# what are the seven basic literary plots

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-seven-basic-literary-plots/232427>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [March 4, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-seven-basic-literary-plots/232427 "2004-03-04T00:44:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![brian\_the\_stilt\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brian\_the\_stilt\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brian_the_stilt_guy)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-seven-basic-literary-plots/232427/1 "2004-03-04T00:44:42Z")

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There’s more to this than Cecil has uncovered. I read in the New York Times a few years back that the basic plots that get listed as the seven are usually Faust, Romeo and Juliet, Orpheus, and four otheres that I cannnot remember now. they were all from opera, greek tragedies or shakespeare. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the NYT doesn’t include footnotes so I couldn’t follow that up.

This was in an article about something else entirely. It was supposed to be a hollywood screenwriting maxim.

[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/001124.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/001124.html)

-Brian the stilt guy

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**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-seven-basic-literary-plots/232427/2 "2004-03-04T13:58:16Z")

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Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, **brian** , glad to have you with us.

I’m not exactly sure how to read your comment that there’s more to this than Cecil revealed. Please note that Cecil takes the whole concept as a joke. He says that there are dozens of attempts to “classify” all plots, and calls them all flakey. So, an effort by the NYTimes to classify all literature as opera plots is amusing but it’s certainly not a criticism of Cecil that he didn’t mention it… nor any of the other dozens of such classifications.

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**Author:** ![stf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/db5fbb/32.png) [@stf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stf)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2004, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-seven-basic-literary-plots/232427/3 "2004-03-04T14:01:16Z")

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a moment’s googling turned up the [following quote](http://www.womenarts.org/network/profile_299.html):

…an article in the New York Times where Nicholas Hytner was quoted as saying, “It is a much quoted maxim that there are only seven stories. They are, apparently, Orpheus, Achilles, Cinderella, Tristan & Isolde, Circe, Romeo & Juliet and Faust”.