A literary genre is a category of literature. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or length (especially for fiction). They generally move from more abstract, encompassing classes, which are then further sub-divided into more concrete distinctions. The distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, and even the rules designating genres change over time and are fairly unstable.
Genres can all be in the form of prose or poetry. Additionally, a genre such as satire, allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. They are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed.
History of genres
thumb|"Allegories of literary genre" by [[Constant Montald (1899)]]
Aristotle
The concept of genre began in the works of Aristotle, who applied biological concepts to the classification of literary genres, or, as he called them, "species" (eidē). These classifications are mainly discussed in his treatises Rhetoric and Poetics.
Genres are categories into which kinds of literary material are organized. The genres Aristotle discusses include the epic, the tragedy, the comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and phallic songs. Genres are often divided into complex sub-categories. For example, the novel is a large genre of narrative fiction; within the category of the novel, the detective novel is a sub-genre, while the "hard-boiled" detective novel is a sub-genre of the detective novel.
In the Rhetoric, Aristotle proposed three literary genres of rhetorical oratory: deliberative, forensic, and epideictic. These are divided based on the purpose of the orator: to argue for future policy or action (deliberative), discuss past action (forensic), or offer praise or blame during a ceremony (epideictic).
In the Poetics, Aristotle similarly divided poetry into three main genres: the epic, tragedy, and comedy. In the case of poetry, these distinctions are based not on rhetorical purpose, but on a combination of structure, content and narrative form. For each type, he proposed a definition as well as the rules for its construction.
Further development of genre
After the time of Aristotle, literary criticism continued to develop. The first-century Greek treatise "On the Sublime", for example, discussed the works of more than 50 literary writers and the methods they used to influence their audiences' emotions and feelings.
In his extensive literary work, the Roman author Cicero did not simply adopt Aristotle’s concepts of literary genres, nor did he follow Plato’s earlier approaches; instead, he developed a new, rhetorically informed understanding of genres based on the expressive power of language.
Romantic genre theory
The origins of modern Western genre theory can be traced to the European Romantic movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, during which the concept of genre was scrutinized heavily.
The idea that it was possible to ignore genre constraints and the idea that each literary work was a "genre unto itself" The reason for this shift is often attributed to the social events that were taking place in the Western world in terms of wars, infighting and overthrown leadership. These genres are in turn divided into subgenres.
Western literature is typically subdivided into the classic three forms of Ancient Greece, poetry, drama, and prose. Poetry may then be subdivided into the genres of lyric, epic, and dramatic. The lyric includes all the shorter forms of poetry, for example, song, ode, ballad, elegy, sonnet. Dramatic poetry might include comedy, tragedy, melodrama, and mixtures like tragicomedy.
The standard division of drama into tragedy and comedy derives from Greek drama.