In all types of art there are historically developed internal divisions, large - types, and smaller genres that make up these types.
Literary types
All literature is divided into the following types - lyrics, epics and drama.
The lyrics got its name from a musical instrument - lyre. In ancient times, the game on it was accompanied by the reading of poems. A classic example is Orpheus.
The epos (from the Greek epos - narration) is a second view. And everything that enters into it is called epic genres.
Drama (from the Greek drama) is the third kind.
Even in ancient times, Plato and Aristotle made attempts to divide literature by gender. Scientifically, this division was substantiated by Belinsky.
Recently, a collection of certain independent works has been formed and stood out as a separate (fourth) type of literature. These are lyro-epic genres. The name implies that the epic genre absorbed and transformed in itself the individual components of the lyrical genre.
Examples of art epic
The epic itself is divided into folk and author. Moreover, the folk epos was the forerunner of the author's epos. Examples of epic genres such as a novel, an epic, a novel, a story, an essay, a short story, a fairy tale and a poem, an ode and fantasy in the aggregate represent the entire array of fiction.
In all epic genres, the type of narration can be different. Depending on whose person the description is being made - the author (the story is conducted from a third party) or a personified character (the story is conducted from the first person), or on behalf of a particular storyteller. When the description is conducted in the first person, options are also possible - the narrator may be one, there may be several, or it may be a conditional narrator who did not participate in the events described.
The characteristic features of these genres
If the narration is conducted from a third party, then some detachment, contemplation in the description of events is assumed. If from the first or several persons, then there are several different views on the events interpreted and the personal interest of the heroes (such works are called copyright).
Characteristic features of the epic genre are the plot (assuming a successive change of events), time (in the epic genre, it assumes the presence of a certain distance between the events described and the time of description) and space. The three-dimensionality of space is confirmed by the description of portraits of heroes, interiors and landscapes.
Features of the epic genre characterize the latter's ability to include elements of both lyrics (lyrical digressions) and drama (monologues, dialogues). Epic genres seem to overlap.
Forms of epic genres
In addition, there are three structural forms of the epic - large, medium and small. Some literary scholars omit the middle form, referring the story to a large one, which includes a novel and an epic. There is the concept of an epic novel. They differ from each other in the form of narration and plot. Depending on the questions posed for consideration in the novel, it may relate to historical, fantastic, adventurous, psychological, utopian and social. And these are also features of the epic genre. The number and global nature of topics and questions that can be answered by this literary form allowed Belinsky to compare the novel with the epic of private life.
The story belongs to the middle form, and the story, short story, essay, fairy tale, parable and even anecdote make up a small epic form. That is, the main epic genres are a novel, a story and a story, which literary criticism characterizes as, respectively, “a chapter, a leaf and a line from the book of life”.
Representatives of the large form of genres
Along with the above epic genres such as poem, short story, fairy tale, essay, have their own characteristic features that give the reader an idea of a certain content. All epic genres of literature are born, reach the peak of perfection and die. Now rumors are circulating about the dying of the novel.
Representatives of epic genres of large forms, such as a novel, an epic or an epic novel, speak of the scale of the events displayed, representing both national interest and the life of an individual against the background of these events.
The epic is a monumental work, the theme of which always becomes problems and phenomena of national significance. A striking representative of this genre is the novel "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy.
Components of epic genres
The epic poem is a poetic (sometimes prosaic - “Dead Souls”) genre, the plot of which, as a rule, is dedicated to the singing of the national spirit and traditions of the people.
The term "novel" itself came from the name of the language in which the first printed works were published - Romanesque (Rome or Roma, where the works were published in Latin). The novel can have a lot of features - genre, compositional, artistic-stylistic, linguistic and plot. And each of them gives the right to attribute the work to a specific group. There is a social novel, moral, cultural, historical, psychological, adventure, experimental. There is an adventure novel, there is English, French, Russian. Basically, a novel is a large, artistic, most often prose work written according to certain canons and rules.
The average form of the art epic
Features of the ethical genre of "story" are not only in the volume of the work, although it is called the "small novel". There are much fewer incidents in the story. Most often, it is dedicated to one central event.
A story is a prosaic short piece of narrative character that describes a specific case in life. It differs from a fairy tale by realistic coloring. According to some literary scholars, a story may be called a work in which there is a unity of time, action, event, place and character. This all suggests that the story usually describes one episode occurring with one hero at a particular time. There are no clearly defined definitions of this genre. Therefore, many believe that the story is the Russian name for the short story, which was first mentioned in Western literature in the 13th century and was a small genre sketch.
As a literary genre, the novel was approved by Boccaccio in the XIV century. This suggests that the novel is much older than the story by age. Even A. Pushkin and N. Gogol attributed some stories to stories. That is, a more or less clear concept that defines what a “story” was, appeared in Russian literature in the XVIII century. But there are no obvious boundaries between the story and the short story, except that the latter at its very beginning resembled more like a joke, that is, a short funny life sketch. The novel retained some features inherent in it in the Middle Ages to the present day.
Representatives of a small form of art epic
The story is often confused with the essay for the same reasons - the lack of a clear wording suggesting the existence of writing rules. Moreover, they arose almost simultaneously. Essay is a short description of a single phenomenon. Nowadays, this is more of a documentary story about a real event. In the name itself there is an indication of brevity - outline. Most often, essays are published in periodicals - newspapers and magazines.
Due to the massive nature of the phenomenon, one should note a genre such as “fantasy”, which is gaining popularity recently. He appeared in the 20s of the last century in America. Lovecraft is considered its ancestor. Fantasy is a kind of science fiction genre that does not have any scientific connotation and consists entirely of fiction.
Representatives of "lyrical prose"
As noted above, a fourth has been added to the three literary genera nowadays, representing such lyrical and epic literary genres as a poem, a ballad, and a song. The features of this literary kind consist in combining the storyline with a description of the narrator's experiences (the so-called lyrical "I"). The name of this genus contains its essence - the combination of elements of lyrics and epic into one. Such combinations have been encountered in literature since antiquity, but these works stood out as an independent group at a time when interest in the narrator’s personality sharply began to emerge - in the era of sentimentalism and romanticism. Lyro-epic genres are sometimes called "lyrical prose."
All kinds, genres and other literary units, complementing each other, ensure the existence and continuity of the literary process.