Literature Genres!

1. Prose -  a literary medium distinguished from poetry by its greater irregularity and variety of rhythm, its closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech, and its more detailed and factual definition of idea, object, or situation.
2. Poetry - metrical writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through its meaning, sound, and rhythm
3. Fiction - literature that was created from something imaginary or from the fabrication of the mind
4. Non-Fiction - literature that was created from facts
5. Essay - an analytic or interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view
6. Biography - a usually written history of a person's life
7. Autobiography - the biography of a person narrated by himself or herself
8. Fable -  a legendary story of supernatural happenings, or a narration intended to enforce a useful truth (ex: one in which animals speak and act like human beings)
9. Legend - a story coming down from the past, or one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable
10. Tragedy -  a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that elicits pity or terror
11. Comedy - the genre of dramatic literature dealing with the comic or with the serious in a light or satirical manner
12. Farce -  a light dramatic composition of satirical or humorous cast in which great latitude is allowed as to probability of happenings and naturalness of characters
13. Masque - a short allegorical dramatic performance popular as court entertainment in 16th and 17th century Europe, performed by masked actors often themselves members of the court, and consisting of dumb show combined with music, dancing, and sometimes poetry culminating in a ceremonial dance participated in by the spectators
14. Soliloquy -  a poem, a discourse, or an utterance of a dramatic character that has the form of a monologue or gives the illusion of being a series of unspoken reflections
15. Narrative Poetry - poetry that has a plot
16. Metrical Tale - poetry dealing with the emotions or phase of life and the story is told in a simple, starightforeard and realistic manner
17. ballad -  a narrative composition in verse of strongly marked rhythm suited to simple singing or dancing
18. song -  a short musical composition made up of mutually dependent words and music which together produce a unique aesthetic response
19. ode -  a lyric poem usually marked by particular exaltation of feeling and style and typically marked by varying length of line and by complexity of stanza forms
20. lyric - a poem characterized by or expressive of direct usually intense personal emotion
21. elegy - a pensive or reflective poem typically highly subjective and usually sorrowful, nostalgic, or melancholy
22. sonnet - a fixed verse form of Italian origin consisting of 14 lines that are typically 5-foot iambics rhyming according to a prescribed scheme
23. Shakespearean Sonnet - a sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg
24. Petrarchan Sonnet -  a sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abba abba and a sestet rhyming in any of various patterns (as cde cde or cdc dcd)
25. Spenserian Sonnet -  a sonnet in which the lines are grouped into three interlocked quatrains and a couplet and the rhyme scheme is abab, bcbc, cdcd, ee
26. Dramatic Monologue -  a literary work (as a poem) in which the character of a protagonist is vividly revealed in a monologue addressed to another person or a group of persons usually with interplay of speaker and audience