Literary Genres

Literary Genres – All Genres

The Narrative Genre, resulting from the evolution of the epic genre, is one of the most important of all time. Today, it occurs mainly in novels, short stories, novels and chronicles.

Its characteristic is to present a story, a sequence of facts with the following elements: Character, environment, plot, time.

The character

The character does not correspond to reality. It is a fiction, a product of the author's imagination, although, for this very reason, it may resemble a real person.

It is common for the character to take on other aspects, such as:

• An animal, a vegetable or even an inanimate being;
• A group of people, animals, inanimate beings, when called a collective character.

Two basic traits mark the characters:

• Physical ones, which are more evident, as they refer to height, weight, skin color, etc.;
• Psychological ones, whose understanding requires more attention from the reader, as they concern ideas, feelings, emotions, memories, etc.

Characters:

• Individuals: Themistocles, the prefect etc.
• Collectives: the two teams, the two cities, etc.

Not everyone has the same importance. Therefore, some do not have a name, while others are better characterized.

Physical characteristics:

• Themistocles: he kicked with both legs, was as strong as a bull, etc.;
• Colossal: he was Creole.

Psychological characteristics:

• Themistocles: courageous, professionally unstable, seductive, etc.;
• Betinho: inexperienced.The Environment

The environment

It consists of the space where the narrated actions take place. Two aspects are important:

The physical

It is integrated by the places where the narrated actions take place: countryside or city; country city or metropolis etc; public or private places: the street, the football field, the bar, the square, etc.

The cultural

Established by the social institutions at play, whether in the characters or through the plot, such as ways of acting and reacting, individual or group, customs, habits, instruments of work or leisure, etc.

In the text read, for example, there is:

• Two levels of physical space: firstly, a city in the Brazilian interior; second, a city hall location.
• Regarding features of the cultural space: taste for football, rivalry between cities, bribery of players, idealization of football players, with the creation of legends and passions awakened by Themistocles, etc.

The plot

The plot can be understood as a set of events in which the characters participate, in the given environment, during a certain time.

The following are essential constituents of the plot, in the order in which they are presented:

• The dispute between two cities, because of football;
• The bribery of the center forward of one of these cities;
• The need and the search for a substitute;
• The departure of an emissary to contact the substitute;
• The city's expectations and the legends about the replacement;
• The return of the emissary.

The time

In every narrative there is a time limit for the characters' actions, or, to put it another way: the plot has an initial limit and a final time limit. There are stories that last for a few moments; others, one or several days. There are novels that span months or years.

Time can be chronological or psychological.

Time is chronological when events are naturally ordered in the temporal sequence of the physical world, such as what occurs in the story of Themistocles.

Time is psychological in the story whose facts are not organized by the clock or the calendar, but by the character's inner life, to say what happens inside them, such as thoughts, emotions, feelings.

The origins and forms of narratives

Originally, narratives were written in verse. This is the case of the epic and the narrative poem.

The epic was responsible for extolling national heroes and their great deeds. Written in solemn verses, it revealed, through the narration of heroic acts, nationalism, heroism and the wonderful. These are important epic works in Western culture:

• In Greece: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey;
• In Rome: the Aeneid, by Virgil;
• In Portugal: the Lusíadas, by Camões.

The narrative poem was a composition in verse that contained characters and presented a chronological sequence of facts, with a much shorter length than the epic and without its grandeur.

The change in cultural patterns between the 16th and 18th centuries caused the evolution of genres. The epic gives way to romance.

The Lyricism

The word lyricism derives from lyre, because, originally, it refers to songs that were accompanied by the melody of this musical instrument. Afterwards, the text began to be read, instead of sung and set to music.

The lyrical text, like the narrative, is an expression of the individual: both result from the relationship between man and the reality that surrounds him. In the case of the individual, where the relationship is between the self and reality, one of the two always assumes greater importance and weight.

