Outline of literature

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to literature:
Literature - prose, written or oral, including fiction and non-fiction, drama, and poetry.

What type of thing is literature?

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 - representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols.
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.

Essence of literature

Forms of literature

Oral literary genres

Oral literature

Written literary genres

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 –
* Audiobook –
* Interactive fiction –
* Hypertext fiction – literary fiction written with hypertextual links
* Fan fiction
* Cell phone novel
* Chatbot –
* e-reader –
* e-books –
* Podcast – although not a form of literature in the traditional sense. It is often attributed by many as the neo-"Digital Oratory" form of literature.
Poetry
* Aubade -
* Clerihew -
* Epic -
* Grook - form of short aphoristic poem invented by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein, who wrote more than 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 [Anapaest|] or [amphibrach|] meter with a strict rhyme scheme, which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent.
* Lyric -
* Ode -
* Rhapsody -
* Song -
* Sonnet -
* Speculative poetry -
Prison literature -
Rhymed prose -
* Saj'
** Maqama
* Fu (literature)
* Rayok