1. Genres in Literature

2. Definition:
• a category of artistic,
musical, or literary
composition characterized
by a particular style, form,
or content

3. Fiction: something invented by the imagination or feigned,
specifically, an invented story.
Fairy Tales Epics
• Features magic or • Story of a quest
fantastic characters • Features “Hero”
• Moral based • Good vs. Evil
• Archetypical
characters

4. Non-Fiction:
the branch of literature comprising works of narrative prose
dealing with or offering opinions or conjectures upon facts
and reality.
Essays Biographies and Memoirs
• Makes a point • Tells of true events
• Written to address an • Told in the past tense
audience • Details the life of an
• Structured individual

5. Other Genres of Fiction
• Science Fiction
• Fantasy
• Novel
• Romance
• Short Fiction
• Westers

6. Can you name some familiar
Science Fiction titles?

7. What is your favorite?
• Star Wars
• The Time Machine
• Dune
• …?

8. Poetry
A literary work in which
special intensity is given to
the expression of feelings
and ideas by the use of
distinctive style and rhythm

9. We have all heard poetry like
this…
There was an old man from Peru
Who dreamt he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in a fright
In the middle of the night
And found it was perfectly true.

10. But have you heard poetry like
this?
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my
hands.

11. Poetry Comes in Many Genres
Epic
Limerick
Haiku
Blues Poem
Sonnet
So many, many more!

12. Trends in Genres

15. So many….
There are hundreds of
genres and sub-genres
and even sub-sub-genres,
all differing on who you
ask! The idea is not
memorization. Just explore
and get the feel of how
genres work.

16. Explore of your own….
Refer to the list of genres
definitions in The Dictionary of
Literary Terms