In literary texts, which express such a relationship, the imbalance between the elements leads to two situations:

• Objectivity: when the expression gives greater weight to reality and, consequently, less value to the self.

In this case, beings are figuratively identical to themselves, with the denotative language and the descriptive aspects of the external world predominating;

• Subjectivity: when the expression attributes more importance to the self than to reality.

Here, what predominates is the inner life of the self: its emotions, its feelings, its desires, its memories of the past.

Comparing lyricism with narrative, we have:

• Lyrism: greater subjectivity;
• Narrative: greater objectivity.

The lyrical genre is authentic speech from the heart, from the self, which is called lyrical self. Therefore, the lyrical composition is generally short and uses verse, almost always appealing to the melody involving the resources of poetic language.

Although, in literature, the word poetry is practically synonymous with lyrical, as it relates to personal feelings and emotions, it is practically impossible to define, and can occur without verse and even outside literary language, such as in a film, in a domestic scene or in other situations.

The origins and forms of lyricism

In the remote past, in its Greek origins, lyrical forms were countless, classified according to whether they sang warrior, political, moral or loving feelings, or according to whether they were intended for the individual or for a choir.

Modernly, classifications tended to disappear, with lyrical compositions being generally designated as poems.

Among some that remained longer or had more importance are:

The sonnet – poetic form with 14 verses that are presented in two quartets and two tercets. It is one of the most difficult forms of elaboration, precisely because it has an exact method and involves great synthesis needs, with a very rigorous rhyme scheme;

• the ode – generally much longer than the sonnet, contained various types of feelings, including the analysis of concepts, thoughts and reflections;
• the ballad – a song to be danced, which involved both narrative and lyrical aspects;
• the elegy – generally aimed at subjects more linked to sadness and melancholy;
• the song – was popular in nature and developed in the middle ages.

The theater

The grammatical genre, today simply theater, contains literary and non-literary elements.

Theater dispenses with the narrator, since each character speaks for themselves, as they have a life of their own, which is not the case in narrative, in which the narrator in a certain way commands the characters. Although there are events in both genres, while the narrative presents them, indirectly - through reading -, to the reader's imagination, the theater represents them, that is, it makes those present, on the stage or in an equivalent space, before the eyes of the viewer. viewer.
The literary element is the text. The non-literary ones are:

The setting - physical space decorated according to the objectives of the text;
– the characters- concrete figures that move, that act, making present, representing, the actions that the text involves;

– direct communication, auditory and visual, with spectators.
The set of these elements is today called a show, although not all shows are theater. This requires a literary base text, that is, fiction in words.

The origins and dramatic forms

The texts of the dramatic genre, and their Greco-Latin origins, were:

The tragedy – was, for the Greeks, the name of representations in honor of the God Bacchus, or Dionysus. As one scholar explains, “tragedy is a final and impressive misfortune, motivated by an unforeseen or involuntary error, involving people who deserve respect and sympathy. It usually implies an ironic change of fortune and communicates a strong impression of emptiness. Most of the time, this is accompanied by unhappiness and emotional suffering.”

The comedy – unlike the tragedy, it did not presuppose a serious theme. Also originating from the cults of Bacchus, it involved light, fun and even rude subjects.

Drama is a recent modality and is linked to social evolution that placed great emphasis on historical and bourgeois themes. It brings together elements that were previously typical of both tragedies and comedy. Therefore, it contains serious and comical subjects, typical of social life, such as habits and customs, beliefs, prejudices. It often takes critical forms, accentuating social and political vices.

Troubadourism

Troubadourism is the literary school that flourished in Provence, southern France, at the end of the 19th century. XI, dominating European poetry until the 14th century.

Historical-literary panorama

With the end of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD) and the barbarian invasions that devastated Europe, the Middle Ages began. The cities became depopulated and the population took refuge in the countryside, starting to live in the domain of large rural properties, called fiefdoms, and allowed the installation of humble people on their lands, as servants, on the condition that they provided services, paid taxes and obeyed to you gentlemen. These, in return, offered them protection.

