Today we're going to talk about literary genres and subgenres. While you watch the video, you can print out the worksheet to take notes and practice while you listen. To understand literary genres, the first thing we need is a definition of the word literature. So what is literature? Literature means books and other writing, usually by expert authors.
Now let's talk about the definition of literary genre. So what is a literary genre? Well, a genre is a type or category, and literary means of literature.
So a literary genre is a type or category of literature. There are four main literary genres. Drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Let's talk about the definition and an example of each one. Drama is a play for theater told by character dialogue or talking. Here's an example of a drama or play being performed in a theater. We can read drama and we can also watch it. Fiction is a story that did not actually happen in real life.
An example of a very famous story that's fiction is Twilight. We know Twilight is fiction because it's about vampires, which aren't real. Nonfiction is writing that is real and factual, or that actually happened. An example of nonfiction is any textbook you read in school, such as a science textbook or history textbook.
This example is information that would be shown in a science textbook. Poetry is writing using language and sounds in special ways to express ideas. Here is a very simple and maybe even silly example of poetry.
The rose is red, the violet's blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you. These words are told in a way that rhyme and have rhythm. We'll learn more about those two words later, but you can see when you hear these verses that poetry is read differently than fiction, nonfiction, or drama.
Now that we've learned what literary genres are, let's be more specific. These genres have subgenres. A subgenre is a smaller group or category.
Literary genres and subgenres. Now we'll name subgenres of each of the four genres, along with examples. So, drama has two sub-genres.
One is comedy and the other is tragedy. A comedy is a funny or humorous drama with a happy ending. One example of a very famous comedy is the comedy of errors by Shakespeare.
Now, we are talking about comedy as a subgenre of drama, but we can also see comedies on television and in the movies. A tragedy is a sad drama with a sad ending. An example of a very famous tragedy is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
Like comedy, tragedy also began and still is performed as a drama or play. But also like comedy, we can now watch tragedies on television and in the movies. Now let's talk about subgenres of fiction. The genre of fiction has several subgenres. Today we'll talk about eight of them.
Fantasy, folklore, historical fiction, mystery, realistic fiction, romance, science fiction, and thriller. Fantasy is a story in a fantasy world, or a world, that isn't real. An example of fantasy are the Harry Potter books.
Harry Potter's world is full of magic and wizards. That's why it's fantasy. A second subgenre of fiction is folklore. Folklore is old cultural stories. These include fairy tales, fables, myths, legends, and tall tales.
We'll discuss each type of folklore in a separate video. For now, just know that each of these is an example of types of folklore. Every country and culture has its own folklore.
Here's an example of Russian folklore. This book is a collection of stories about the famous character, Baba Yagi. And here is an example of Mexican folklore.
This is a story about La Llorona, or The Crying Woman. Another subgenre of fiction is historical fiction. This is a fiction story based on real history.
One famous example of historical fiction is the novel Gone with the Wind. by Margaret Mitchell. This story takes place during the Civil War in US history. So the Civil War actually happened, but the characters in the in Gone with the Wind, one of them is the famous character Scarlett O'Hara, the characters were not real.
And what happened in the lives of the characters also was not real, although it was based on real history. Mystery is another subgenre of fiction. A mystery is a story about a crime.
Here's an example. The novel And Then She Was Gone is a story about a girl who disappears. During this story, detectives and people living in the town she was in try to find where the girl is and what happened to her.
The fifth subgenre of fiction we'll talk about today is realistic fiction. This is a story that seems real, but isn't real. Realistic fiction is set in modern times, and it's about characters who seem like real people. A well-known example of realistic fiction is the story Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.
The main character, Jane Eyre, has a difficult childhood as a young girl. She grows up to work in the home of a man named Mr. Rochester. The picture on this book cover shows this home. It looks real. And Jane Eyre seems like a real person.
So does Mr. Rochester. But they're not real. That story is fiction.
It's realistic fiction because it seems true. Another subgenre of fiction is romance, or a love story. The novel A Perfect Gentleman is an example of a romance.
Science fiction is a story in the future with advanced technology. One well-known example of science fiction is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This story takes place about a hundred years into the future. and involves a character named Katniss, who's 16 years old. The government forces her and many other young people to battle each other in an event called the Hunger Games, which leaves only one survivor.
Sometimes science fiction can get confused with fantasy. The main difference between science fiction and fantasy is that science fiction is in a future world that has some similarities with our current world. It involves new inventions and technology, whereas fantasy happens in a world that is impossible, a world where, for example, animals talk or other impossible things happen.
And finally, a thriller or suspense is a story that makes readers nervous, excited, or even scared as they read. An example of a thriller is The Girl with No Past by Catherine Croft. In this story, readers learn secrets about a girl who appears in a town. The secrets they learn make readers feel nervous, excited, and sometimes scared as they read. Sometimes a thriller or suspense can be confused with a mystery.
But actually mysteries are different from thrillers. The goal of a mystery is to solve a crime and figure out who did the crime. In a thriller, sometimes there was no crime, or readers already know at the beginning who did the crime. The goal of the thriller is to thrill the audience by revealing secrets as the audience reads the book. Now we'll learn about subgenres of the genre nonfiction.
Today we'll learn about five sub-genres of nonfiction, including biography, autobiography, narrative, periodicals, and reference materials. One subgenre of nonfiction is biography, or a story of a person's life. Here's an example of a well-known biography.
This book is about the life of Albert Einstein, the famous scientist. It's written by the biographer, or author, Walter Isaacson. Another subgenre of nonfiction is autobiography or a story the author writes about himself or herself. An example of a famous autobiography is the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
It's a book that Benjamin Franklin wrote about his own life. Another subgenre of nonfiction is narrative nonfiction, or a story or narrative that happened in real life. An example of narrative nonfiction is the book called Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams. This book tells stories about explorers who rediscovered the place called Machu Picchu.
