Aa, aA).
  • 3 Verses: Trio/Terceto (consonant rhyme, BCB, CDC); Tercilla (same structure but with shorter meter); Soledad (same structure but in assonance).
  • 4 Verses: Quartet/Cuarteto (ABBA); Serventesio (ABAB); Redondilla (abba); Cuarteta (abab); Seguidilla (7-5a 7-5a); Cuaderna Vía (Alexandrines, AAAA).
  • 5 Verses: Quintilla (octosyllables: ababa, abaab, aabab, aabb); Quinteto (high art/Arte Mayor); Lira (7a 11B 7a 7b 11B).
  • 6 Verses: Sixth Rhyme (hendecasyllables: aBaBcC); Stanza Manriqueña (8a 8b 4c 8a 8b 4c).
  • 8 Verses: Eighth Real (hendecasyllables: ABABABCC).
  • 10 Verses: Tenth Spinel (octosyllables: abbaaccddc).

Poetic Figures and Rhetorical Devices

Phonetic Figures

These include enjambment, alliteration, onomatopoeia, similicadencia, and paronomasia.

Morphosyntactic Figures

Common devices include pleonasm, epithet, ellipses, asyndeton, polysyndeton, anaphora, epiphora, epanadiplosis, anadiplosis, parallelism, chiasmus, referral, concatenation, hyperbaton, pun, and anacoluto.

Semantic Figures

These involve prosopography, etopeya, enumeration, rhetorical interrogation, apostrophe, hyperbole, personification, antithesis, paradox, correlation, simile, reticence, metaphor, synthetic metaphor, allegories, symbols, metonymy, and synecdoche.

Literary Genres: Lyric and Epic

Lyric Poetry

Lyric poetry expresses the feelings of the author, offering a vision of reality that is strongly subjective.

  • Oda: A lyric poem expressing the strong feelings of the poet.
  • Elegía: The poet expresses regrets over a painful fact.
  • Égloga: Bucolic poems that idealize nature and love.
  • Sátira: Its object is censoring human behavior.
  • Epigrama: A brief composition for inscriptions, often used with humorous intention.
  • Epitalamio: A poem that celebrates a wedding.
  • Himno: A poem of praise for a character or a special event.
  • Anacreóntica: Poems that sing of sensual pleasures, love, and wine.
  • Epístola: A letter in the form of a poem used to present moral or doctrinal ideas.

Epic Literature

In epic works, characters and the outside world dominate the author's perspective.

Epic in Verse

  • Epic Narration: Facts crucial to a people.
  • Cantar de Gesta: Medieval tales recounting the exploits of an epic hero.
  • Educated Epic Poems: Written by educated poets during the Renaissance.
  • Romances: Derived from epics, narrating exploits in a briefer form.

Epic in Prose

  • Novel: A fiction story written in prose of greater extent and complexity; it presents many subgenres.
  • Cuento: A short fiction story; when it contains a moral, it is called a fable.

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