When we think of literature, we often think of the classics – famous novels and plays that have stood the test of time. However, literature encompasses a wide range of genres, each with their own style, form, content, and purposes. Understanding the most common literary genres can help readers better analyze and appreciate different works of literature. This guide will explain some of the most popular genres of literature to get new readers better acquainted with the landscape of the literary world.
Fiction Genres
Fiction refers to literature that tells an imagined story, usually with invented characters and events. While fiction can seem like a single genre, there are actually many types of fiction. Some of the most popular fictional genres include:
Realism
Realism portrays characters, settings, and events as they exist in real life. Realist stories explore authentic struggles, relationships, emotions and social issues. They lack the fanciful or supernatural elements seen in other fictional genres. Examples of famous realist novels include Honore de Balzac’s Père Goriot and Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.
Historical Fiction
As the name suggests, historical fiction is set in the past. The time period is real rather than invented and historical events and figures may appear as characters, but most other characters and narratives are fictionalized. Well-known works include Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, set during the French invasion of Russia, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series about Ancient Roman politicians.
Mystery
Mystery novels revolve around a puzzling crime, usually a murder, that must be solved by detectives or other characters. Notable mystery stories include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot novels like Murder on the Orient Express, and popular ongoing mystery series such as Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole books.
Horror
Horror fiction aims to frighten and disturb readers through supernatural or disturbing events. This genre includes ghost stories like Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw as well as terrifying monster stories like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and gory psychological thrillers like Stephen King’s The Shining.
Sci-Fi
Science fiction features imagined worlds, futures, or technologies that derive from our scientific understanding of the world. Sci-fi themes range from utopian to dystopian to explore the wonders and dangers that science and technology might bring. Influential works include Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, George Orwell’s 1984, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Fantasy
Fantasy creates entirely fictional magical worlds and creatures. Unlike science fiction, these worlds are not meant to be possible within our understanding of science. The genre encompasses high fantasy epics like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as low fantasy stories integrating magic into a familiar world like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
Romance
Romance focuses on the development of a romantic relationship, usually leading to emotional closure and a happy love-related ending. Varieties within this broad genre range from suspenseful romantic thrillers to romantic comedies to erotic romance novels. Iconic romance stories include Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, E.L. James’ Fifty Shades trilogy, and modern romance hits like Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation.
Non-Fiction Genres
While fiction deals with imagined stories, non-fiction deals with factual information and real events. There are multiple non-fiction genres, some of the most common being:
Memoirs & Autobiography
Memoirs are first-person non-fiction accounts of the author’s own life and experiences while autobiographies are more formal memoirs typically covering an entire life span. Both provide intriguing personal perspectives shaped by culture and history. Notable examples include The Diary of Anne Frank, a young girl’s account of hiding from Nazis in World War II, and activist Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography I Am Malala.
History
Historical non-fiction analyzes, documents, and interprets actual past events that relate to human societies. Works range from recordings of oral histories to well-researched historical accounts. Groundbreaking historical works include historian Simon Schama’s A History of Britain trilogy spanning ancient times through the 20th century and journalist Walter Isaacson’s biography of revolutionary thinker Leonardo da Vinci.
True Crime
True crime literature investigates and documents real criminal cases, often unsolved mysteries or the most sensational killings. Truman Capote’s famous book In Cold Blood pioneered the genre with its literary style combined with exhaustive documentation of a shocking murder case. Other noteworthy true crime works include detective Jack Olsen’s docu-drama investigations and Michelle McNamara’s exploration of the Golden State Killer in I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.
Science & Nature
Science writing makes research discoveries comprehensible and exciting for general readers. Nature writing uses artistic language to vividly convey experiences in and reflection on the natural world. Together, they not only educate but can awaken awe. Landmark science communicator Carl Sagan explores the cosmos in books like Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot. Nature essayist Henry David Thoreau reflects on solitude, society, and our bond with nature in his seminal book Walden.
