The four major genres of articles are basically the same as the four major genres of literature, with different forms.
For example, Fabres's Tale of Insects is a scientific sketch, the genre of the article is a popular science exposition, and writing action words is similar to prose.
Due to different standards and principles, there have always been different ways to divide literary genres. There are three principles in the classification of literary genres: first, look at the characteristics of literary language; Second, look at the way of shaping artistic image; Third, look at the comprehensive application of structure and expression. According to these classification principles, there are three main ways to divide genres in the history of literature.
1, dichotomy
Dichotomy is the earliest classification method in China, and it is also a rough classification method when "Wen" and "pian" are not separated. It divides all articles into two categories according to whether the language of the works rhymes or not: verse and prose. Rhyme refers to works with certain rhythm and rhythm, such as poems, words, songs, words, inscriptions, poems and so on. Prose refers to works without fixed rhythm and rhythm, such as myths, fables, travel notes, sketches, novels, essays, watches, plays, essays, history, philosophy, various social and humanistic articles, etc. Dichotomy is also called "writing style". Before Wei and Jin Dynasties, rhyming prose works were called "Wen" and blank prose works were called "pen". For example, Liu Xie said: "Today, as the saying goes, writing has a pen, thinking that those who have no rhyme must write, and those who have rhyme must write." [1] At that time, "the difference between writing and writing" was the difference between verse and prose. Later, with the increase of literary genres, "dichotomy" is too general and limited to meet the needs of the development of literary genres, and people no longer use this classification method.
2. Triangle method
Trigonometry is a popular traditional classification method in the history of European literature. It divides literary works into three categories according to different ways of creating images: narrative, lyric and drama. The third chapter of Aristotle's Poetics contains the prototype of trigonometry. After Aristotle, Horace also held the triad in poetic art, and later German Hegel and Russian belinsky also adopted this classification method.
According to the trichotomy, narrative literature refers to the works that depict the characters and shape the characters through the description of events, thus reflecting the reality and expressing the writers' thoughts and feelings. Lyric literature refers to the works that writers reflect real life by expressing some thoughts and feelings. In this kind of works, writers directly express their love and hate for real life, and generally pay little attention to the story, and the length is relatively short. Dramatic literature refers to those works that put characters on the stage and recognize them to reproduce life and portray characters through words and actions. Aristotle pointed out that narrative literature can "like Homer, sometimes use narrative skills and sometimes summon characters"; Lyric literature can be "consistent and narrated in its own tone"; Drama literature is "let imitators imitate with actions". Hegel pointed out that narrative works use narrative language to "describe objective things according to their original objective shapes"; Lyric works express "the inner world of the subject (poet) and the soul of observing feelings" in lyrical language; Dramatic works are dramatic languages that combine narrative and lyrical language with characters' actions to objectively show the characters' "inner life". Belinsky put forward the viewpoints of "objectively external poetry" and "subjectively internal poetry" and "the third kind of vivid independence".
Trigonometry classifies works according to the way they create images, which grasps the inherent characteristics of literary genre, but it also has certain limitations, which are large and broad and not specific enough. Because both of them are narrative works, besides novels, they also include narrative poems belonging to poetry genre and narrative prose belonging to prose genre; Both of them are lyric works, including lyric poems, lyric prose and so on. According to this classification, we can divide the poems that emphasize rhythm and rhythm into two categories ―― lyric and narrative; Lyric prose and narrative prose, both of which are prose, will be rigidly divided into two categories. In this way, the similarities between lyric poetry and narrative poetry, lyric prose and narrative prose are easily overlooked.
3, quartering method
After the May 4th Movement in China, the quartering method became popular. On the basis of long-term use of traditional dichotomy, the quartering method is put forward by drawing lessons from foreign trisection method. According to the characteristics of literary works in image-building, institutional structure, language use and expression techniques, the quartering method divides literary works into four categories: poetry, prose, novel and drama literature. The division of quartering not only pays attention to the different ways of image-building in literary works, but also pays attention to the differences of different genre systems, which is also in line with the reality of literary development. It is precisely because the "quartering method" has a specific name, a single category and is easy to master that it has become the usual division method in China.
Literature is developing, so are literary genres. Traditional classification methods have been difficult to adapt to the ever-changing literary reality. Some people have added film and television literature and rap literature on the basis of quartering, but it is not enough. Now there are new literary genres such as online literature and photographic literature. Therefore, we should understand literary genre from the history and present situation of literary development, rather than sticking to a certain classification method.