Module 1 : Getting on the Basics

Lesson 2 : Genres of Contemporary and Popular Literature

Objectives : Upon completion of this lesson, you shall be able to:

1. Determine the genres in contemporary and popular literature;

Introduction:
How have you been doing? The previous lesson has just provided you with the
fundamental concepts that you should have understood before you should have proceeded to this
part of the module. This lesson shall equip you with an understanding of another set of concepts
that are equally important in the study of literature. As defined, genre means a type of literature
characterized by specific style, content and form. Its specific features also make each one
distinguished from each other. So why would you need to know these genres by heart? What gain
would a literature teacher like you get from it? Well, accrding to experts, there is a valid reason
for this. For starters, genres perform different roles. Fiction, for instance, develops the
communication skills of the students. Poetic genre, on the other hand, develops the analytic and
persuasive skills of the learners. More importantly, genre "establishes a code of behavior between
the writers and audience, and keep the readers informed about the topics discussed or the themes
presented".

So now that you know the significance of these genres, what is your plan? How
would you maximize the learning of your students? Well, it would depend on your purpose. For
example, if you want to develop your students' higher-order training skills, you should introduce
them to literary pieces that belong to the poetic genre.

I – Let's Get Started!

To begin our lesson on genres, let us open this section through a short, simple recall warm-
up test. You are to answer the items with either true or false.
___________ 1. “Sherlock Holmes” is a dramatic fiction.
___________ 2. Nicholas Sparks’ “The Choice” is considered a memoir.
___________ 3. Ths story of “Superman” is an example of an autobiography.
___________ 4. “James Bond” movies are stories classified as murder.
___________ 5. “Sarap: Essays on Philippine Food” represents the nonfiction genre.

II. Let's Think About It!

How did you do in the warm-up exercise? Do not worry if you did not get everything right.
You would have the chance to learn about these things as you explore this lesson. For now, you
may consider thinking about the questions that follow:
1. Are you familiar with the stories of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes?
 2. Do you think you could tell the difference with just the given titles?
3. Who do you think is James Bond? What does he do?
4. What about Sherlock Holmes? Have you watched the movie adaptation?
5. What features do you think does the story of James Bond? What about Sherlock
Holmes?

III. Let's Explore!

What are the genres in contemporary literature?
Aside from novels, plays, short stories and poetry, this period saw the rise of:
 Flash fiction (also known as sudden fiction, short-short stories, microfiction, or
microstories) is a genre of fiction, defined as a very short story. While there is no set
word count that separates flash fiction from more traditional short stories, flash fiction
stories can be as short as a few words, while short stories typically run for several pages
([Link], 2019).
Below are some of those listed in [Link]:
"Sticks" by George Saunders
This is a 1995 story that has become a modern classic of the micro-fiction form.
Depicting decades of a man's life through the prism of a hand-made lawn
ornament, these two paragraphs reveal the keen eye for specificity that has since
helped writer George Saunders win the Booker Prize.

"Chapter V" by Ernest Hemingway

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn" is far from Hemingway's only foray into
flash fiction (if it was indeed his story). This story from his collection In Our
Time follows the typical arc of great flash fiction by starting with a
straightforward but descriptive sentence to set the scene.

"Widow’s First Year” by Joyce Carol Oates

-Pulled from the anthology Hint Fiction, a collection of works running 25
words or less, this story reveals a key trick of the flash fictionist’s trade: let the
title to do the heavy lifting.

 Slam poetry is a form of performance poetry that combines the elements of

performance, writing, competition, and audience participation. It is performed at events
called poetry slams, or simply slams. The name slam came from how the audience has the
power to praise or, sometimes, destroy a poem and from the high-energy performance style
of the poets ([Link], 2020). Today slam poetry is considered an artistic movement
as well as a genre of poetry and spoken word and slam poets influenced many aspects of
modern culture, such as political movements, art, media, literature, and entertainment.
Some school-appropriate examples lited in [Link] are:
“Shake the Dust” by Anis Mojgani ([Link] )
“Repetition” by Phil Kaye ([Link]
“OCD” by Neil Hilborn ([Link]
 Memoirs. The memoir genre satisfies two of our most human desires: to be known, and
to know others. A memoir is a narrative, written from the perspective of the author, about
an important part of their life. It’s often conflated with autobiography, but there are a few
important differences. An autobiography is also written from the author’s perspective, but
the narrative spans their entire life. Although it’s subjective, it primarily focuses on facts –
the who-what-when-where-why-how of their life’s entire timeline (Dukes, 2018).
The following are some of [Link] recommendations:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
-Angelou’s memoir is regarded as poetic, powerful and painful recall of her
childhood and the many abuses she suffered, from the casual cruelty of the local
“powhitetrash” to being sexually assaulted when she was just eight years old.

