This document defines and describes various sub-genres of fiction and poetry. It discusses short stories, novels, myths, legends, and fables as sub-genres of fiction. It then defines poetry and discusses its key characteristics compared to prose. Finally, it outlines 24 specific forms of poetry such as sonnets, haikus, epigrams, ballads, and more; providing examples and defining stylistic elements for each.

1. SUB-GENRES OF
FICTION

2. 1. SHORT STORY.
•Shorter in length than a novel, a short story is a
fictional prose work which usually focuses on one
plot, one main character (with a few additional
minor characters), and one central theme. It aims at
unity of effect and creation of mood rather than on plot.
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition”
describes a short story as one that “should be read in
one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours. In
contemporary fiction, a short story can range from 1,000

3. 2. NOVEL
•A novel is a narrative prose work of
considerable length that talks about
significant human experience. The novel’s
beginnings date back to as early as the writing
of “Tale of Genji” by Murasaki Shikibu; later, in
the early seventeenth century, European
novels came to be written (Prahl, 2019).

4. 3. MYTH.
•Derived from the Greek mythos, which
has a range of meanings from “word,”
through “saying” and “story,” to “fiction,”
a myth is a symbolic narrative of
unknown origin and tells events which
are partly traditional and associated
with religious beliefs.

5. 4. LEGEND
•A legend is traditional tale which
is thought to have historical
bases.

6. 5. FABLE
•A fable is an instructive story about
human social behavior with
personified animals or natural
objects as characters and always
ends with an explicit moral message.
The concept of time and space is also
not specific in a fable.

7. POETRY
•Poetry is a means of sharing experiences,
telling a story, or through the use of
language in a particular way. As opposed to
prose writing, poetry in written form has a
distinct structure and words may form
patterns of sound, verse or thought.

8. POETRY
•The creation of pictures with words is
very important in poetry, hence poets
carefully choose words which will
appeal to the imagination of the
readers and create vivid visual
images.

9. POETRY
• There are some distinctive characteristics of poetry
which sets it apart from prose:
• A. the visual patterning of lines of unequal and
shorter length,
• B. the frequent division into stanzas (verses),
• C. the possibility of unusual shapes, and
• D. the distinctive use of white space which draws
our eye into the compressed essence of feelings and
ideas.

10. POETRY
•Poems are usually shorter than novels, may
come in many shapes and forms, and are often
(but not always) divided into stanzas (or verses).
But just like prose, poems also share similar
features like subject (what it is about), theme
(what it says about the subject), and a
mood/feeling/tone (how the author feels about
this or how the author wants the readers to feel).

11. TO MAKE MEANING OUT OF POEMS, TWO BROAD
APPROACHES CAN BE USED:
• A) Narrative poem – It tells a story with an orientation,
complication, crisis, and resolution, or
• B) Lyrical poem – It conveys an experience, or ideas,
thoughts or feelings about a subject without necessarily
having ‘something happen.’

12. •Poems also come in many forms. These
forms are distinguished from the other by the
choice of structural units (couplets, quatrains,
and their arrangement with the overall
poem), the layout of a poem on the page,
and the organization of the lines of the poem.

13. HERE ARE SOME OF THEM:
• 1) Acrostic. It is a poem which consists of vertical first letters name of
the topic while the horizontal words describe the topic.

14. •2) Ballad. It is a narrative poem which tells a
dramatic story in four-line stanza with a
regular beat. A ballad was originally set to
music and sung. Characterized by simplicity of
language, repetition of epithets and phrases,
simple rhyming schemes (usually abcd,
sometimes abab) and refrains, topics are often
drawn from community life, local and national
history, legend and folklore; while the verse tales
are usually of adventure, war, love, death and

16. •3) Chant. Dating to prehistoric time, hence one of the
earliest forms of poetry, chant is a poem of no fixed
form, but in which one or more lines are repeated over
and over. It is usually meant to be spoken aloud.

