Literary Genres — Definition, Types, and Examples
Genres of literature
Genre is the classification of literature based on its content, form, or style. Each genre has a specific set of characteristics, and while literary works do not need to abide strictly by those traits, each example of a genre must display some of the associated features.
Types of genres
Some of the most popular literary genres include drama, fantasy, mystery, nonfiction, thriller, and the following:
An autobiography is an account of the writer’s own life; a biography is an account of an individual’s life written by someone else.
Often associated with a coming-of-age story, bildungsroman works focus on a character’s literal or metaphorical journey through loss, personal growth, and maturation; many of these works are written for young adults.
A drama depicts fictional or non-fictional events through performance (i.e., play).
Works of fantasy incorporate magical and supernatural elements. They are typically set in an imaginary world that features fantastic and mythical characters and events.
Historical fiction novels combine historical figures and events with fictional stories.
Horror stories aim to create feelings of fear, dread, repulsion, and terror in the reader.
Magical realism consists of works that accurately depict the real world while including fantastical elements. These elements are not considered unrealistic by the characters in the work.
A mystery, also known as detective fiction or procedural, follows the main character attempting to solve a mystery. Mystery novels often turn the reader into a detective by only providing certain information as the plot progresses.
Nonfiction writing is based on facts, real people, and actual events, making the genre mainly informational or instructional.
Science fiction, or sci-fi, focuses on predictions of what the world might become in the future. Science fiction authors attempt to create details that are technically possible and based on scientific or rational thought, causing the genre to differ from fantasy. Science fiction settings are sometimes in outer space or a dystopian Earth.
Thrillers incorporate plots driven by suspense and typically keep the reader guessing through twists and cliffhangers.
Westerns focus on settlers, cowboys, and outlaws exploring America’s western frontier.
Each genre category can be distinguished by its characteristics, even though some may overlap. New genres are created as cultures and taste change and others fade away. Some different genres also have sub-genres under them, such as the following:
A romantic comedy is a funny love story.
Time travel novels may combine historical fiction and science fiction to show historical events from a future perspective or time period.
Fairy tales are typically children’s stories with an element of magic or fantasy and sometimes a moral.
Gothic fiction became popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, featuring mystery and horror stories often taking place in medieval castles. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a famous example.
Dystopian fiction imagines a future society with suffering or injustice.
Action-adventure stories follow the protagonist’s quest to reach some sort goal.
Espionage novels, like Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, detail a spy’s activities.
Graphic novels are novels in comic-strip format and became popular in the late 21st century.
Genre examples
The following list categorizes various literary works into the appropriate genre:
Autobiography/Biography
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai is an autobiographical account of Yousafzai’s experience of being shot by the Taliban due to her activism in the fight to provide girls and women with access to education.
Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert details a portrait of Winston Churchill’s youth, education, and early military career in a biography.
Bildungsroman
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee follows the growth of young Scout Finch as she becomes familiar with the effects of racism.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is a coming-of-age novel that tracks the growth of protagonist Holden Caufield as he comes to terms with who he is and how he fits into the world around him.
Drama
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles is a tragic play that follows Oedipus as he discovers the truth behind his ill-fated life.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Willian Shakespeare is a comedy that satirizes the idea of love by detailing the lives of four Athenian youths.
Fantasy
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a fantastical novel that follows Alice through various absurd and illogical scenarios after falling down a rabbit hole and ending up in Wonderland.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien details the journey of various mythological beings traveling to save their world from personified evil.
Historical Fiction
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck follows the fictional Joad family who heads west after losing their farm because of the Dust Bowl to find work as the Great Depression impacts the entire country.
Beloved by Toni Morrison is set after the Civil War and tells the story of a formerly enslaved person whose house is haunted by an evil spirit.
Horror
“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe shows the protagonist’s guilt after committing a murder as a beating heart under his floorboards where he hid the body.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson follows a parapsychologist as he attempts to legitimize the study of the paranormal. Therefore, he invites a group of people to spend the summer in a supposedly haunted house.
Magical Realism
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez details the creation of a utopian city in the middle of a swamp through the eyes of the Buendia family. The town survives for a hundred years until a five-year storm nearly wipes it from existence.
The House of the Spirits by Isabella Allende follows the Trueba family and their deep connection with the spirit world as they traverse through a turbulent world.
Mystery
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie is the story of ten people invited to a mansion. With the hosts remaining unknown, each guest must confront their troubling pasts.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown follows symbologist Robert Langford as he attempts to decode a set of riddles that will help shed light on a murder in the Louvre.
Nonfiction
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank is a published version of Anne’s diary, which tells of her Jewish family’s experience hiding from the Nazis during World War II.
Night by Elie Wiesel details his experiences as a fifteen-year-old boy during the Holocaust as he is forced to live in multiple concentration camps with his father.
Science Fiction
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is set in the year 2540. Huxley predicts a radical future that revolves around science and efficiency and the removal of emotions and individuality.
1984 by George Orwell predicts a future where everyone is constantly under surveillance by the Party, a group that has brainwashed the citizens into blindly following its leader, Big Brother.
Thriller
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn details the disappearance of a woman and the resulting investigation that suggests her husband is a murderer.
Misery by Stephen King follows a famous author as a deranged fan imprisons him. When the author is seriously injured due to a car crash, the fan brings him into her house but forbids him from leaving.
Western
Shane by Jack Schaefer follows events occurring in a small outpost in Wyoming when the mysterious titular character who refuses to carry a gun arrives as a cattle driver attempts to take land from a family.
Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton focuses on the conflict between two men as they search for dinosaur bones in the 1860s.