The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to literature (prose, written or oral, including fiction and non-fiction, drama, and poetry). See also the Outline of poetry.
Literature can be described as all of the following:
Communication – activity of conveying information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast distances in time and space.
Written communication (writing) – representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols (known as a writing system).
Subdivision of culture – shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group.
One of the arts – imaginative, creative, or nonscientific branch of knowledge, especially as studied academically.
Composition –
World literature –
Literary genre
Oral literature
Oral poetry –
Epic poetry –
Legend –
Mythology –
Ballad –
Folktale –
Oral Narrative –
Oral History –
Urban legend –
Poetry and Prose
Cordel Literature
Children's literature –
Constrained writing –
Erotic literature –
Electronic literature – Literary fiction and poetry that uses the capabilities of computers and networks
Digital poetry –
Interactive fiction –
Hypertext fiction – literary fiction written with hypertextual links
Fan fiction
Cell phone novel
Poetry (see that article for an extensive list of subgenres and types)
Aubade –
Clerihew –
Epic –
Grook – form of short aphoristic poem invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein, who wrote over 7,000 of them.
Haiku – form of short Japanese poetry consisting of three lines.
Instapoetry
Tanka – classical Japanese poetry of five lines.
Lied –
Limerick – a kind of a witty, humorous, or nonsense poem, especially one in five-line or meter with a strict rhyme scheme (aabba), which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent.
Lyric –
Ode –
Rhapsody –
Song –