Literary genre is a historically and culturally established typology (not to be confused with “typification”) of works, carried out within genera and species, respectively literary, according to a complex system of formal and content features. In general, genre as a category is inherent in the typology of almost any art, not just literary fiction. Since literary genre is almost the most detailed stage in the typology, so it is complex and ambiguous. In view of the latter, some researchers do not distinguish it from the literary form, identifying them; however, this is a fallacy, which is clear from the practical application of genre characterization. The latter consists in specifying the substantive and/or formal part of the work, e.g., genus: epic, species: novel, genre: adventure novel or genus: drama, species: comedy, genre: situation comedy. By way of example, it is easy to see that such clarification is useful and necessary; for example, fantasy and historical novels differ not only in form, but also in content elements.
As is easy to see, the typology by genre is carried out within a species, and the enlargement of the typology and the mixing of literary genre and species in it is a statement of the grouping of published works by editorial boards, as they prefer to publish books in series. Accordingly, authors willy-nilly try to write, or at least optimize and define their works for these series. Series, such as the fantasy thriller or the mystery thriller, which are essentially the very genres of literature, are necessary for the convenience of the reader-buyer, who navigates among the bookshelves, even if they are virtual, and is not necessarily a literary scholar. Few literary scholars are aware of such subtleties and dependencies, since they are not published authors, but only researchers.
Based on what has been said, we can define literary genre – as a service tool to clarify the structure of content and its corresponding chosen form in defining them; for example, a story in a short story form can be structured in different ways (content) and presented in similarly different ways (form). The same story of events can be presented differently; if this is obvious with the form, which already justifies the existence of the genre, then it is also obvious with the content, since something can be omitted, something can be emphasized, and a pure epic becomes a lyrical-epic work. With this, I hope, it is clear. Literary genre is a detailed expression of the specifics of the correlation of content and form which creates such a great variety at this stage of typology, conditioned by the authors’ unwillingness and inability to stay within the set framework. The latter is confirmed by the fact that experienced, to say academically interesting authors and their works, of course, have a pronounced influence of their style on the literary genre in which they predominantly write. I will not name specific names; the astute reader can handle it himself, and if so, he has grasped the essence of the concept of literary genre.