Curated category
Literary genres
- Detective fictionIn the Tigris river, a fisherman discovers a heavy locked chest that changes everything. Inside lies the body of a young woman cut into pieces.
- SatireThe word satire comes from the Latin term satur, meaning full. A subsequent phrase lanx satura shifted this definition to miscellany or medley.
- RomanticismIn 1774, a young German author named Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published a novel called The Sorrows of Young Werther. This book sent men across Europe into…
- Adventure fictionCritics have long debated what separates an adventure story from any other tale of excitement. Don D'Ammassa, writing in the introduction to the Encyclopedia…
- Gothic fictionHorace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto in 1764, marking the birth of a new literary genre. This work appeared as a translation of a sixteenth-century…
- Chivalric romanceIn the early 13th century, romances shifted from verse to prose. This change marked a turning point in how stories were told across Europe.
- PastoralHesiod's Works and Days presents a golden age when people lived together in harmony with nature. This Golden Age shows that even before the Alexandrian age…
- TragedyIn the 6th century BCE, Athenian tragedy emerged as a dance-drama form during an annual state religious festival honoring Dionysus.
- TragicomedyThe Roman comic playwright Plautus coined the term tragicomoedia in Latin during the prologue to his play Amphitryon. He used the word somewhat facetiously…