Poetry Genres
Poetry is a unique literary form that conveys meaning and themes through artful language, structure, rhythm, and imagery rather than plot or character development. As poetry focuses on concise expression, poems are usually much shorter than other literary works. Types of poetry include:
Lyrical Poetry
Lyrical poems express personal thoughts and feelings. Sometimes also set to music as songs, lyrical poems explore the poet’s inner landscape – observations, emotions, dreams, and experiences conveyed through sensuous rhythms and descriptive language. Renowned English lyrical poets include Shakespeare with his love sonnets and William Wordsworth rhapsodizing on nature in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”
Epic Poetry
Epic poems are lengthy, dramatic, serious poems that chronicle heroic deeds and adventures. Epics generally cover the exploits of a single heroic figure across a long, obstacle-filled journey or quest. Significant epics include Homer’s ancient Greek tales The Iliad and The Odyssey and John Milton’s Paradise Lost about humanity’s fall from Eden.
Satirical & Humorous Poetry
Rather than romanticizing their subjects, humorous and satirical poets poke fun or highlight flaws and contradictions, using exaggeration and irony to expose hypocrisy and societal problems. They may incite anything from chuckles to outrage. Famous satirical poets include Horace in ancient Rome skewering superficial values in his Satires and 20th century musician Tom Lehrer mocking conformity in “National Brotherhood Week.”
Modern & Contemporary Poetry
Modernist poetry departed from poetic traditions in form, style and subject starting in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Rejecting strict meter and rhyme schemes pioneered by schools like imagism, modernist experimentation led to contemporary poetry’s free verse, fragmentation, abnormal syntax, and existential themes. Groundbreaking modern and contemporary poets include Ezra Pound’s imagist “In a Station of the Metro,” T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and today’s Instagram poetry phenomenon Rupi Kaur.
Dramatic Literature
In addition to the common genres above centered on novels, creative non-fiction or lyric poetry, dramatic literature deserves special mention. Drama meaning “action” relies on dialogue and the sequence of real-time events rather than narration to unfold the story. Dramatic genres include:
Plays
Also called theater or drama, plays are stories written to be performed on a stage by actors. Dialogue and stage directions guide action and character interactions instead of long descriptive passages. Significant playwrights and their works include ancient Greek tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Shakespeare’s classic Renaissance tragedies like Hamlet, Henrik Ibsen’s realist play A Doll’s House, and modern absurdist works like Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
Screenplays
Screenplays structure stories and dialogue for film and television. Like plays, they focus on conversations and events rather than narration. While not considered literature themselves, screenplays lead to filmed versions that incorporate cinematic literary elements. Classic screenplays later turned into acclaimed films span Casablanca and To Kill a Mockingbird to Pulp Fiction and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
This covers just a sample of the rich diversity found across literary genres. Whether you most enjoy escaping into magical fantasy worlds or prefer learning about real people and history through memoir and biography, appreciating poetry’s music and imagery or analyzing the social commentary of satire, the landscapes of literature offer something for every reader. As you explore different genres, pay attention to each work’s style, form, content and purpose as you develop your own taste in literature. Most importantly, let the journeys stories take you on spark your imagination and open new perspectives on human experiences.
Additional Fiction Genres
While realism, historical fiction, mystery, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and romance encompass some of the most popular forms of fiction, many other fictional styles exist:
- Bildungsroman: Coming-of-age stories follow the protagonist’s psychological and moral growth from youth into adulthood. Well-known examples include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
- Epistolary Novels: Instead of chapters, these novels consist of letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents that build the narrative. Notable epistolary works range from eighteenth-century novels like Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa to more contemporary books like Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.
- Picaresque Novels: Early predecessors of today’s road trip adventures, picaresque novels follow a roguish hero drifting through a series of episodic misadventures that showcase society’s underbelly. Major picaresque stories include the anonymous medieval tale Lazarillo de Tormes and Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.
- Bildungsroman: Coming-of-age stories follow the protagonist’s psychological and moral growth from youth into adulthood. Well-known examples include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.
- Epistolary Novels: Instead of chapters, these novels consist of letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents that build the narrative. Notable epistolary works range from eighteenth-century novels like Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa to more contemporary books like Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.
- Picaresque Novels: Early predecessors of today’s road trip adventures, picaresque novels follow a roguish hero drifting through a series of episodic misadventures that showcase society’s underbelly. Major picaresque stories include the anonymous medieval tale Lazarillo de Tormes and Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.
