Literary Knowledge: Genres, Authors and Works
Genres studied in primary school
You must recognise and define the main genres:
- Folk tale (народна приказка) - oral origin, magical elements, repeated formulas, a moral ending.
- Fable (басня) - short, animals act as people, ends with a moral.
- Poem (стихотворение) - rhythm, rhyme, stanzas, figurative language.
- Short story (разказ) - real-life events, characters, a single main conflict.
- Legend and proverb - brief traditional forms with a lesson.
Authors and works
Know the major Bulgarian writers in primary readers, such as Иван Вазов, Елин Пелин, Ран Босилек, Асен Разцветников and Дора Габе, and be able to match an author to a studied work and to its genre. Know that Vazov wrote poems and stories about Bulgaria, and that Elin Pelin wrote short stories about village life.
Traps
- Confusing a folk tale with an author's literary tale.
- Naming the hero of a fable instead of the moral.
- Mixing up authors of similar works.
- Treating a poem as if it had to rhyme in every line.
Rule of thumb
Ask three questions: Is it in verse or prose? Are the characters animals with human traits? Is the author known or is it folk? The answers place the text in the right genre.
Worked example
A short text about a crow and a fox, in prose, where the fox flatters the crow to get the cheese, ending with a lesson - this is a fable: animal characters, a trick, and an explicit moral.