Genre terms such as autobiography, ballad, epic or fable are much-debated key categories in literary studies and in linguistics. Considering the multifaceted meanings of the terms, this lexicon provides a well-founded presentation in 125 keywords of the present state of research and provides impulses for the further development of genre theory and genre historiography. Each entry defines the respective genre, gives a short historical overview on the term, explains the different research positions and contains bibliographical references.