Forms of literature

Different forms of literature. ..
1. Written literature 

a. Fiction : drama, novel, poetry, short story and frame narrative

b. Non - fiction : autobiography, biography, essay, journal, dairy, travelogue, literary criticism, media and outdoor literature 
2. Oral literature 

Epic, folklore, mock epic, hymns, psalms, ballad.

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I   WRITTEN LITERATURE:

FICTION: 

It is a literary work with creative imagination rather than on fact. The Latin word fictus means "to form". Since the word fiction means something which is formed in the imagination.

1. Drama: It is a mode of fictional representation through dialogue and performance.According to Aristotle drama consists of 6 elements plot, diction, character, thought, spectacle and song.
 Different types of drama

a) Tragedy : It is a mode of fictional writing which focuses on the ruin of the leading characters by using darker themes such as disaster, pain and death.
Eg. Hamlet

b) comedy : Comedies are lighter in tone and have a happy ending by overcoming a problem.
Eg. Importance of being Earnest

(i) Farce: means in Latin to fill or stuff. It is a nonsensical genre of drama, which often overacts or engages.
Eg. The Canterbury Tales

(ii) Comedy of manners: The play makes you laugh due to the representation of class, fashion, manners of the characters.
Eg. The school for scandal

C) Melodrama : It is an exaggerated drama, which is sensational and appeals directly to the senses of audience.
Eg. Uncle Tom's Cabin

d) Tragicomedy : Begins with a serious mode and has a happy ending.
Eg. The visit
(i) Euripidean tragicomedy
(ii) Renaissance tragicomedy

e) Musical Drama: The dramatists not only tell their story through acting and dialogue, nevertheless through dance as well as music. Often the story may be comedic, though it may also involve serious subjects
Eg. Of Thee I Sing (1931)

f) Problem Play : A play that focuses on current political, social, or economic issues in a fictional manner.
Eg. A Doll's house

2. Novel
It can be comic, romantic, detective, adventurous, political, etc.

a) Allegory : Revolves around more than one meaning
Eg. Animal farm 

b) Epistolary : a novel is said by a collection of letters. Eg. Pamela 

c) Feminist : written by women abale dominated society.
Eg. The second sex 

d) Gothic: a novel with mix of horror and romance
Eg. The castle of otranto

e) ironic: It is a satire on contemporary society about their culture, social and political issues.
Eg. A tale of two cities

f) Realism : It is all about the truths of society and their problems.
Eg. Pride and prejudice

g) Romance : It was added with the favour of love and relationship.
Eg. Wuthering Heights 

h) Narrative : here the writer becomes the third person.
Eg. Wuthering Heights

i) Naturalism : through the novel the author tells the impact of environment on human beings.
Eg. The sun also rises

j) picaresque : The main character always became a social victim or face the social issues.
Eg. Great Expectations

k) Psychological : the inner voice of the main character was heard though the novel. The author always use stream of consciousness, flashback, soliloquies, etc such technics to bring the psychological effect.
Eg. The portrait of a lady

l) Bildungsroman: the novel deals with the development (mental and physical )of the main character.
Eg. David copperfield

m) Historical : The novelist take an event from the past and attempt to reconstruct a bygone age.
Eg. War and peace

n) Educational : In this type of novels the novelist writes to give education to society morally and intellectually for a desirable self reliant individual.
Eg. Fool of quality

o) Detective : It is also called crime fiction or investigation fiction, here the plot revolves around the investigation and solving of a crime.
Eg. The hound of the baskervilles

p) Science fiction : The novel focuses on the science and technology and its effort on people.
Eg. The time machine

q) Metafiction: also known as Sur fiction or it is beyond fiction that means it pose question about the relationship between fiction and reality.
Eg. Orlando  

r) Antinovel: also known as anti-roman or nouveau roman. In these type of novel traditional novelistic elements are rejected.
Eg. Tristram shandy 

s)  Subterranean fiction : It is a subgenre of adventure focuses on the underground settings, sometimes at the center of the earth or otherwise deep below the surface. This genre is based on and has in turn influenced the Hollow Earth theroy.