More Non-Fiction Genres
Beyond memoir, history, true crime and science/nature writing, other major categories of non-fiction guide, argue or explain:
- Self-Help: Self-help books offer advice to readers on achieving goals and improving their lives. Categories range from practical topics like career advancement and relationship skills to more abstract qualities like happiness and motivation. Influential self-help works include Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
- Philosophy: Philosophy explores the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, existence, ethics, society and other profound topics. Key philosophical treatises include Plato’s dialogues, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Machiavelli’s The Prince exploring political power, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s central work of modern existentialism Being and Nothingness.
- Criticism & Theory: Literary criticism analyzes and interprets literary works through cultural, social or other lenses while literary theory aims to understand the concepts that underlie literature as a creative endeavor. Groundbreaking works of criticism and theory include Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis on Western literature, Terry Eagleton popularizing Marxist analysis, and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar applying feminist thought in The Madwoman in the Attic.
- Self-Help: Self-help books offer advice to readers on achieving goals and improving their lives. Categories range from practical topics like career advancement and relationship skills to more abstract qualities like happiness and motivation. Influential self-help works include Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
- Philosophy: Philosophy explores the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, existence, ethics, society and other profound topics. Key philosophical treatises include Plato’s dialogues, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Machiavelli’s The Prince exploring political power, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s central work of modern existentialism Being and Nothingness.
- Criticism & Theory: Literary criticism analyzes and interprets literary works through cultural, social or other lenses while literary theory aims to understand the concepts that underlie literature as a creative endeavor. Groundbreaking works of criticism and theory include Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis on Western literature, Terry Eagleton popularizing Marxist analysis, and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar applying feminist thought in The Madwoman in the Attic.
More Types of Poetry
While lyrical, epic, satirical and modernist schools cover some of poetry’s main approaches, many more poetic forms exist:
- Odes: Odes are lyrical poems praising and glorifying a person, event or object. English Romantic poet John Keats penned famous odes including “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and “Ode to a Nightingale” while Pablo Neruda mixed exotic eroticism and politics in his “Odes to Common Things.”
- Sonnets: Sonnets express a single theme or idea within a intricate fourteen-line structure of rhythms and rhymes. Renowned sonneteers range from Italian poet Petrarch in the 1300’s to English master Shakespeare along with female trailblazer Elizabeth Barrett Browning with works like Sonnets from the Portuguese.
- Villanelles: Villanelles have an intricate repetitive rhyme and refrain structure. Modern poets like Dylan Thomas (“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”) and Elizabeth Bishop (“One Art”) employed the challenging villanelle form to powerful affect.
- Odes: Odes are lyrical poems praising and glorifying a person, event or object. English Romantic poet John Keats penned famous odes including “Ode on a Grecian Urn” and “Ode to a Nightingale” while Pablo Neruda mixed exotic eroticism and politics in his “Odes to Common Things.”
- Sonnets: Sonnets express a single theme or idea within a intricate fourteen-line structure of rhythms and rhymes. Renowned sonneteers range from Italian poet Petrarch in the 1300’s to English master Shakespeare along with female trailblazer Elizabeth Barrett Browning with works like Sonnets from the Portuguese.
- Villanelles: Villanelles have an intricate repetitive rhyme and refrain structure. Modern poets like Dylan Thomas (“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”) and Elizabeth Bishop (“One Art”) employed the challenging villanelle form to powerful affect.
More Dramatic Literature
Beyond plays and screenplays, drama appears in other literary forms:
- Closet Drama: Closet dramas are plays written to be read rather than performed onstage. Famous examples include ancient Roman philosopher Seneca’s bloody revenge tragedies and poetic closet dramas like Lord Byron’s Manfred and Percy Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.
- Verse Drama: Instead of prose dialogue, verse dramas employ poetry in character speech. Notable verse dramatists range from Renaissance playwrights Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson to 20th century greats like T.S. Eliot in works like Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party.
This expanded guide covers even more of the diversity across literary genres. As you further explore fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama, identifying each work’s genre conventions will provide helpful context. But genre labels alone cannot capture the imagination, innovation and wonders of literature. Great stories invite you into unique worlds to move the mind and spirit. Embrace these opportunities for self-discovery as you shape your own taste guided by the genres, forms and styles you connect with most. Wherever the journey leads, let literature expand your vision of both the vast sweep of human experience and your own inner life.
