Literary Forms & Genres: Prose, Verse, Drama, and Subgenres

Understanding Literary Forms and Genres

Prose vs. Verse: Fundamental Literary Forms

Prose is a literary form of expression most similar to everyday speech and its natural distribution. It also exhibits different levels of development and aesthetic artifice.

Verse: Its most characteristic feature is musical rhythm. The musicality of verse is achieved through the following resources:

• Accents: The disposition of accents within a verse determines the rhythm of the poem.
• Rhyme: The repetition of certain sounds from the last stressed vowel in each line.
• Syllabic Count: The repetition of the same number of syllables in all verses, or the alternation between two or more syllabic schemes, determines the creation of different rhythms.

Figures of Speech: Enhancing Literary Expression

Figures of speech are rhetorical devices used to achieve special effects or meanings. They can be categorized as follows:

• Figures of Repetition: Alliteration, anaphora, parallelism, tautology, polysyndeton.
• Figures of Meaning: Allegory, antithesis, apostrophe, hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, personification, simile, synesthesia.
• Figures of Omission: Asyndeton, ellipsis.
• Figures of Order: Hyperbaton, chiasm.

Major Literary Genres

The Lyric Genre

This genre transmits subjective feelings, experiences, or thoughts. Its usual form of expression is verse. It encompasses works ranging from personal poems to moral reflections.

Lyric Subgenres:

• Elegy: Expresses grief over the death of a loved one.
• Eclogue: Structured as a dialogue between shepherds about love in an idealized pastoral setting.
• Ode: A poem of some length that addresses diverse subjects with elevated language.
• Song: Typically expresses love, but can convey any other emotion.
• Satire: Its purpose is the humorous and often brief presentation of individual and social defects.

The Narrative Genre

This genre presents a story told by a narrator. It focuses on the narration of actions and events.

Narrative Subgenres in Verse:

• Epic: A long poem praising the prodigious feats of a hero.
• Cantar de Gesta (Chanson de Geste): An epic poem, often oral in origin, extolling the exploits of a local or national hero.
• Romance: A short poem, often oral in origin and dissemination.

Narrative Subgenres in Prose:

• Novel: A story that develops an extensive narrative in space and time.
• Short Story: A brief narrative of a fictional action, in whole or in part. Its brevity necessitates a condensed plot.
• Legend: A fictional story originating from a historical or pseudo-historical fact, often involving fantastic events.
• Apologue: A story that conveys codes of conduct and moral standards.
• Epistle: A text addressing doctrinal, philosophical, moral, or satirical themes, presented in the form of an explicit letter.
• Fable: Presents anecdotes through the personification of animals as protagonists.
• Essay: A text in which the author addresses a broad audience to explain and defend their stance on a particular issue.

The Dramatic or Theatrical Genre

Its texts are characterized by being written for representation. The text is presented through direct dialogue between characters.