3. Poetry
a) Sonnet: It is a poem written in a strict poetic form with 14 lines.

b) Elegy: It is a mournful poem, usually written to praise and express sorrow for someone who was absent or dead.

c) Ode: It is a formal long poem, which was serious in nature.

d) Allegory: It is a type of poem that interpreted to reveal a hidden mening, typically a moral or political one.

e) Lyrics: It is a short poem in a formal style, which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.

f) Limerick: a five-line witty poem with a distinctive rhythm. The first, second and fifth lines, the longer lines, rhyme. The third and fourth shorter lines rhyme. (A-A-B-B-A).

g) Free verse: these type of poems do not follow any rules. It was written according to the poet's wil. That is verses without regular rhyme, rhythm, or meter.

h) Narrative poems: It tells the story of an event in the form of a poem.

i) Blank verse: It is a poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines,almost in iambic pentameter. Best form adapted to dramatic verse.

j) Pastoral: The type of poem that deals in an idealized way with shepherds and rustic life.  

k) Idyll : It is a lyric poem describing the life of the shepherd in pastoral, bucolic, idealistic terms.

l) Haiku: Japanese poem of 3 lines and 17 syllables often depicting a delicate image.  

m) Dramatic Monologue: a poem that reveals “a soul in action, through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation.  

n) Sestina : 39 lines with six-line stanzas and a closing stanza of 3 lines called an envoy. Set rhyme and repetition.  

o) Prose Poetry: a short work, written in prose, but employing the methods of verse such as imagery, for poetic ends.  

p)Villanelle: a closed poetic form of 19 lines, composed of five triplets and a quatrain. The form requires that whole lines be repeated in a specific order and that only two rhyme sounds occur throughout

q) Dirge: a wailing song sung at a funeral or in commemoration of death. A short lyric of lamentation.

4. Short stories: It is a form of brief literature in prose which focuses on a single incident in variety of length.  

a) Drabble: It is a short work of fiction of around one hundred words in length. 

b) Fables : a short tale to teach a moral lesson, often with animals or inanimate objects as characters. 

c) Parable: It is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. 

d) Anecdote: A story on account of real person or incident.  

e) Feghoot: It is also know as short pun or a poetic joke. Written for a humorous pun in a very short form. 

f) Flash Fiction: It is also called quick fiction where the writer writes the essence of the most important actions in a different improved form into a few pages. 

g) Frame Story: It is a nested narrative story that is placing a story within a story for a purpose of introducing a main story.  

h) Vignette : It is a brief description of the incident which focuses on the single scene, character, thought or idea.                                                                                                          NON FICTION : It is a prose writing about real incidents that is informative to the audience.  

a) Autobiography : It is a self-written account of the life of a person. 

Eg. Wings of fire 

b) Biography : It is an account of someone's life written by someone else.

Eg. Steve jobs by walter isaacson  

c) Essay : It is a short piece of writing on a particular subject. 

Eg. Francis bacon's essays   

d) Journal : There are different types of journals. 

i) Academic journals :It is a research or dissertation on a particular subject. 

ii) Dialectical journal : It is written in a double column notebook. 

iii) Creative Journal : Imaginative writting of a story poem or narrative in type. 

iv) Trade journal : It is written for a practical information. 

e) Diary : It is a discreet entries arranged by date as a record on what had happened over the course of a day.(originally in handwritten format) 

Eg.Anne frank's Diary of a young girl 

f) Travelogue : A piece of writing about someone's experience while travelling.      Eg. In the land of Negroes ( 1951-Kappirikalude Nattil ) 

g) Literary criticism : It is a study of a piece of literature wherein critics apply different theories, evaluation, discussions and explanations to any other works.                Eg. Poetics 

h) Media: Newspaper,  magazines, interviews, internet or audio 

i) Outdoor literature : It is a literally of adventure devoted to the whole exploration of an event writting about leisure time, hobbies, trekking.

II   ORAL LITERATURE :It is also called orature. 

a) Flow lore : It is generally superstitious and religious stories.                                          i) Fairy-tale: cindrella, Tom Tumb 

ii) Parables: Religious moral stories 

iii) Myth: scared deep meaning 

b) Epic: It is a narrative verses in style which conveys moral and cultural of a particular period.                                             Eg. Illiad 

c) Mock epic: It is also know as mock-heroic the poety that draws the techniques of satire by exaggeration or by sarcasm to mock the original subject.                                               Eg. Rape of the lock 

d) Proverbs: a short saying stating a general truth or a piece of advice.                              Eg. Time and tide waits no man. 

e)Hymns: It is a verses for pleasing or to praising God.                                                    Eg. Prayer 

f) Psalms : scared songs used to worship especially by Christians and Jewish.            Eg. The Bible 

g) Ballad: It is a narrative poem sung by the poet or a group of singers to tell a story. Generally it is an oral form but now written literature.

So these are the literary forms that you will come across most often in your reading and life but one caution before we end that I have wrote about for each of these literary form there in general because literature is wide and varied, and there is always an exception to the rule but in general this will help you to identify what type of literary form that you are looking at.☺