Literary Terms
GENRES OF LITERATURE
Autobiography: A writer’s story of his or her own life.
Biography: A writer’s account of some other person’s life.
Comedy: Writing that deals with life in a humorous way, often poking fun at people’s mistakes.
Drama: Also called a play, this writing form uses dialogue to share its message and is meant to be performed in front of an audience.
Essay: A short piece of nonfiction that expresses the writer’s opinion or shares information about a subject.
Fable: A short story that often uses talking animals as the main characters and teaches an explicit moral or lesson.
Fantasy: A story set in an imaginary world in which the characters usually have supernatural powers or abilities.
Folktale: A story originally passed from one generation to another by word of mouth only. The characters are usually all good or all bad and in the end are rewarded or punished as they deserve.
Historical Fiction: A made-up story that is based on a real time and place in history, so fact is mixed with fiction.
Magical Realism: A literary style or genre originating in Latin America that combines fantastic or dreamlike elements with realism.
Myth: A traditional story intended to explain some mystery of nature, religious doctrine, or cultural belief. The gods and goddesses of mythology have supernatural powers, but the human characters usually do not.
Novel: A book-length, fictional prose story. Because of its length, a novel’s characters and plot are usually more developed than those of a short story.
Poetry: A literary work that uses concise, colorful, often rhythmic language to express ideas or emotions. Examples: ballad, blank verse, free verse, elegy, limerick, sonnet.
Prose: A literary work that uses the familiar spoken form of language, sentence after sentence.
Realistic Fiction: Writing that attempts to show life as it really is.
Science Fiction: Writing based on real or imaginary scientific developments and often set in the future.
Short Story: Shorter than a novel, this piece of literature can usually be read in one sitting. Because of its length, it has only a few characters and focuses on one problem or conflict.
TEXT FORMS
Article: A complete piece of writing, as a report or essay, that is part of a newspaper, magazine, or book.
Atlas: A book of maps.
Encyclopedia: A book that contains information on many subjects; or comprehensive information in a particular field of knowledge; usually arranged alphabetically.
Dictionary of Etymology: A dictionary of word origins, the history of each word.
Fiction: A literary work whose content is based on the imagination and not on fact.
Mystery: A novel, story, or play involving a crime or secret activity and its gradual solution.
Nonfiction: True writing, based on factual information.
Periodical: Another word for magazine.
Reference: A type of book that provides information arranged for easy access.
Series: Several books related in subject, or dealing with the same characters.
Thesaurus: A dictionary of synonyms (words that mean the same or nearly the same as other words).
TEXT FEATURES
Footnotes:
Captions:
Illustration:
Graph:
Glossary: An alphabetical listing of difficult, technical, or foreign terms with definitions or translation; usually found at the end of a book.
Index: An alphabetical listing that gives page numbers or books where information can be found.
Table of Contents: The part of a book which lists the chapters or contents within the book.