• Intertextuality

• Metafiction

• Fragmentation

• Time inversions

• Pluralisation

• Relativisation

• Parody, pastiche, collage

• New understanding of history

• Graphic devices

ad II)

• the fabliau and the exemplum

• the novelette

• the short story

• the legend

• the myth

ad III) usually less than 1000 words

• the fable

• the parable

• the fairy tale

• the anecdote

• + several transitional genres – the essay, book-review, biographies, non-fiction, etc.

the pamphlet

the speech

the lecture

4. Dramatic genres

• works intended to be performed (theatre, radio, television)  dramatic dialogue, monologue or soliloquy

• dramatic composition basically identical with the composition of the epic story, the term catastrophe instead of resolution

• acts consisting of scenes

• the unities of time, place and action

• subdivided into tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy

• further subdivisions: melodrama, farce, pantomime, mime, and the various genres of film

liturgical drama

• miracle plays or mystery plays (special kind = passion plays)

• morality plays

tragedy

–the purpose of the ancient tragedy was to stir up emotions followed by spiritual purgation called catharsis

Other features of the classical tragedy:

• the stories already known to the audience

• played by only a few male actors (usually four to six)

• the horrifying scenes only mentioned by the chorus or actors

• the heroes punished by gods, i.e. “fate” (nemesis)

• no mixing (syncretism) of genre principles, the three unities kept

 the Shakespearean tragedy:

• ignores the three unities, tragic elements are mixed with comic ones

• practically no relationship to a religious mythology

• a wide variety of ordinary characters

• more characters, more developed

• the poetic expression - blank verse, the low-born persons and comic characters – prose

 the modern type of tragedy

comedy

various kinds – sentimental, of manners, of intrigue or situation, the burlesque, the farce

tragicomedy

screen-plays

+ specific dramatic principle – theatre of the absurd

+ special dramatic device = deus ex machina (the god from the machine)

“low comedies”  “high comedies”

 conversational comedies

Dramatic genres in music:

librettos (pl. libretti)

• operas

• comic operas or operettas

• musicals

• melodrama