The vulgate of the poetic triad (lyric, epic and drama) in the teaching of screenplay

Abstract

Lyric. Epic. Drama. What are these categories? Why are they repeatedly referred to in the teaching of screenplay? And why is the authorship of these same categories often attributed to Aristotle? Lyric, epic, and drama make up the famous canonical triad, an allegedly generic matrix from which all literary genres sprouted. Widely applied to the study of literary genres, the canonical triad has its due impact on film studies, notably in the theory and practice of contemporary scriptwriting. It is known that, although in constant renewal, the field of film and audiovisual media retains models and axioms from very pioneering works, such as Aristotle's Poetics or Plato's Republic, as well as more recent proposals and reflections, such as those by the Russian formalists. This paper aims to review the three “prime” literary genres and revisit part of the history of literary genres, as well as previous theories on both film and literary genres, in order to scrutinize why the categories of "lyric", "epic", and "drama" are repeatedly referred to in the teaching of scriptwriting – and why the same categories are ascribed, by mistake, to Aristotle's Poetics. The origin of these terms, as well as their applicability to the contemporary teaching of screenplay, will also be commented on in this paper.