VARIOUS GENRES OF LITERATURE
Do you know why the same poem may have different meanings to different people? Or why one writer writes a play, while another prefers a novel? Poetry, plays and novels are different genres, or forms, of literature. The other major genres are short stories, essays, letters and literary criticism. While many features can apply to literature in general, certain characteristics are more relevant to particular genres.
Don't Worry About Meaning
The earliest genre in the literature of most countries was poetry, and the poems were recited or sung for many generations before they were finally written down. This was the situation in English literature, Malay literature, Chinese literature as well as Indian literature. So if you hear an actor singing a poetic lyric to his sweetheart in a Tamil movie, for example, you are not witnessing an irrational action that does not normally happen in real life, rather you are experiencing a sharing of emotion in an artist manner which our forefathers possibly did long ago.
A special feature of poetry is music -- not the type of music provided by musical instruments, but the music of the words in the poems themselves. Nevertheless, in the past many poems were actually sung and accompanied by musical instruments. Some people enjoy poetry chiefly for its poetic music, often without bothering about the meaning of the poem. Let's enjoy the poetic music of the following lines:
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There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass.
-- Lord Tennyson, The Lotus Eaters.
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If I were a dead leaf thou mightiest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free.
-- Shelley, Ode to the West Wind.
Don't Just Read a Play, See It
Drama, like poetry, developed early in the history of English literature. Although we now read dramas in books, and study dramas like any other genres of literature, we must not forget that they are actually meant to be played on stages. Hence, they are called plays. Drama is more of a performing art than a literary art; and the success of a drama depends more on theatrical devices than literary techniques -- and in modern time when it is shown on television or in cinemas, it depends much on audio-visual technology.
The early plays in English literature were written in verse, and there is much beautiful poetry in such plays. Modern plays are almost always written in prose, as playwrights argue that since people in real life do not ordinarily speak in verse, drama written in prose is more realistic. This argument, however, does not reduce our enjoyment of those plays written in verse, because we fully realize that no matter how realistic the acting and dialogues are, a play is still a play -- it is not real, but a work of art created for our entertainment, and perhaps also for our education. Indeed, if we try to rewrite Shakespeare's plays in modern prose, much of their enchantment is lost.
Savour the enchantment of the following lines from The Merchant of Venice:
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How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears -- soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
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The moonlight shines sweetly on this bank. We will sit here and listen to the sound of music. The atmosphere is soft and still. This stillness and the darkness of the night seem to produce the harmony of music.
Modern plays, however, do not fall into these categories so easily. They are generally realistic, though some are symbolic, dealing with themes and conflicts of everyday occurrences that happen to common people, quite unlike the classical plays where the heroes are usually people of high standing. An interesting development of modern drama for entertainment is the musical, where singing and music take up a great portion of the play, and this is reminiscent of the classical opera.
Novel, a Fresh New Way
While a play is to be performed, a novel is to be read. The novel is a comparatively late genre in English literature. Story telling, in verse or in prose, was already popular in ancient time, but telling a story in the present form of the modern novel became a genre on its own only in the 18th century. In fact, the term "novel" originally referred to a fresh, new approach to telling a story. Some of the early English novelists who gave the novel its present form were Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. The novel developed rapidly, and is at present the most widely read genre of literature.
How is the novel a fresh, new way of telling a story? Although the story, which is technically called the plot, provides the main framework for the novel to unfold, what the novelist wishes to achieve is not just telling a story. This is a major difference between a novel and earlier forms of prose or verse fiction. Indeed, in many novels, the gist of the story can be summarized into a short paragraph, whereas the length of most novels today is between 50,000 to 100,000 words. Just reading the plot summary will, of course, miss the enchantment and benefits of the novel.
As the novelist unfolds the plot, which can by itself be very exciting and full of suspense, he also reveals character. By describing what the people in the novel do and say, what their feelings and inner thoughts are, how they face problems and overcome conflicts, the novelist is providing us with a vehicle to experience and learn about the myriad facets of life. Plot development and characterization, therefore, are two important aspects of the novel.
Some novelists are not contented with just telling a story and revealing con¬scious character; they go below the subconscious to find hidden traits that may explain otherwise unexplainable behaviour. This gives us the psychological novel. Other novelists describe not outward events and behaviour, nor even inner psycho¬logical issues; but a world of fantasy that can only result from the fertile imagination of the writer, or that will, with the astonishing advance of science, occur in the future. These are the fantasy novel and the science-fiction novel.
Hence, besides the general or mainstream novels which deal with everyday happenings, but in an intense and striking manner, we also have genre novels, such as historical novels, psychological novels, romantic novels, juvenile novels, mystery novels, novels of fantasy, and science fiction.
The Oldest is also a Baby
Among the various genres in literature, the short story is a baby. Although the narration of folk tales and fables was one of the oldest literary forms in ancient time, the emergence of the modern short story as a separate genre occurred only in the last century. The pioneers of the modern short stories were Edgar Allan Poe in America, Guy de Maupassant in France, and Anton Chekhov in Russia. They were much influenced by short stories of Asia and the Middle East.
As the name suggests, a short story is short --when compared to a novel. But some short stories are actually quite long, especially those of earlier periods, and are as long as 8,000 words; while others are really short, only about 500. So you can see that the length of short stories varies greatly, but most modern short stories are somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 words.
