Lit mov booklet part-4

1. Part 4
Literary Movements
Objectives:
By the end of this part, you will be able to:
1. To list the main literary movements in the west.
2. To identify the historical setting of each movement.
3. To describe the main characteristics of the literature in each
movement.
4. To name the main figures in each movement.
5. To discuss the main ideas in pre20th century movements
Activities:
Online Activities for this part:
1. DF-2 Realism
2. Quiz-4 Main Literary Movements
3. DF-3 Naturalism
4. Quiz-5 Neoclassicism & Romanticism
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2. Part (4(:
Literary Movements
Major Literary Movements
1. Neoclassicism
2. Romanticism
3. Realism
4. Naturalism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism (c. 1660–1798) is a major literary movement. It is inspired by
the rediscovery of classical works of ancient Greece and Rome that emphasized
balance, restraint, and order. Neoclassicism roughly coincided with the
Enlightenment, which espoused reason over passion. Major writer are Edmund
Burke, John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift.
Romanticism
Romanticism (c. 1798–1832) is a major literary movement. A literary and
artistic movement that reacted against the restraint and universalism of the
Enlightenment. The Romantics celebrated spontaneity, imagination,
subjectivity, and the purity of nature. Major writer are Jane Austen, William
Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, and William Wordsworth.
Realism
Realism (c. 1830–1900) is a major literary movement. It is a late-19th-century
literary movement that aimed at accurate detailed portrayal of ordinary,
contemporary life. Major writer are Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens,
George Eliot, Gustave Flaubert, and Leo Tolstoy
Naturalism
Naturalism (c. 1865–1900) is a major literary movement. A literary
movement that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity,
and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character. Major
writer are Émile Zola, Theodore Dreiser, and Stephen Crane.
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3. Neoclassicism
In England, Neoclassicism flourished roughly
between 1660, when the Stuarts returned to the
throne, and the 1798 publication of Words-
worth’s Lyrical Ballads, with its theoretical pref-
ace and collection of poems that came to be seen
as heralding the beginning of the Romantic Age.
Regarding English literature, the Neoclassical
Age is typically divided into three periods: the
Restoration Age (1660–1700), the Augustan Age
(1700–1750), and the Age of Johnson (1750–
1798). Neoclassical writers modeled their works
on classical texts and followed various esthetic
values first established in Ancient Greece
and Rome. Seventeenth-century and eighteenth-
century Neoclassicism was, in a sense, a resur-
gence of classical taste and sensibility, but it was
not identical to Classicism. In part as a reaction
to the bold egocentrism of the Renaissance that
saw man as larger than life and boundless in
potential, the neoclassicists directed their atten-
tion to a smaller scaled concept of man as an
individual within a larger social context, seeing
human nature as dualistic, flawed, and needing
to be curbed by reason and decorum. In style,
neoclassicists continued the Renaissance value
of balanced antithesis, symmetry, restraint, and
order. Additionally, they sought to achieve a
sense of refinement, good taste, and correctness.
Their clothes were complicated and detailed, and
their gardens were ornately manicured and geo-
metrically designed. They resurrected the classi-
cal values of unity and proportion and saw their
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MOVEMENT ORIGIN
c. 1660
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4. Romanticism
Romanticism as a literary movement lasted from
1798, with the publication of Lyrical Ballads to
some time between the passage of the first
Reform Bill of 1832 and the death of Words-
worth in 1850. With political revolution on the
Continent and the industrial revolution under-
way, the period witnessed the breakdown of
rigid ideas about the structure and purpose of
society and the known world. During this
period, emphasis shifted to the importance of
the individual’s experience in the world and
one’s subjective interpretation of that experi-
ence, rather than interpretations handed down
by the church or tradition.
Romantic literature is characterized by sev-
eral features. It emphasized the dream, or inner,
world of the individual and visionary, fantastic,
or drug-induced imagery. There was a growing
suspicion of the established church and a turn
toward pantheism (the belief that God is a part
of the created world rather than separate from
it). Romantic literature emphasized the individ-
ual self and the value of the individual’s experi-
ence. The concept of ‘‘the sublime’’ (a thrilling
emotional experience that combines awe, mag-
nificence, and horror) was introduced. Feeling
and emotion were viewed as superior to logic
and analysis.