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

- Markham’s memoir is about her 1936 solo flight across the Atlantic.
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
-This Pulitzer Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling memoir, is
regraded as not an easy read—but it is a worthwhile one. Though McCourt grew
up in poverty, near starvation, and dealt more than his fair share of cruelty from
those around him, his father did manage to give him at least one thing: a gift for
storytelling.

 Autobiographies. An autobiography is a non-fiction story of a person’s life, written

by the subject themselves from their own point of view. Autobiographies are a subgenre
of the broader category of biographies, but a standard biography is written by someone
other than its subject—most commonly a historian—whereas an autobiography is
written by the subject ([Link], 2019).
If you can recall, a biography is different from an autobiography since it is written
by someone other than the subject. How about the memoir? Do you think it shares
similarities with an autobiography? According to experts, a memoir is closely related to
autobiography but they are not identical. This is because a memoir does not document the
memoirist’s entire life story but on selected era or a specific multi-era journey within
that author’s life.
Famous autobiographies from [Link] include:
The Box: Tales from the Darkroom by Gunter Grass
A noble laureate and novelist, Gunter Grass, has adopted the individual point
of view of each of his children, and narrates what his children think about him
as their father and a writer. Though it is really an experimental approach, due
to Grass’ linguistic creativity and dexterity, it gains an enthralling momentum.

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

In her autobiography, Keller recounts her first twenty years, beginning with the
events of the childhood illness that left her deaf and blind. In her childhood, a
writer sent her a letter and prophesied, “Someday you will write a great story
out of your own head that will be a comfort and help to many.” Generally,
Keller’s autobiography is about overcoming great obstacles through hard work
and pain.
 Self Portraits: Fictions by Frederic Tuten
In his autobiography, Tuten has combined fringes of romantic life with reality.
Like postmodern writers, such as Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino, the
stories of Tuten skip between truth and imagination, time and place, without
warning. He has done the same with his autobiography, where readers are eager
to move through fanciful stories about train rides, circus bears, and secrets to a
happy marriage; all of which give readers glimpses of the real man.

 Nonfiction is usually not classified as literature, but this era sometimes includes works
of creative nonfiction, which tell a true story using literary techniques.
This period is marked with reality-based stories with strong characters and a
believable story. Settings usually keep to the current or modern era, so futuristic and
science fiction novels are rarely included in this category. Well-defined, realistic, and
highly developed characters are important in classifying a written work as contemporary,
and most writing in this category features stories that are more character-driven than plot-
driven.
Experts in the field contend that contemporary literature features a somewhat
modern narrative, but it also contains a harsher reality. Contemporary written works tend
to be influenced by the prosperous lifestyle that followed WWII, but this literary class is
rooted in the devastation that war brought to the world. A new reality blossomed in the
post-war mind, and it included a personal cynicism, disillusionment, and frustration that is
common to this literary period.

What are the genres in popular literature?

The following are the genres in popular literature:
 Romance. This is the most important genre in this period, extending as it does from the
Middle Ages to the present. Regarded as the original form of popular fiction, its primary
function of wish fulfillment is the characteristic element of narratives. This propels the
reader into a fantasy world where a full and complete identity can be imagined. Yet
romance is also the genre which has been taken least seriously in literacy studies. The most
common type describes the obstacles encountered by two people (usually young) engaged
in a forbidden love.
Romance narratives represent a more ambivalent relationship between the world,
the text and the reader. The representation of desire means there can be no direct or
unmediated experience. In the text, desire and fantasy disrupt the reader’s perception of a
know-able world that might supply a secure sense of self-identity. Further, in its
representation of the heroine’s desires, the text describes an identity that is not fixed, but
in the process of change. To his, Mc Cracken commented: ‘The romantic novel has been a
best- selling genre since the 18th century and remains so’.

 Fantasy, or science fiction. Fantasy stories often take place in a time period different
from our own. They often feature magical creatures, from worldly wizards to murderous
zombies. Many sci-fi stories take place in a dystopian past or future. Science fiction
books can have a historical setting, but most are set in the future and deal with the
ramifications of technological and scientific advancement.