Protection. In a violent world, this was a good thing everyone wanted. The feudal lords themselves organized themselves to strengthen their ability to face attacks. The way they found this was called a vassalage relationship, a type of alliance in which a large feudal lord granted part of his lands to another nobleman, so that he could form a new fiefdom. In return for the Gift, the beneficiary swore loyalty to the benefactor, also promising to join him in combat. The lord who granted the fief was called suzerain, who received it, vassal.

The social function of the aristocracy was military in nature. The education of young people from the nobility focused mainly on training knights, that is, warriors on horses. Becoming a knight, joining the Order of Chivalry, was a privilege that every nobleman aspired to, especially the poor, that is, those who did not have land. In the knight's education, the heroic ideal was instilled, consisting of honor, courage and loyalty. At the same time, weapons training took place. But, like everything in the Middle Ages, the ideal of nobility independent of religion was not conceived. The knight had to make piety and virtue the very essence of his behavior.

The Roman Church was the most influential cultural force of the Middle Ages. Her task was to explain and justify the world, and she did so through theocentrism. According to this ideology, there is a perfect and immutable order in the universe and society, and this perfect and immutable order in the universe and society, and this order comes from God, who is the center of everything. Therefore, everything must return to Him, which justifies placing spiritual goods above material ones, cultivating Christian values.

The chivalric ideal

Medieval literature vividly expresses the chivalric spirit, a mixture of aristocratic and religious values, as can be seen in chivalric novels and troubadour poetry.

The chivalric novels gave reason, mainly, to the chivalric epic spirit. These are prose narrative compositions that celebrate feats of arms of exemplary heroes, such as the knights of King Arthur's Round Table, praising warrior and moral virtues, in accordance with the ascetic ideal of Christianity.

Provençal troubadour poetry, in turn, was the highest expression of medieval European lyricism, prior to Dante and Petrarch.

Courtly love

In the feudal courts of Provence, a sophisticated culture developed, with a worldly sensibility, attentive to nature and focused on the sensual appreciation of love and women.

Love had never been treated as the center of life, as it was in the poetry of troubadours and minstrels. In this poetry, the love game follows an intricate set of rules, which reflects the behavior of the feudal court. Therefore, we speak of courtly love to characterize it. Among these rules, the one about curtsy (consideration, sense of measure) stands out, which did not allow mentioning the name of the beloved once the woman was married. This adulterous love clashes with theocentric morality.

Over time, the cult of women acquired more spiritualistic contours, to the point where the feeling inspired by her was sublimated in the form of platonic love. The passionate trovsdor pays allegiance to the beloved, unattainable lady. Loving vassalage metaphorizes the relationship of vassalage, which defines the hierarchical bonds of the feudal nobility.

The Baroque

The Baroque of Art History is the style that has been present since the end of the 20th century. XVI until the middle of the century. XVIII; however, its most characteristic period is the 19th century. XVII.

The most widespread hypothesis to justify the name given to this period of art is that the term “baroque” derives from Broatki, a province in India discovered by Portuguese colonizers in 1510. These merchants began to call the region Baroquia, because there they harvested, in abundance, a very special type of pearls; with a rough surface, quite irregular and with a color that mixed white and dark tones. The strange and bizarre appearance of these pearls made them highly sought after in Europe.

The term was incorporated into art because Baroque privileges a wealth of details and ornaments. In painting, it is characterized as the art of chiaroscuro (light-dark). The predominance of curved lines, with a strong suggestion of movement, exploring new effects of perspective and unreal appearance, with many filigrams in the ornamentation (foliage, scrolls, arabesques) are elements that come together to reinforce the property of such identification.

