Obviously, literature is heterogeneous: something in common can be found between all literary texts, but this does not mean that all literary texts are the same. Therefore, the question of classification, typologization of literary works arises. The result of this classification was the allocation of literary genera and genres.

Literary genera differ from each other in ways of spatial and temporal organization of works; the peculiarity of showing a person in them; forms of the presence of the author; the nature of the text to the reader. The division of literature into genera does not coincide with its division into poetry and prose.

Genera give the most general classification of literary texts, that is, they are the most general categories; genres are at a less high level of generalization, and therefore are usually considered as varieties within the genera.

It is customary in literary theory to distinguish three broad groups of works:
epic
drama
lyrics

These groups are called literary genera, and they represent the broadest and most general varieties of literary works. The three genera of literature were distinguished by Aristotle, as we know from his work Poetics, which has not fully survived.

Despite Aristotle’s enormous authority, for many centuries the genera of literature singled out by the great philosopher did not attract much attention.

The situation changed only in the nineteenth century, when another great philosopher, Hegel, identified the epic with the objective beginning, the lyric with the subjective, and the drama with the synthesis of these two beginnings.

We have no certainty that Aristotle himself meant anything more substantive than the observation that a work can be written in the first person (lyric), in the third person (epic), and with the participation of the second person (drama). At any rate, the little that is said about these genera in his Poetics suggests this rather than a discussion of the subjective and the objective, very relevant in the context of the nineteenth century, when literature was seen primarily as a form of knowledge of the world rather than a replica in dialogue with the reader. We also remember that Aristotle was the author of Rhetoric and, of course, considered literature not only in its cognitive but also in its communicative aspect. Hegel, on the other hand, held rhetoric in very low esteem, and the cognitive aspect of literature overshadowed everything else in the nineteenth century. However, the theory of the three literary genera, illuminated by Aristotle’s authority and deeply understood by Hegel, has already become an integral part of the science of literature, and we should present it as it is customary. For the theory that has become a tradition itself becomes an objective reality shaping the literary process.