Literary Genres, Forms, Elements, and Narrative Works

Literary Genres

Literary works are grouped according to their specific characteristics, giving rise to the literary genres: narrative, lyric, tragic, essay, and others.

Forms of Expression in Literary Works

• Narration: Refers to how to relate actions and events performed by the characters in a play.
• Descriptions: Points out the salient features of people, animals, places, objects, and events, rich in words and pictures.
• Dialogue: Plays the conversation of the characters, what they feel and what they think.
• Exposition: Presents, explains, and clarifies the content in an organized and understandable manner.

Elements of the Narrative

• The narrator describes what happens in the text and can be a character or a witness.
  • Protagonist: Presents the facts as if they are living or sensing them.
  • Omniscient: Knows everything; relates the facts like a spectator.
  • Witness: Observes and describes what the characters do and think.
• The environment: The physical or temporal context where the actions occur.
• Characters: People or humanized beings that perform actions. In every narrative, there are major and minor characters.

Characteristics of Narrative Works

We can distinguish between the story and the novel:

• Story:
  • Short prose narrative
  • Simple and interesting
  • Simple and direct actions
  • Quick description of the characters
  • Precise language
  • Narrative of real and imaginary events
• Novel:
  • Longer prose narrative
  • Complex and interesting
  • A greater number of characters
  • Detailed description of characters and environments
  • Formal and informal literary languages
  • Narrative of real and imagined events

Moments of a Narrative Work

• Introduction or main point: The first part of the work, in which the narrator introduces the main character and places them in space and time.
• Node: Manifested by the appearance of a series of actions and moments of intense emotion.
• Outcome: The final moment of the narrative; the closure with the resolution of the conflict.

Literary Devices

These are expressive resources or strategies the writer uses to embellish their work through the word. Examples include: personification, simile, metaphor, and sensory imagery.

• Personification is a resource that assigns human qualities to characters or objects.
• Simile: An expressive device that states a comparison between two images using a comparison word or link.
• Metaphor: A means of expression that makes a comparison between two images.

Sensory Imagery

These are words and expressions that allow us to imagine things as if we were perceiving them through the senses.

• Visual image: Refers to the feelings captured by the eye.
• Auditory image: Refers to the feelings captured by the sense of hearing, giving ideas of pleasant, unpleasant, special, or confusing sounds.
• Olfactory images: Refers to the sensations captured by the smell, giving ideas of soft, strong, pleasant, or unpleasant odors.
• Gustatory image: Refers to feelings captured by taste, giving a sense of pleasant, agreeable, sweet, savory, or unsavory flavors.
• Tactile image: Refers to sensations captured by the sense of touch, such as temperature, texture, and smoothness.