Try to begin reading with an open mind and attempt to understand the work on its own terms before judging its worth or quality. In the following steps, start to think more formally about why you have certain expectations about this type of literature and how this work uses literary techniques to create the impressions or effects or messages you have noticed in reading it. Although critics disagree on how to define and label different genres, the three basic forms of literature are prose, drama, and poetry. Nonfiction prose includes history, biography, autobiography, religious and philosophical writing, literary criticism, political tracts, travel literature, and essays on many other subjects. Drama may be written in prose or poetry.
Most drama is meant to be performed, but closet drama is designed to be read rather than acted.
When we read a play we should take into consideration the differences between watching a performance and reading the script, with the background and stage directions that are provided by some playwrights. Film , which combines the techniques of drama, poetry, visual arts, and music, is increasingly included in twentieth-century literary studies, with movie scripts being studied as works of art alongside the books and plays many films are based on. Undoubtedly modern technology will continue to influence the forms and genres of literature, through trends in film and television, and the increasing use of computers for processing information, writing, and reading. Traditional categories such as tragedy , comedy , realism , and romance , for example, have been defined in different ways at different times. Nonfiction novel is a contemporary term used by some for works that combine elements of journalistic reporting or documentary and the devices of fiction.