The stories in this book are real. They actually happened. The characters are real, the places are real, and the events are real.
That's what makes them narrative nonfiction instead of fiction. And finally, periodicals are magazines, newspapers, and journals that are written regularly. Regularly might mean once a week.
It might mean once a month, or sometimes even just once a year. All of those things are called periodicals. The most common type of periodical we see is a daily newspaper. The last subgenre of nonfiction we'll discuss today is reference materials. These are books with facts in alphabetical order.
Examples include a dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedia. Here's an example of a dictionary. Dictionaries list words in alphabetical order along with their meanings. And finally, the last subgenres we're going to discuss are subgenres of the genre poetry.
Remember that poetry is writing using language and sounds and special ways to express ideas. The subgenres of poetry that we'll learn about today are lyric, narrative, and dramatic poetry. Now let's define the subgenres of poetry.
The most popular and common subgenre of poetry is the the lyric or a poem about the speaker's thoughts. Most poems you see in here are lyrics. Examples of lyrics include elegy, ode, sonnet, and haiku. Today we won't talk specifically about elegy, ode, sonnet, and haiku, except to say each of them is a type of lyric.
And here is an example of a lyric. This is a haiku written by a famous haiku writer. Fallen flower I see. returning to its branch. Ah, a butterfly.
This lyric is a haiku. written about the speaker's thoughts of a flower. Like all poetry, you see how the lyric uses syllables and sounds to express thoughts in a special way that's different from how fiction, nonfiction, and drama express thoughts. Another subgenre of poetry is narrative, or a poem that tells a story. There are a few types of narratives, but one of them is an epic, or a long poem about a hero.
One famous example of an epic is Beowulf. Beowulf is an old poem that is about 3,000 lines long. That's a very long poem. It tells the story about a hero named Beowulf.
Beowulf was a warrior who saves the king from a monster named Grendel. Usually epics include lots of battles and fights that the hero wins in the end. The last poetry subgenre we'll discuss today is dramatic poetry, or words spoken by a character. We see dramatic poetry in another genre. Can you guess which one?
We see dramatic poetry in the genre drama, or plays. Three examples of dramatic poetry are soliloquy, dialogue, and monologue. We won't discuss the specifics and differences of soliloquy, dialogue, and monologue today, except to say that each of them is an example of dramatic poetry. Now, because William Shakespeare was a very famous drama writer, he's also responsible for many of the soliloquies, dialogues, and monologues we study today. Here's an example of a soliloquy by William Shakespeare that we see in the play Romeo and Juliet.
In Act II, Scene II, Juliet says the following words to herself. Romeo is standing nearby, but she doesn't realize it. She says,"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." In these words, Juliet is talking about Romeo, and what she's saying is, the name we call a person or an object doesn't matter.
What matters is how we feel about that person or object. Because this quote is meaningful, it's a very famous soliloquy that we study when we study dramatic poetry. Now let's practice what we've learned.
For each number, write the genre and subgenre described. Number 1. What is the genre and subgenre of a story about plants that come to life? Number 2. A book about the life of a famous soccer star.
An encyclopedia entry that describes vitamin E. 4. The humorous play, The Taming of the Shrew. 5. A long poem about a hero named Achilles.
A weekly newspaper called Main Street Times. Number seven, a sad play about the character Oedipus Rex. Number eight, a poem about a girl's ideas about friendship.
Number nine, a story about life in the year 3023. And number 10, a story about characters who lived during World War I. The characters are not real, but they seem real. Pause the video while you work and we'll check the answers in a moment. Are you ready to check the answers?
Let's check. Number one. The genre is fiction, and the subgenre is fantasy. We know it's fantasy because in the real world, Plants can't come to life. So, the subgenre is fantasy, and we know that fantasy is not real or factual.
It's fiction. Number two. The genre is nonfiction, and the subgenre is biography. We know this is a biography because it's the story of a person's life.
And we know that biographies are real and factual. That makes them nonfiction. Number three. The genre is nonfiction, and the subgenre is reference material.
We know that encyclopedias are a type of reference material, and we also know that reference material contains real and factual information. Therefore, the genre has to be nonfiction. Number four.
The genre is drama, and the subgenre is comedy. We know this is drama because it's a play, and we know that the subgenre is comedy because the play is humorous or funny. Number five.
The genre is poetry and the subgenre is epic. We know this is poetry because it's a poem. We know that it's an epic because epics are long poems about heroes. Number six. The genre is nonfiction, and the subgenre is periodical.
We know this is a periodical because newspapers are a type of periodical. And we know that this is nonfiction because periodicals contain real and factual information. So the genre has to be nonfiction. Number seven.
The genre is drama and the subgenre is tragedy. We know this is drama because it's a play. And we know that the subgenre is tragedy because this play is sad.
Number eight. The genre is poetry, and the subgenre is lyric. We know this is poetry because it's a poem. And we know it's lyric poetry because it's about a person's ideas about a topic.
That's what lyric poetry is. Number nine. The genre is fiction and the subgenre is science fiction. We know this is science fiction because it's set far into the future in the year 3023. We know it's fiction because it can't be real. It hasn't happened yet.
So the genre has to be fiction. And number 10. The genre is fiction, and the subgenre is historical fiction. We know this is historical fiction because it took place in World War I, which was a real period in history.
But the characters are not real, even though they seem real. Because the characters aren't real, the story and the genre is fiction. Literary Genres, the end.
Our literary genre and subgenre practice for today is complete. I hope this video helped you understand what a literary genre and subgenre are and how to identify examples of each one. Thank you for watching.