Epic genres of literature. Examples and features of the epic genre

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In all types of art there are historically established internal divisions, large - types, and smaller genres that make up these types.

Literary types

All literature is divided into the following types - lyrics, epic and drama.

Lyrica got its name from the musical instrument - the lyre. In ancient times, playing on it accompanied the reading of poetry. A classic example is Orpheus.

Epos (from the Greek epos - narration) is the second kind. And everything that is included in it is called epic genres.

Drama (from Greek drama) - the third kind.

Even in ancient times, Plato and Aristotle attempted to divide literature by gender. Scientifically, this division was substantiated by Belinsky.

Recently, a set of certain independent works has been formed and separated into a separate (fourth) type of literature. These are lyrical-epic genres. From the name it follows that the epic genre absorbed and transformed in itself the individual components of the lyricalgenre.

Examples of artistic epic

The epic itself is divided into folk and author's. Moreover, the folk epic was the forerunner of the author's epic. Examples of epic genres such as novel, epic, short story, short story, essay, short story, fairy tale and poem, ode and fantasy together represent the entire array of fiction.

In all epic genres, the type of narration can be different. Depending on whose person the description is being made - the author (the story is told in the third person) or a personified character (the story is told in the first person), or on behalf of a particular narrator. When the description is in the first person, options are also possible - there may be one narrator, there may be several, or it may be a conditional narrator who did not take part in the events described.

Characteristics of these genres

If the narration is in the third person, then some detachment, contemplation in the description of events is assumed. If from the first or several persons, then there are several different views on the events being interpreted and the personal interest of the characters (such works are called copyright).

The characteristic features of the epic genre are the plot (suggesting a successive change of events), time (in the epic genre, it assumes a certain distance between the described events and the time of description) and space. The three-dimensionality of space is confirmed by the description of the portraits of heroes, interiors and landscapes.

Features of epicThe genre is characterized by the ability of the latter to include elements of both lyrics (lyrical digressions) and drama (monologues, dialogues). Epic genres seem to have something in common with each other.

Forms of epic genres

In addition, there are three structural forms of the epic - large, medium and small. Some literary critics omit the middle form, referring the story to the long one, which includes a novel and an epic. There is the concept of an epic novel. They differ from each other in the form of narration and plot. Depending on the issues addressed in the novel, it can refer to historical, fantastic, adventurous, psychological, utopian and social. And this is also a feature of the epic genre. The number and global nature of topics and questions that this literary form can answer allowed Belinsky to compare the novel with the epic of private life.

The story belongs to the middle form, and the story, short story, essay, fairy tale, parable and even anecdote make up the small epic form. That is, the main epic genres are a novel, a story and a story, which literary criticism characterizes as, respectively, “a chapter, a leaf and a line from the book of life.”

Representatives of the major form of genres

Along with those listed above, such epic genres as a poem, a short story, a fairy tale, an essay, have their own characteristics that give the reader an idea of a certain content. All epic genres of literature are born, reach the peak of perfection andare dying. Now rumors are circulating about the dying of the novel.

Such representatives of epic genres of large forms as a novel, epic or epic novel speak of the magnitude of the displayed events, representing both national interest and the life of an individual against the backdrop of these events.

The epic is a monumental work, the theme of which is always problems and phenomena of national importance. A prominent representative of this genre is the novel "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy.

Components of epic genres

An epic poem is a poetic (sometimes prose - "Dead Souls") genre, the plot of which, as a rule, is dedicated to the glorification of the national spirit and traditions of the people.

The term "novel" itself comes from the name of the language in which the first printed works were published - Romance (Rome or Roma, where the works were published in Latin). A novel can have a lot of features - genre, compositional, artistic and stylistic, linguistic and plot. And each of them gives the right to attribute the work to a specific group. There is a social novel, moralistic, cultural-historical, psychological, adventure, experimental. There is an adventure novel, there is English, French, Russian. Basically, a novel is a large, artistic, most often prose work, written according to certain canons and rules.

Medium form of artistic epic

Features of the ethical genre"story" is not only in the volume of the work, although it is called a "small novel". There are far fewer incidents in the story. Most often, it is dedicated to one central event.

Story is a prosaic short work of a narrative nature, describing a specific case from life. From a fairy tale, it differs in realistic coloring. According to some literary critics, a story can be called a work in which there is a unity of time, action, event, place and character. All this suggests that the story, as a rule, describes one episode that occurs with one hero at a specific time. There are no clear definitions for this genre. Therefore, many believe that the story is the Russian name for the short story, which was first mentioned in Western literature as early as the 13th century and was a small genre sketch.

As a literary genre, the short story was approved by Boccaccio in the 14th century. This suggests that the short story is much older than the story in age. Even A. Pushkin and N. Gogol referred to some stories as short stories. That is, a more or less clear concept that defines what a “story” is, arose in Russian literature in the 18th century. But there are no obvious boundaries between the story and the short story, except that the latter, at its very beginning, looked more like an anecdote, that is, a short funny sketch of life. Some features inherent in it in the Middle Ages, the short story has retained to this day.

Representatives of a small form of artistic epic

The story is often confused withessay for the same reasons - the lack of a clear wording, suggesting the existence of spelling rules. Moreover, they appeared almost simultaneously. An essay is a short description of a single phenomenon. Nowadays, it is more of a documentary story about a real event. In the name itself there is an indication of brevity - to outline. Most often, essays are published in periodicals - newspapers and magazines.

Due to the mass nature of the phenomenon, it should be noted such a genre as "fantasy", which has been gaining popularity lately. He appeared in the 20s of the last century in America. Lovecraft is considered its ancestor. Fantasy is a type of fantasy genre that has no scientific basis and consists entirely of fiction.

Representatives of "lyrical prose"

As noted above, in our time, a fourth has been added to the three literary genres, which represents such lyrical-epic genres of literature as a poem, ballad, and song that have separated into an independent group. The features of this literary genre are the combination of the storyline with the description of the narrator's experiences (the so-called lyrical "I"). The name of this genus contains its essence - the unification of elements of lyrics and epic into one whole. Such combinations have been found in literature since antiquity, but these works stood out as an independent group at a time when interest in the personality of the narrator began to show sharply - in the era of sentimentalism and romanticism. Lyric-epic genres are sometimes called "lyrical prose".

All types, genres and other literary divisions, complementing each other, ensure the existence and continuity of the literary process.