Literary Forms, Genres, and Rhetorical Devices

Literature: Artistic Expression and Forms

Literature is a form of artistic expression that uses the spoken or written word as its medium. Verse is a form of composition that aims to create rhythmic sensations. These feelings are transmitted through line breaks limited by units that have a strong cadence. Prose generally lacks the pace that characterizes verse because it lacks units of similar structure; its breaks, accents, and sounds are distributed irregularly.

The Metric Measure of Verses

The metric measure of verses involves specific licenses:

• Sinalefa: The merging of vowels between words.
• Dieresis: When a part of a diphthong is split into two syllables.
• Sinieresis: When two syllables in hiatus are counted as a single unit.

Literary Genres and Categories

Literary genres are the categories that allow us to group literary texts with common features. They provide readers with an idea of the work and offer authors frameworks and models for composition.

Epic Genre

In Epic compositions, a narrator tells the actions of characters. Key forms include:

• Epic Poem: A long narrative poem that tells of deeds linked to the mythical origins of a people.
• Medieval Poem: An epic poem that recounts the exploits of a historical hero.
• Story: A short narrative that usually responds to a simple narrative scheme.
• The Novel: An extensive prose narrative where characters and events are related in detail.

Lyric Genre

The Lyric genre presents the author's voice expressing real or feigned feelings and their perception of the world.

• Elegy: A sad composition in which the poet expresses sorrow over an unfortunate event.
• Ode: Characterized by a high, solemn tone, usually used in the praise and exaltation of something or someone.

Dramatic Genre

In the Dramatic genre, actions are performed by characters through dialogue without the involvement of the author's voice.

Literary Resources and Rhetorical Devices

Literary resources are expressive procedures that deviate from the common usage of language for an aesthetic purpose. These are classified into grammatical, phonic, and semantic resources.

Grammatical Resources

• Epithet: An adjective denoting a quality inherent in reality.
• Polysyndeton: The repetition of a single coordinating conjunction. The use of this resource gives the text a calm and judgmental expression.
• Asyndeton: The suppression of conjunctions, which contributes to a sense of speed and dynamics.
• Parallelism and Hyperbaton: Structural arrangements and the alteration of standard word order.

Phonic and Semantic Resources

Other essential resources include paronomasia and alliteration (phonic), as well as metaphor, simile, synecdoche, metonymy, antithesis, and irony (semantic).