Historical-literary panorama

Complex and multiform, Baroque differs from previous Classicism by its exuberance of imagination and the effervescence of sinuous and asymmetrical images. Transgressing the principle of universal harmony in search of the classics, Baroque is characterized by the contortion of forms and instability.
The dynamism and imbalance, characteristic hallmarks of the Baroque, in a certain way mirror the reactions of the Church and the absolutist monarchies to the revolutionary process established by the Renaissance and the Reformation. The epicenter of this ultraconservative reactionism was the Spain of Felipe II, manifesting itself intensely in the sixty years in which that country dominated Portugal (1580-1640).

The Church's counter-offensive began with the Council of Trent (1545-63), which reestablished rigid doctrinal and moral norms, reactivating the Inquisition, with its practices of persecution, torture and other hostilities towards those considered “herges”.

Committed to restoring its prestige and power, the Church also established the Index Libri Improbi (1571), which listed works that Catholics were prohibited from reading. In addition to those that disseminated the reformist thought of Martin Luther and John Calvin, this list included the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Giordano Bruno and many others. Thus, a time of fascinating openness was followed by a period of obscurantism and repression, armed by the Church and supported by absolute monarchies.

The company of Jesus, founded in 1540 to serve as a spearhead for the Counter Reformation, took control of the main schools and universities, imposing on them the philosophy of medieval scholasticism in its Thomistic current, with a more traditional and uncompromisingly dogmatic line.

This bossy authoritarianism of the Church was reflected in practically all forms of Baroque art. As religion had once again become a primordial element of individual and collective life, Baroque became, in Catholic countries, the art of the Counter-Reformation.

Existential Dualism

Baroque man, due to the circumstances already mentioned, had a tense life, becoming a divided and anguished being. This suffocating feeling comes from the antagonistic pressures to which he was subjected: on the one hand, cornered by the Counter-Reformation; on the other, wanting to preserve the libertarian perspective that had been revealed to him by the Renaissance.
Cornered, what did you do to get out of this impasse? He assumed dual and contradictory attitudes towards life: he sought to reconcile Renaissance anthropocentrism with medieval/counter-reformist theocentrism. This search for existential synthesis corresponds to fusionism or hybridism, a fundamental trait of baroque art.

He thus became an “amphibian” being: he sought to enjoy the material pleasures of the ephemeral earthly life (the theme of Horatian carpe diem, “seize the day intensely”), at the same time that he became closer to the Church to ensure eternal happiness. To achieve this, he felt the need to dialogue with God, since “the saint can only emerge through man”, as considered by Father Antônio Vieira, the most representative writer of the Baroque in the Portuguese language.

This dilemma, this permanent feeling of doubt, insecurity and hesitation is demonstrated, for example, in the following sonnet:

“Nature’s Delusions”

At one point I am very happy, and I am saddened,
I cry, and I laugh, I dare, and I fear, I live, and I die,
I fall, and scream, I contemplate, and do not argue,
I leave, and stay, I don't go and say goodbye.

Remembering me, I forget myself
Now I run away, now I turn, I stop and run,
Already tied, already loose, fastened, and lining,
Lynx, and blind, I ignore myself, and I know myself.

I believe in myself, and I deny myself
I myself aggravate the evil, and I ask for healing
I myself console myself and resent myself.

Know therefore, every human creature,
That, to escape this maze,
You must escape the hands of beauty.

(Francisco de Pina e Melo, Rimas, 1st part, 1725)

Romanticism

Romanticism is the art of dreams and fantasy. It values the creative forces of the individual and the popular imagination. It is opposed to the balanced art of the classics and is based on the fleeting inspiration of the strong moments of subjective life: in faith, in dreams, in passion, in intuition, in longing, in the feeling of nature and in the strength of national legends.

Historical-literary panorama

Romantic art dominates the first half of the century. XIX, having originated at the end of the century. XVIII, in Germany and England. Its point of worldwide spread was France, at the beginning of the 19th century.

