Below is a list of basic topics in literature -- topics which will help the beginner become familiar with the field of literature. For a comprehensive list, see List of literary topics.

literature

History of literature

history of the book

Western canon

the teaching of writing: composition, rhetoric

poetry

prosody

meter

scansion

Constrained writing

poetics

villanelle

sonnet

sestina

ghazal

ballad

blank verse

free verse

epic poetry

prose

fiction

non-fiction

biography

prose genres

novel

short story

journalism

essay

theater

history of theater

literary criticism

rhetoric

metaphor

metonymy

symbol

allegory

Basic procedural knowledge

poetry analysis

effective reasoning in argument writing

Techniques and conceits

False document

Frame tale

anecdote

point of view

Varieties of literary criticism (applications of Literary theory)

Marxist literary criticism

Semiotic literary interpretation

Psychoanalytic literary interpretation

Feminist literary interpretation

New historicism

Queer literary interpretation

Literature lists | Wikipedia missing topics