Many students may think of the short story as a condensed form of the novel. Though many aspects of the novel like plot, characterization, theme and setting are also applicable to the short story, the skill of writing a short story is actually quite different from that of a novel. It is also a mistake to think that writing a short story is much easier because it is much shorter. Of course the time to write a short story is much less, but it may need more skill to write a really good short story than a good novel. Because the story is short, every word counts, in contrast to the novel where the novelist has more room to flex his literary muscles. Within the narrow confine of about a thousand or two thousand words, the short story writer has to develop his plot, convey the urgency of the hero's problem, win the readers' sympathy and interest, and show how the hero overcome his conflict satisfactorily.
Hence, the short story has space for only one incident, and concentrates on only one main character. Other characters, if any, are merely supportive. But this does not mean the short story is inferior to the novel, or less enjoyable to read. Indeed there are certain advantages the short story has over the novel. An obviously advantage is that it takes much less time to read a short story. Unless that short story is badly written, once we have started on it, we are unlikely to stop half-way -- an advantage a novel may not have. Because the short story is compact and focused, it is comparatively easier for the writer to convey his point to the readers, be it an idea or an emotion. Similarly, our response to it is often more lasting and deeply satisfying, whereas in a novel this response will be more spread out. The short story, therefore, has a charm of its own, and characteristics that may not be found in other genres.
Public Consumption and Personal Perusal
Short stories and novels are works of fiction written in prose. Letters, essays and literary criticism are also written in prose, but they are works of non-fiction.
When I was in school, some English teachers sometimes referred to composition writing exercise as essay writing. Strictly speaking, this was not correct. Very few school students are capable of writing an essay, if we take the term "essay" to mean what it actually means.
An essay is a literary composition in prose, of a few thousand or more words, on any given subject that deals with life in general. A notable feature of an essay is that it represents the writer's comments on various aspects of life; it is not an authoritative conclusion. The term "essay" comes from the French word "essai", which means an attempt, suggesting continual attempts to reflect on the topic in question.
Francis Bacon, who published "The Essays" in 1597, is often regarded as the father of the English essay. Bacon's essays greatly influence the method of scientific investi¬gation even up to today. The 18th century was the great age of essay writing.
Some of the greatest literary figures in the English language were great essayists. Outstanding examples include John Locke, whose An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) is regarded as one of the finest works in English philosophy; George Berkeley, who proposed in An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709) that the material world is an illusion; and Dr Samuel Johnson, whose The Lives of the Poets (1779-81) contains some of the finest essays in literary criticism.
The 18th century, with its leisure and cultured society, also produced many great letter writers beside essayists. While essays are meant for public consump¬tion, letters are meant for personal perusal. Letters form an interesting branch of English liter¬ature, as they are generally natural in style, warm in feeling, and informal in content.
Some of the most informative and elegant letters published are a series of useful advice from Lord Chesterfield to his son in France in the 18th century. Examples of other famous letter writers are Jonathan Swift and Horace Walpole, who were also novelists, and Thomas Gray and William Cowper, who were also poets.
So the next time when you write letters, do so to the best of your ability. If they are memorable enough, they may become literature in the future.
Learning to Understand and Enjoy
Literary Criticism, or literary appreciation, is the interpretation and appreciation of literature. Its chief purpose is to analysis a particular literary work to show its beauty as well as weakness, or to access fairly the worth and contribution of the writer. Many influential critics were themselves famous poets, dramatists or novelists.
As taste of society changes through time, so do principles of literary criticism. Early English critics like Sir Philip Sidney and John Dryden exhorted the classical models of the Greeks and Romans, advo¬cating that writing must be grand and magnificent. Later, critics like Goldsmith and Coleridge believed that both the themes and language used in literature should be of the common people. Modern critics like T.S.Eliot and F.R.Leavis advise a return to the text, and insist that literature should be judged on its own, free from extraneous historical bias and social values.
It is also interesting to examine the attitude or approach we adopt when attempting literary criticism. A comparison between A.C.Bradley's and Wilson Knight's approaches in their criticism of Shakespeare's plays is illuminating. Bradley adopts a narrative approach, treating Shakespeare's plays like novels, therefore stressing the dramatist's skill in revealing character. Knight's approach is poetic. He treats the plays like poetry, hence highlighting the rich imagery, rhythm, and expression of emotions.
A knowledge of criticism is very useful. It helps us to understand and enjoy literature better.
Make Believe or Factual
Besides classifying literature into literary forms or genres like poetry, drama, novels, short stories, essays and letters, we can also classify literature in two other ways. One is to divide literature into verse or prose. There other is to divide literature into fiction or non-fiction.
The difference between verse and prose will be discussed in more detail later when we study poetry. Here, it suffices to mention that verse has a regular beat and is written in stanza form, like a poem is; prose is irregular and is written in paragraphs, like what you are reading now.
Fiction is something that is invented by a writer, like a made-up story. The story is not real, it is not factual; it is created by the story teller. It may sound trite, but non-fiction is actually anything that is not fiction, like an essay on poetry appreciation. It may be facts or opinions, but it is not a made-up story.
This is a convenient classification, not a clear-cut division. For practical purpose, novels, short stories and plays are fiction. Sometimes it may not be easy to tell whether a piece of writing is fiction or non-fiction. For example, letter writing, especially if you are telling your correspondent factual information, is generally considered as non-faction. But if you describe in your letter a dream world in outer space, then you are writing fiction.
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