17. CHANT

18. •4) Cinquain. It is a five line poem that follows a
pattern and does not rhyme. The cinquain consists of
five lines of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 2 syllables respectively.

19. CINQUAIN

20. •5) Comic Verse. It is a poem that
involves humor and makes sense.
•6) Diamante. It is a seven line poem in
which the first and last lines are
opposites or contrasts. It is written in the
shape of a diamond.

21. COMIC VERSE
• Anon, ‘On a Tired Housewife’.
• Here lies a poor woman who was always tired,
She lived in a house where help wasn’t hired:
Her last words on earth were: ‘Dear friends, I am
going
To where there’s no cooking, or washing, or
sewing,
For everything there is exact to my wishes,
For where they don’t eat there’s no washing of
dishes …’

22. DIAMANTE

23. •7) Elegy. It is a poem of mourning
to someone’s death.

24. •8) Epic. It is a
long narrative
poem on a subject
which is thought to
be great and
serious.

25. •9) Epigram. It is a short and pointed poem, often a
witty statement in verse or prose which may be
complimentary, satiric or aphoristic.

26. • 10) Epitaph. It is a poem with a short inscription carved on a
tombstone (or written with that context in mind). It usually rhymes and
lends itself to imitation and distortion. While the epitaph in a cemetery
is often serious, the form can be made humorous.

27. • 11) Free verse. It is a
poetry that does not
conform to
particular schemes
or patterns of
rhyme, meter or
form because it
doesn’t follow strict
rules it has
flexibility. Its rhythm
is created by the
natural flow of the
poet’s thoughts and

28. •12) Haiku. Originated in Japan and often tells about
nature, it consists of three unrhymed lines containing
17 syllables (5, 7, 5) and portrays a single idea or
feeling while having a strong visual imagery.

29. •13) Light
verse. It is a
poem that is
cheerful, airy
and light-
hearted, it often
describes
everyday
events and
uses language

30. • 14) Limerick. This is usually brief and lends itself to comic
effects. The limerick consists of three long and two short
lines rhyming aabba. Rhyme and rhythm are used to
enhance the content.

31. •15) Lyric. Concerned with feelings and thoughts rather
than action or narrative, it usually represents and
reflects on a single experience, is intensely personal,
and its rhythms often have a musical flexibility.

32. •16) Narrative. It tells a
story with an
orientation,
complication and
resolution eg. nursery
rhymes. It can be short
or long, serious,
humorous, personal or
impersonal. It may
come in the form of
allegories, fables or
accounts of everyday

33. • 17) Nonsense
verse.
Categorized as
light verse that has
structure and
rhyme and
invented words, it
is characterized by
fantastic themes,
absurd images,
artificial language

34. •18) Nursery rhyme. Usually having regular
rhymes, strong rhythms and repetition, it could
be described as jingles for children, forming part
of the oral tradition of many countries.

35. •19) Ode. Usually celebrating a person, animal or
object, an ode is often written without the
constraints of formal structure or rhyme.

36. •20) Riddle. It indirectly describes a person,
place, thing or idea and can be any length and
usually has a rhyming scheme.

37. •21) Song lyric. It is a poem that has been set to
music. The word ‘lyric’ comes from the Greek
word lyre, a kind of harp that was often used to
accompany songs.

38. • 22) Sonnet. It is a lyric poem
that has fourteen lines of five
beats each. Rather than tell
a story. It usually explores a
feeling or state of mind or
expresses a fixed idea. It
first appeared in Italy in the
13th century. Many sonnets
have an alternating rhyme
scheme and usually have a
‘turning point’ at the eighth
line.

39. •23) Tanka. A type
of Japanese
poem similar to
haiku, it consists
of five lines with
the first and third
lines usually
having five
syllables and the
others seven,
making it a total
of 31.

40. •24) Vilanelle.
It is a fixed
form, usually
containing
five three-line
stanzas and a
four-line
stanza, with
only two
rhymes

41. ACTIVITY
•Write one Acrostic using the
word “CREATIVE”, one
Epitaph and one Haiku of any
theme.