Literary Genres and Narrative Techniques Explained

The Chronicle

A chronicle is a newspaper article in which current events are told from a personal perspective, including the evaluation of the narrator.

Epic Poetry

The first epics originated in the East. The epic is a subgenre of literary narrative. The two great Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are considered the work of the poet Homer, who lived in the eighth century BC. Medieval epic poems recount the deeds (azanas) of a hero.

Linguistic Concepts

A hypernym is a word that encompasses the meaning of other words, which are its hyponyms. Neologisms are words recently incorporated into a language.

Narrative Structure

If facts are told in the order they occurred, it is a linear narrative (beginning, middle, and end):

• In media res: Presenting the end first (the outcome) and then recounting the events leading to the approach and the knot.
• Flashbacks/Flashforwards: Presenting a particular time in history (the knot) and moving toward the future (outcome) or backward (approach).

If the facts in a story are told in a different order, it is a non-linear narrative.

The Novel

A novel is an extended prose narrative of imagined facts created by an author to entertain an audience. Like the short story or the epic, it is a literary subgenre. There are three types:

• Novels with a predominance of action.
• Novels that highlight space and time.
• Novels focusing on the characters.

Evolution of the Novel

Early novels shared common features regarding fictional characters, structure, and action:

• Personality: Heroes with special qualities or dominated by intense emotions.
• Structure: Episodic adventures.
• Action: Essential elements of the fantastic.

Changes in the novelistic genre began with Lazarillo de Tormes and culminated in 1605 with the publication of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, considered the first modern novel:

• Personality: Characters are not heroes, but flesh and bone.
• Structure: Events do not appear as isolated episodes.

Descriptive Processes

The description of a process explains what things are and the various steps involved. An objective process description is a technical account of these phases.

Poetic Language and Imagery

Poetic language refers to the special use of language in texts for the purpose of creation, expression, and beauty. An image is a method an author uses to recreate feelings poetically based on reality.

• Synesthesia: An image through which sensations from one sense are attached to another.
• Hyperbole: An exaggerated representation of reality.
• Metonymy: The use of one word for another with which it maintains a relation of part/whole or container/content.