Fantasy subgenres include urban fantasy, steampunk, high fantasy, epic fantasy,
dark fantasy, and sword and sorcery. Meanwhile, certain fiction genres like magical
realism blend the pulpy appeal of fantasy with the challenging techniques found in
literary fiction.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is a good example

of this crossover.

Another author wrote: Fantasy fiction features stories set in fanciful, invented
worlds, an alternate and more fanciful version of our own world, or in a legendary, mythic
past. Fantasy fiction stories generally involve magic, mystical elements, or supernatural
creatures such as vampires.
The genre's relatively loose definition means it includes a large number of works in
styles ranging from pseudomythological epics (Lord of the Rings) to more deliberately
modern works (such as Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and includes works
which also fall under other genres, such as horror fiction, comedy, action-adventure or
Romance.

 Thrillers and horror: These are closely related to mysteries and sometimes fantasy,
thrillers and horror ratchet up the suspense and shock of popular genre fiction. The
term ‘thriller’, like ‘suspense’ only describes a narrative technique rather than a point
of view. It cannot be considered a genre. It includes the spy story (Forsyth) the tough
thriller (Bond) the soft thriller (Greene) and the police thriller (James Hadley Chase).

For bestsellers: Authors like David Baldacci and Dan Brown

Stephen King as the master of contemporary horror

The thriller always pushes forward to a climax. Despite the implied support of
society, and the actual backing of the team, such as the secret services or the army, the
Hero (male or female) is often as outsider, because the use of the gun, deception etc. is
incompatible with visible bourgeois ideology. They are basically anarchic and anti-social,
but accepted because of their role as savior of society for ‘anarchy’.

The hero of the thriller is always improvising, never fully in the commands of all
the facts. He/she is a rootless figure midway between the amateur and the ‘organization
man’, and often placed temporarily between the main players. The thriller functions to
 construct a masculine identity in the midst of the powerful institutions of modernity. This
is why women are a threat to the hero’s self-control. Where a woman is at the centre (Robin
Cook’s Coma) her rationalism (role) is constantly questioned by her ‘difficultness’ or
‘paranoia’ (gender).

Detective story or murder mystery is a widely read form of popular literature.

Detective fiction has been compared with the myth of original sin, the first loss of innocence
in the Garden of Eden, and the myth of Oedipus, whose discovery of his origins is also a
discovery of his crimes. With these, the detective narrative can be seen as a new form of an
old story. It is a narrative that attempts to explain what has gone before, to find a beginning or
origin. According to readings, the detective narrative emerged at a time when the collection of
evidence and the presentation of the case were replacing the extraction of a confession by
torture.
In the detective narrative, experts enumerate five spheres of action related to characters.
These are the: 1) The detective; 2) The helper; 3) The victim; 4) The witness; and 5) The
criminal. Each sphere of action may contain more than one character, and characters may
perform actions in more than one sphere. Detective narratives are constructed in relation to one
of the most important self- oriented systems of modernity: the law. Most of the detective novel
is taken up with the process of detection and deduction, the recognition and the interpretation
of clues. No detective story is complete without a solution
[Link] presents:
The first detective story was “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan
Poe, published in April 1841. The profession of detective had come into being
only a few decades earlier, and Poe is generally thought to have been influenced
by the Mémoires (1828–29) of François-Eugène Vidocq, who in 1817 founded
the world’s first detective bureau, in Paris. Poe’s fictional French detective, C.
Auguste Dupin, appeared in two other stories, “The Mystery of Marie Roget”
(1845) and “The Purloined Letter” (1845). The detective story soon expanded
to novel length.
The modern detective story is a narrative about collecting evidence by following up
clues: the story of the legal conviction of the modern criminal. Detective fiction plays out the
social contradictions the law is designed to resolve. These are mediated through the figure of
a detective, who represents the contradictory nature of the disciplined, modern self.

IV. Let’s Do This!

Now, you are to accomplish the graphic organizers that follow. The first is a Venn diagram
intended for you to compare and contrast contemporary and popular literature according to their
genres. The second is a T-chart, which, once completed, will give the contrasting
features/characteristics between two concepts.
A. Venn Diagram: Compare and contrast contemporary and popular literature by focusing on
their genres.

Contemporary Literature Popular Literature

B. T-Chart: Pick two genres (one from Contemporary and one from Popular literature) and then
enumerate the differences between each other in the chart below in bullet form