1. The Definition of Genre

Oxford English Dictionary tells us, ¡°A particular style or category of works of art; esp. a type of literary work characterized by a particular form, style, or purpose.¡±

2. Genre and Subgenre

Applied rigorously, genre refers to the largest categories around which this book is organized—fiction, poetry, and drama (as well as nonfiction prose). The word subgenre applies to smaller divisions within a genre, and the word kind to divisions within a subgenre. Subgenres of fiction include the novel, the novella, and the short story. Kinds of novels, in turn, include things like the bildungsroman or the epistolary novel. Similarly, important subgenres of nonfiction include the essay, as well as biography and autobiography; a memoir is a particular kind of autobiography, and so on.

3. Classification within a Genre "Fiction"

When we divide fiction, for example, into the subgenres novel, novella, and short story, we take the length of the works as the salient aspect. (Novels are much longer than short stories.) But other fictional subgenres— detective fiction, gothic fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, and even romance— are based on the types of plots, characters, settings, and so on that are customarily featured in these works.

4. Crossovers: Satire, Parody, Pastoral, and Romance