Literary Forms
UNIT 1
Literary Forms Overview
 Imaginative literature may be divided into
three major literary forms:
 Poetry
 Fiction
 Drama
Poetry
 Poetry is usually categorized into three main
types:
 Epic
 Dramatic
 Lyric
 All three subcategories share common traits
such as specific patterns of rhythm and
syntax, the frequent use of figurative
language, and emphasis on the effects of the
arrangement of the words on the page.
Fiction
 Fiction is generally any narrative (story) about
invented characters and events.
 May be in verse or prose.
 Major genres of fiction include:
 Novel
 Short story
 Novella
Drama
 Drama does not typically contain a narrator
and is usually intended for performance.
 Types of drama include:
 Comedy
 Romantic comedy
 Tragedy
 Classical tragedy
 Tragicomedy
Drama
 Drama: comes from the Greek verb for “to
do” or “to act”
 Playwright: the maker of the play
 Meant to be performed
 Closet drama: intended to be read rather than
performed.
Comedy
 In comedy, the tone for the most part is light
 The main effects are to engage the audience,
the situations and characters tend to be
drawn from ordinary life.
 Resolution is happy (at least for the major
characters)
 Many traditional comic plots end with the
marriage of one or more couples
Types of Comedy
 High comedy:
 Depends primarily on verbal wit among
sophisticated, clever characters.
 Appeals to the tastes of a cultivated audience.
 Low comedy:
 Characterized by physical humor, such as slapstick
and obvious pranks.
 Fast-paced action, split-second timing of key exits
and entrances, ridiculous caricatures, broad and often
crass verbal humor
 Farce
More Comedy
 Romantic comedy
 Center on a love affair between a beautiful and
resourceful maiden, often in a male disguise, and
a worthy suitor, who must overcome social and
personal obstacles to arrive at a joyous resolution.
 Comedy of manners
 Also depicts young lovers, but the tone is more
sophisticated and cynical; the outlook is more
worldly
Tragedy
 Tragedy
 Serious tone
 Somber
 The effect is to involve and strongly motivate the
audience
 The outcome is disastrous for the protagonist, and
often for those associated with him or her.
 Resolution usually involves one or more deaths
Types of Tragedy
 Classical tragedy
 Center on a highborn tragic hero who commits an
irreversible error of judgment
 Hubris: excess pride
 Senecan tragedy
 Inspired the development of revenge tragedy
 Full of sensational elements such as ghosts, grisly
murders, nefarious schemes, and ruthless villains.
Last Tragedy
 Domestic tragedy
 Emerged from the rise of the middle class in the
18th century.
 Protagonist’s origins are not noble or aristocratic
but humble.
 Preoccupations are not with lofty, noble causes
but with mundane issues, such as financial debt
and marital strife.
Tragicomedy
 Fall in the middle of the tragic/comic spectrum.
 Focus on both high and low characters and
situations
 Bring a potentially tragic plot to a happy
resolution (at least for the protagonist) through
a sudden reversal of fortune or the reformation
of the protagonist’s opponent.
 Also called “dark comedies” or “problem
comedies”
Theater of the Absurd
 Prominent in the 20th century
 Questions the meaning of life in a universe
seen as godless.
 Ignores dramatic conventions such as having
a well-established setting, logical dialogue,
and a fully resolved conflict.
Periods of Drama
 Ancient Greek drama
 Major playwrights were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides in tragedy.
 Major playwrights were Menander and
Aristophanes in comedy
Periods of Drama
 Roman drama
 Seneca was the chief tragedian
 Plautus and Terence were the major comic dramatists
 English Medieval drama
 Divided into morality plays
 Allegories that depicted abstractions of human qualities,
usually engaged in a struggle for the soul’s salvation
 And mystery plays
 Designed to illustrate narratives from the Old and New
Testaments;
 Authors are anonymous.
Periods of Drama
 Elizabethan and Jacobean
 Major authors were William Shakespeare,
Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, and Ben
Jonson.
 Restoration and Eighteenth century
 Major authors included John Dryden, William
Congreve, Richard Brinsley Sheridan
 Modern Drama
 Ibsen, Chekhov, Wilde, Shaw, Beckett, O’Neill,
Miller, Pinter, Stoppard…
Homework
 Find an example of each type of play (comedy—
high, low, farce, romantic, manners; tragedy—
classical, senecan, revenge, domestic;
tragicomedy; theater of the absurd)
 Write the play’s title, author, and a brief explanation of
why the play falls into each category
 Find an example of a play for each period of
drama (ancient Greek, Roman, English medieval,
Elizabethan and Jacobean, Restoration and
Eighteenth century, and Modern)
 DUE FRIDAY