What is genre definition and meaning?

Table of Contents

What is Genre?

According to the specifics of the content and forms of depicting, artistic works are divided into five genres – prose, poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction. The first attempts to comprehend literary genres date back to the antiquity.

Types of genre:

As it has been already mentioned, there are 5 main genres:

prose
poetry
drama
fiction
non-fiction

Prose

Prose can be defined as any kind of written text that isn’t poetry (which means drama, discussed below, is technically a type of prose). The most typical varieties of prose are novels and short stories, while other types include letters, diaries, journals, and non-fiction (also discussed below).

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre.

Drama

Drama is a play that can be performed for theatre, radio or even television.

Fiction

Fiction broadly refers to any narrative that is derived from the imagination — in other words, not based strictly on history or fact.

Non-fiction

Nonfiction is that branch of writing which employs literary techniques and artistic vision usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on actual persons and events.