The categorization of literature is distinguished in:
Literary species, Literary genres, Genre subcategories or subgenre
The term “species” concerns the three biggest categories of artistic forms: prose, lyrical and dramatic, while the term “genre” and “subgenre” are being used to characterize big or smaller subcategories of the species.
We will explain below in a simple manner the classification and categorization of literature, as well as their meaning. We will not stick to drama and lyric but only epigrammatically.
LITERARY SPECIES
- Prose writing
- Dramatic writing
- Lyrical writing
Prose writing is our speech, written down on paper. It differentiates from poetic, the verse. It doesn’t have a meter, nor rhyme.
It doesn’t consist of a specific form, it is born from knowledge, observation, from the mind.
Its basic element is based on logic, ideas, welcoming and befriending fantasy and emotion.
Prose writing, depending the content and its form, it is divided into three genres: Short stories, the novella and fiction writing, giving thus birth to the literary genres, which will be explained in a short while.
Dramatical writing is the literary work that contains live action persons and that’s why it is not simply read but impersonated on stage, meaning the theater.
Lirical writing concerns poetry which can be sang by the accompaniment of the musical instrument called the “lyre”.
LITERARY GENRES OF PROSE WRITTING
- Short story
- Novella
- Fiction
The above are the three basic genders of prose fiction writing and will be analyzed immediately. If someone isn’t aware of these rules, he or she cannot write efficiently for any genre.
Short story: Its first characteristic is the short length that has a limit until 5.000 words. Its second characteristic is the combining of density and austerity. It’s focused around a basic event, concentrating on a main character.
Novella: It’s a short fiction from 20.000 to 45.000 words. The writer is based on the ethos and the psyche of his produced characters, and does not delve deeply and equally in the plot and the episodes he is narrating. My book “The vampire mansion” is placed in this category.
Fiction: It concerns an extended, multipage and unlimited narration. Its characteristics are:
- it consists of multiple episodes, it is multi-layered, complicated in its body of organizing, structure and progress
- seldom written in a linear pace, habitual interweaving of the use of time
- characters are rich in personality, detailed in their fullest
- narrated structure and time are evolving in many layers
And thus we conclude with the subgenres, which we’ll only be referring to their terms. Most of them are:
Subgenres or genre subcategories
Memoirs
Autobiography
Biography
Short story
Essay
Drama
Elegiac poem
Epigram
Epistolography
Epic
Diary
Lamentations
Fiction
Novella
Parody
Satire
Sonnet
Hymn
Vignette
Ode