The romantic movement emerged as opposition to the rational spirit of the classics (balance, perfection, clarity, harmony, discipline) and as a means of expression for the bourgeoisie, which defines its power with the political success of the French Revolution (1789) and with the economic prestige of the Industrial Revolution (1760). Expressing the desire for freedom of this new class, then euphoric with the recent victory over the decadent nobility, romantic literature is based on imagination and sentimentalism, which disrespect the norms and models of classical literature, linked to the Old Regime. The result is impetuous literature, based on an engaging and warm type of phrase, very close to popular expectations.

Synthesizing romantic rebellion, Victor Hugo said, in 1827, in the preface to his famous play Cromwel: “Let us put the hammer into theories, poetics and systems (…) No rules or models”. From then on, literature stopped being produced for the aristocratic salons of the nobility in large circulation books, newspapers and magazines. The readership then became the banker, the businessman, the industrialist, the doctor, the teacher, the lawyer, the student, etc.

The Romantic sensibility

Romanticism is rebellious and revolutionary. His revolution represents in literature what the fall of the Old Regime represented in the political evolution of humanity. The literary taste of the Old Regime corresponds to Classicism, in a broad sense (Renaissance, Baroque, Arcadianism), just as Romanticism gives rise to contemporary sensibility, which involves Realism, Naturalism, Impressionism, Parnassianism, Symbolism and the various phases of Modernism. In addition to rebellion and the revolutionary spirit, the main characteristics of romantic literature are: individualism, nationalism and freedom.

Individualism

Individualism is synonymous with subjectivism, egotism and personalism. All these words point to the cult of the self. It just means that the romantic expresses in a free and almost direct way personal and intimate experiences: loves, doubts, desires, delusions, desires, fears and passions. Thus, romantic art can be both euphoric, with explosions of enthusiasm and optimism, and melancholic, with a crisis of depression and pessimism.

Nationalism

The Romantic artist values popular traditions, folklore and the history of his homeland. He loves the picturesque, the exotic and the local color of the homeland or region in which he grew up. Hence, in Brazil, the cult of nature (naturism): heroic Indians, virgin forest, rivers, myths and tribal wars. In Europe, artists' attention turned more to medieval legends (medievalism), which involved life in castles and wars between Christians and Arabs. In addition to representing aspects of medievalism, they can also be understood as a consequence of the desire for evasion or escapism, that is, the desire to escape immediate reality.

Freedom

Romantic freedom has technical and thematic consequences. From a technical point of view, freedom manifests itself in the break with the rigid norms of classical composition: new rhythms, new metric combinations, new genres and new poetic forms are created. In theater, drama is created, which is a deformation of classical tragedy. Instead of the classical sonnet, an open and free form of poetry called a poem is preferred, which can be either lyrical or epic.

In the narrative, romance is consolidated, which is a long story of adventure or love that involves bourgeois situations or values. The soap opera (a narrative shorter than a novel) and the Short Story (a narrative shorter than a soap opera) also come into fashion. From a thematic point of view, romantic freedom intensifies the use of imagination, dreams, ideals and fantasy. Thus, macabre scenarios emerge, with cemeteries, specters and nocturnal birds.

The Romantic Style

Romantic artists incorporated the feeling of nature into their literary style, that is, they began to see meanings and feelings in the landscape that actually belonged to them. This projection of the subject onto nature influences the style of romantic literature, which imitates the colors, sounds, rhythms, smells, and lines of the landscape. In Brazil, in particular, writers are also influenced by the natural language of the land, Tupi-Guarani.

In addition to suggestions from the fauna, flora and primitive inhabitants of our forests, the language of urban centers and different regions of the country substantially influenced the literary style of Brazilian romanticism. This pressure of spoken language on written language is called linguistic Brazilianism. He ended up creating his own system of pronominal placement, different from that of Portugal, and also imprinted a rhythm, specific to Brazilian syntax, much closer to our sensibilities.

In general, in a Romance sentence there is more feeling than aesthetic organization, that is, the predominance of the emotive function of language is observed in it. That is, the first grammatical person surpasses the others, with an intensive recurrence of interjections, exclamations and ellipsis.