Literary genres describe literature from without. This means that the attempt is made to bring literary texts into order and to summarize them by their similarities and peculiarities. But sometimes this is not so easy, as there are many borderline cases.
In German lessons we learn that the literature can be divided into the generic terms epic, lyric and dramatic. The problem is, however, that this classification is completely irrelevant to most authors and that the terms are often expanded and subsequently expanded, or that they can not include all text types, genres, and subgroups.
This means that German literature and literary studies are much more interested in dividing written products into genera than the writers themselves.
Genres: epic, lyric, drama
In the 18th century the well-known division of the literary genres crystallized for the first time, referring to sources from the ancient world.
Aristotle, for example, differed in two kinds of texts: dramatic and non-dramatic texts. However, the familiarization of the genre was popular only in the 18th century and, above all, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Goethe, in fact, differed in the so-called natural forms of poetry and assumed that all three forms represented a mood or attitude of man. For this reason, he concluded that the literary genres have a supra-temporal character and must therefore always be valid.
“There are only three real natural forms of poetry: the clearly narrative, the enthusiastically excited and the personally acting: epic, lyric and drama. These three modes of sealing can be coalesced or separated. “(Taken from Goethe, West-Eastern Divan)
This division into epics, lyricism and drama has been held, at least in German, and only in the course of studies do we learn further forms of the literary genres and extensions of the concept.
Epik
The word Epik comes from the Greek and means “word”, “narrative” or “history”. It covers almost all the texts of the narrative literature.
In the field of epics, most texts and forms of the three literary genres certainly fall. For example, novels, autobiographies, crime and adventure romans, but also short forms such as short stories, fairy tales, short stories, jokes, fables and anecdotes.
Of course we would have to list numerous genres and sub-genres here, but the most important thing is that we can identify an epic text based on certain characteristics and characteristics as such.
Short overview: Epik
The epic reproduces the results of the external (description, statements, etc.) and inner world (feelings, thoughts, etc.) from the standpoint of a narrator.
Epic texts thus have a narrator who tells the story. This narrator is usually very easy to recognize (see: auctorial, personal, neutral narrator)
Epic texts are reproduced in verse or prose form. Kinds of play are possible, but usually epic texts are restricted to ebendies.
Example of an epic text
When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed into a monstrous vermin in his bed. He lay on his panzer-like hard back, and when he lifted his head a little, he saw his arched, brown belly, divided by arched stiffeners, on whose height the bedspread, ready for total descent, could scarcely be preserved. His many legs, miserably thin in comparison to his other extent, glimmered helplessly before his eyes (Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung)
poetry
Lyric originates from the lyre, a plucked instrument, and originally meant a song accompanied by lyre. Nowadays, we use poems of all kinds.
The poetry is therefore known to us mainly as a literary genre of poetry. This means that all forms of the poem can be grasped under these generic concepts, such as the ode, the ballad, the haiku, or even the elf.
But even in this literary genre, there are, of course, innumerable variations and subforms, which must not all be performed once we look at the most important features of the lyric.
Short overview: Lyric
The lyric appears fundamentally in the form of rhythmic bound speech, that is, in verse form. These verses are basically laid out in verses. → verse, stanza
Furthermore we find in the lyric a rhythm, which we can give by means of the measure (Metrum). Although this does not always correspond to a certain pattern, it can be observed and a poem.
