Literature in this sense is generally grouped under three main genres: poetry, prose, and drama. Each of these genre has certain features that make it distinctive from others; and it is how these features are deployed by the muter that attracts the attention of the reader in his or her appreciation of the work.
What is Prose?
Prose is used to describe all discourses written or spoken, which are not patterned into metric forms. Some regard prose as the language of everyday speech and writing. Fictional writing are generally described as prose because they deal with narrative experience that are invented or contrived.
Characteristics of Prose
The following are the features of prose:
- Straightforward ordinary language
- Usually in complete sentences
- Usually divided into paragraphs
- A prose does not usually have a regular rhythmic pattern
- The use of narrative technique
The Elements of Prose Fiction
- Theme:The theme is the general idea of a story. Theme is the Central massage.
- Setting: Is the information of the where the story occur and the time of the story. Setting also include a content (especially society) beyond the surrounding of the story, like culture, historical period (date), geography and occupation
- Plot:Is the sequence of events.
- Point of view: Is the different angle to see the subject
- Character and Characterization: Character is an individual (usually a person) who play in a story. Characterization is the method used by the writer to develop a character.
- Symbols: Is the language style used by the author.
- Atmosphere:Is the condition and emotion in a story
Type of Prose
- Picaresque Novel (Pik-ã-resx):In the strict sense, a novel with a picaroon (Spanish, Picarõ; a rogue or scoundrel) as its hero or heroine, usually recounting his or her escapades in a first-person narrative named by its episode structure and realistic low-life descriptions. The picaroon is often a quick-mitted servant also takes up with a succession of employers. E.g. Adventures of Hucmeberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanwer(1722)
- Epistolary Novel: This is a novel that is written in the form of a series of letters exchanged among the characters of the story with extracts from their journals sometimes included it is a form of narrative that is used in the English and French novels of the 18th centuries e.g Richardson’s Pamela (1740-1) and Clamssa. Rousseau’s La nouvelle Heloise
- Historical Novel:A novel in which the action takes place during a specific historical period well before a specific historical period well before the time of writing. (Often one or two generations before, sometimes several centuries) and in which some attempts is made to depict accurately the customs and mentality of the period. E.g. Walter Scott Waveley (1814), Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (1831)
- Gothic Novel (or Gothic Romance):A story of terror and suspense, usually set in a gloomy old castle or monastery (hence “cothic”, a term applied to medieval architecture and thus associated in the 18th century with superstition) e.g Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), Ann RadclitteMysteries of Udolpho (1794)
- Campus Novel: Is a novel, usually comic or sativical, in which the action is set within the enclosed world of a university (or similar seat of learning) and highlights the follies of academic life. e.g. Mary Miccarthy’s The Groves of Academe (1952), Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim (1954).
Online Work
- Explain the following types of Novels
- Picaresque Novel
- Gothic Novel
- Historical Novel
See also
CROSSING THE BAR BY ALFRED LORD TENNYSON