Literary Genres
General List
Fiction Genres:
Fairy Tales
Definition: Literary genre that is a story, usually for  children, about elves, hobgoblins, dragons, fairies, or other magical creatures.
Examples: Hansel and Gretal; Jack and the
Beanstalk; The Ugly Duckling; The Shoemaker and
the Elves; Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Fantasy
Definition: Literary genre that is an imaginative or fanciful work, esp. one dealing with supernatural or unnatural events or characters.
Examples: The Book of Three, The Dark Is Rising, Five Children and It, Half Magic, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, A Wrinkle in Time
Folk Tales
Definition: Literary genre that is a tale or legend
originating and traditional among a people or folk, especially forming part of the oral tradition of the
common people. Any belief or story passed on
traditionally, especially one considered to be false  or based on superstition.
Examples: Cinderella; Little Red Riding Hood;
Princess Furball; Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s
Ear; How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have?
Tall Tales
Definition: Literary genre that is an extravagantly
and humorously exaggerated story of the
backwoods exploits of an American frontiersman.
Examples: Johnny Appleseed; Billy the Kid; Buffalo  Bill; Paul Bunyan; Davy Crockett
Fable
Definition: Literary genre that is a brief allegorical  narrative, in verse or prose, illustrating a moral
thesis or satirizing human beings. The characters of
a fable are usually animals who talk and act like
people while retaining their animal traits.
Examples: The Boy Who Cried Wolf; The city Mouse  and the Country Mouse; The Lion and the Mouse
Adventure
Definition: Literary genre pertaining to an exciting  or very unusual experience, participation in
exciting undertakings or enterprises, a bold,
usually risky undertaking, or hazardous action of
uncertain outcome.
Examples: Wild Timothy; Tracks in the Snow; The
Incredible Journey; Island of the Blue Dolphins;
Hatchet; The Whipping Boy; The Princess Bride
Mystery
Definition: Literary genre whose plot involves a
crime or other event that remains puzzlingly
unsettled until the very end.
Examples: Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing
Eye; Nate the Great and the Stolen Base; The Case of the Hungry Stranger;; Danger in Tibet
Historical
Definition: Literary genre pertaining to, treating, or characteristic of history or past events, based on or reconstructed from an event, custom, or style, in the past, or having once existed or lived in the real
world, as opposed to being part of legend or fiction or as distinguished from religious belief.
Examples: Separate But Not Equal; The Dream and
the Struiggle; The Girl on the Outside; Number the
Stars; More Than Anything Else
Realistic
Definition: Literary genre interested in, concerned
with, or based on what is real, practical, pertaining to, characterized by, or given to the representation  in literature or art of things as they really are, or
resembling or simulating life.
Examples: Drawing Lessons; Journey; Sarah, Plain
and Tall; Just One Tear; A Summery Saturday
Morning; The Tricksters; After the Rain; Babyface;
Junebug; Newfound
Science
Definition: Literary genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part of the
story. Many of the events recounted in a science
fiction story are within the realm of future
possibility like robots, space travel, interplanetary  war, or invasions from outer space.
Examples: The Postman; The Gathering; The
Homecoming; The Giver; Aliens: Earth Hive; House
of Stairs; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea;
The Time Machine
Nonfiction Genres:
Informational
Definition: Literary genre that is intended for
teaching and related informational purposes
primarily intended to educate rather than entertain.
Examples: The Reasons for Seasons; Lightening;
Animals Eat the Weirdest Things; Elephants; Safari;
Snowflakes
Biography
Definition: Literary genre that is a written account
of another person’s life or the reconstruction in
print or on film, of the lives of real men and women.
Example: Making Headlines: A Biography of Nellie
Bly; Elizabeth Barrett Browning; The Legend of
Jesse Owens; Robert Kennedy; Nelson Mandela: A
Biography; The Life and Many Deaths of Harry
Houdini
Autobiography
genre
Definition: Literary genre that is a history of a
person’s life written or told by that person or an  individual’s interpretation of his own life.
Examples: Within Reach: My Everest Story; An
Enemy Among Friends; Sky, A True Story of
Resistance During World War II; The Cage

版权声明：本站内容均来自互联网，仅供演示用，请勿用于商业和其他非法用途。如果侵犯了您的权益请与我们联系QQ:729038198，我们将在24小时内删除。