Literary Genres: Lyric, Narrative, and Drama Defined

Lyric Poetry: Characteristics and Forms

Key Characteristics of Lyric Poetry

• Highly subjective discourse, dominated by the emotive function of poetry.
• Expresses feelings, emotions, and ideas.
• Often focuses on a single aspect, brief in nature, and accumulates expressive resources.
• Typically occurs in verse, though works of lyrical prose (prose poetry) also exist.

Common Poetic Forms

• Popular Song: Addresses themes of love and religion, often featuring satirical monologues and a predominance of minor art forms.
• Petrarchan Song/Sonnet: Focuses on individualistic themes and adoration; often structured in multiple stanzas.
• Eclogue: Presents pastoral life and amorous affairs in a rural setting; metric structure is varied.
• Hymn: A song of praise dedicated to gods or heroes; liturgical hymns are an enduring form.
• Epigram: A concise, witty, and often satirical poem, sometimes expressing praise.
• Elegy: A mournful, melancholic, or sentimental poem, often lamenting the dead or a past event; features varied metrics.
• Ode: A lyrical poem dedicated to great personages, beautiful subjects, or contemplative speculation.

Narrative Literature: Storytelling Forms

Defining Narrative Literature

• Encompasses texts that recount stories through the voice of a narrator.
• Key Features: Develops a story through a sequence of actions; primarily serves a referential function, though poetic elements can be present.
• The story is conveyed by a narrator and belongs to the world of fiction.
• Prose predominates, but verse is also utilized in narrative forms.

Major Narrative Subgenres

• Epic Poem: An extended narrative in verse that recounts the deeds of a hero. Characterized by the use of versos de arte mayor (major art verses).
• Romance: A short story, often in verse, characterized by assonance in paired lines.
• Fable: A short story in prose or verse with a moral or ideological purpose, often featuring anthropomorphic animals. It always conveys a moral lesson.
• Short Story: A brief narrative in prose that presents a conflict, developing within a unique space-time. It often teaches by example.
• Novel: An extensive narrative in prose that presents a broad and diverse world or problem. It differs from the epic by the presence of complex characters rich in nuances.

Dramatic Arts: Performance and Text

Understanding Dramatic Literature

• Drama encompasses texts specifically created for theatrical representation, involving the performance of a script in a theater setting.
• Key Features: Develops a story; serves an appellative (conative) function alongside the expressive function.
• Verbal communication primarily occurs through dialogue, which can be in prose or verse.
• Its creation and reception are inherently collective.

Main Dramatic Subgenres

• Tragedy: Features an adverse conflict, often leading to a tragic fate. Basic components include the hero's arrogance (hubris), the purifying suffering of the hero (catharsis), and the portrayal of intense passions.
• Comedy: Presents a comic vision of human beings, often highlighting imperfections equal to or worse than those in real life, typically with a happy resolution.
• Tragicomedy: Blends elements of both tragedy and comedy, often featuring serious themes with a happy ending or comic relief.
• Bourgeois Drama: Focuses on realistic and contemporary human problems, often involving middle-class characters.
• Auto Sacramental: A one-act allegorical play, often linked to the Eucharist and liturgical feasts, popular in Spain during the Golden Age.
• Entremés (Interlude): A brief, humorous play with popular characters, originally performed between acts of a longer piece.
• Farce: A brief, exaggerated, and often absurd comedic play, developed independently or as a separate performance.
• Sainete: A short, humorous, and often satirical play, originating from the 18th-century Spanish farce, typically depicting popular customs and characters.