WordNet
n. a style of expressing yourself in writing [syn: writing style, genre]
Wikipedia
A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even (as in the case of fiction) length. The distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, often with subgroups.
The most general genres in literature are (in loose chronological order) epic, tragedy, comedy, and creative nonfiction. They can all be in the form of prose or poetry. Additionally, a genre such as satire, allegory or pastoral might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre (see below), but as a mixture of genres. Finally, they are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed.
Genre should not be confused with age categories, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused with format, such as graphic novel or picture book.
Usage examples of "literary genre".
In the academic/literary genre, present tense narrative has passed from being a daring experiment to being the preferred tense for short stories-or at least the most common.
Although Lewis Shiner entered the fiction world with the burgeoning cyberpunk movement of the early 1980s, he prefers not to be bound by the tropes of any one literary genre or movement, instead writing fiction that transcends these limitations.
As a literary genre it helps us interpret our universe, and to make it comprehensible.
The history of any literary genre is littered with pioneering works that are of interest only to scholars, and plenty of those can be found in the sf magazines of thirty or forty years ago.
Needless to say, there are Mandelbrot 'fan magazines,' containing hints on speeding up programs, notes from explorers in far-off regions of the set and even samples of a new literary genre, Fractalfiction.