Understanding Rhetoric, Communication, and Literary Forms

The Art of Rhetoric and Communication

Oratory is the art of public speaking. Rhetoric is the art of expressing oneself orally and in writing, often with an elaborate and aesthetic style.

A literary text (a subjective text where the author expresses their opinion) or a rhetorical text pursues aesthetic purposes. It uses language that is not strictly functional and communicative.

Essential Elements of Communication

In a communication process, essential elements are:

• Emissor (Sender): Expresses their personality as an author, from their point of view.
• Receiver: The reader makes a personal appreciation and review of the literary work.
• Message: The text is the result of a literary aesthetic elaboration, constantly balancing content with the way the message is expressed. It is encoded and draws upon the entire literary tradition.
• Code: Uses all the resources language offers: phonetic, syntactic, lexical, or semantic. These vary in different languages and text types studied so far.
• Context: Creates the literary context to which it belongs.
• Channel: In written literature, the written channel predominates. In oral folk traditions, this does not occur in all cases.

Other Rhetorical Texts

Other rhetorical texts include solemn discourses and certain elements of advertising language, such as slogans.

Literary Genres

Literary genres are broadly categorized as:

• Narrative Genres: Short story, tale, and novel.
• Poetic Genres: Epic poetry, lyrical, satirical, experimental. This includes verse poetry, prose poetry, and visual poetry, as well as cult and popular poetry.
• Dramatic Genres: Tragedy, comedy, drama, and other genres.
• Essay Genre: Essay, diary, memoirs, biographies, travel books, epistolary.

Narrative Genres in Detail

Narrative genres focus on the story of real or fictional events, featuring characters within a plot.

The Short Story

The short story is a narrative genre, created to be heard or read, based on a relayed history starring a number of characters. Its intention is to teach a moral lesson or to provoke reflection in the reader.

Structure of a Short Story

The structure of a short story typically consists of:

• Approach (or Exposition): Introduces the space, time, and protagonist, setting the initial action.
• Development (or Rising Action): Describes the protagonist's adventures.
• Denouement (or Resolution): Provides the resolution of the conflict and often an explicit moral teaching.

Types of Stories

• Folk Tale or Fable

  A popular genre, orally transmitted, often for children. Its purpose is educational and recreational. Collection began in writing in the nineteenth century.

• Fable

  A cult or popular genre where characters (often animals) personify human experiences and attitudes.

• Legend

  A popular or cult genre that differs from a simple story by attempting to connect with historical reality or contemporary understanding.

• Literary Tale

  A cult genre that adopts the structure of the folk tale, addressed to an adult public. It serves as a vehicle for the author's philosophical or psychological expression.

• Novella

  Midway between the short story and the novel. Two common subgenres are adventure and detective stories.