For the romantics, poetry was believed to be
the highest form of literature, and novels were
regarded as a lower form, often as sensationalistic
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MOVEMENT ORIGIN
c. 1789
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5. Realism
The realist movement in literature first devel-
oped in France in the mid-nineteenth century,
soon spreading to England, Russia, and the
United States. Realist literature is best repre-
sented by the novel, including many works
widely regarded to be among the greatest novels
ever written. Realist writers sought to narrate
their novels from an objective, unbiased perspec-
tive that simply and clearly represented the
factual elements of the story. They became mas-
ters at psychological characterization, detailed
descriptions of everyday life, and dialogue that
captures the idioms of natural speech. The real-
ists endeavored to accurately represent contem-
porary culture and people from all walks of life.
Thus, realist writers often addressed themes of
socioeconomic conflict by contrasting the living
conditions of the poor with those of the upper
classes in urban as well as rural societies.
In France, the major realist writers included
Honore´ de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, E´ mile Zola,
and Guy de Maupassant, among others. In Rus-
sia, the major realist writers were Ivan Turgenev,
Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy. In Eng-
land, the foremost realist authors were Charles
Dickens, George Eliot, and Anthony Trollope. In
the United States, William Dean Howells was the
foremost realist writer. Naturalism, an offshoot
of Realism, was a literary movement that placed
even greater emphasis on the accurate representa-
tion of details from contemporary life. In the
United States, regionalism and local color fiction
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MOVEMENT ORIGIN
c. 1860
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6. Naturalism
Naturalism applies scientific ideas and princi-
ples, such as instinct and Darwin’s theory of
evolution, to fiction. Authors in this movement
wrote stories in which the characters behave in
accordance with the impulses and drives of ani-
mals in nature. The tone is generally objective
and distant, like that of a botanist or biologist
taking notes or preparing a treatise. Naturalist
writers believe that truth is found in natural law,
and because nature operates according to con-
sistent principles, patterns, and laws, truth is
consistent.
Because the focus of Naturalism is human
nature, stories in this movement are character-
driven rather than plot-driven. Although Natu-
ralism was inspired by the work of the French
writer E´ mile Zola, it reached the peak of its
accomplishment in the United States. In France,
Naturalism was most popular in the late 1870s
and early 1880s, but it emerged in the United
States at the end of the nineteenth century and
remained in vogue up to World War I.
The fundamental naturalist doctrine is pre-
sented in Zola’s 1880 essay ‘‘Le roman experimen-
tal’’ (meaning ‘‘the experimental—or experiential—
novel’’). In it, Zola claims that the naturalist
writers subject believable characters and events
to experimental conditions. In other words,
these writers take the known (such as a character)
and introduce it into the unknown (such as an
unfamiliar place). Another major principle of
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MOVEMENT ORIGIN
c. 1860
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7. Main Literary Movements
1. Surrealism
2. Symbolists
3. Aestheticism
4. Gothic fiction
5. Magic realism
6. Metaphysical poets
7. Literature of the Absurd
8. Angry Young Men
9. Lost Generation
Surrealism (1920s–1930s): An avant-garde movement, based primarily
in France, that sought to break down the boundaries between rational and
irrational, conscious and unconscious, through a variety of literary and
artistic experiments. The surrealist poets, such as André Breton and Paul
Eluard, were not as successful as their artist counterparts, who included
Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and René Magritte.
Symbolists (1870s–1890s): A group of French poets who reacted
against realism with a poetry of suggestion based on private symbols,
and experimented with new poetic forms such as free verse and
the prose poem. The symbolists—Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud,
and Paul Verlaine are the most well known—were influenced by Charles
Baudelaire. In turn, they had a seminal influence on the modernist poetry
of the early 20th century.
Aestheticism (c. 1835–1910): A late-19th-century movement that
believed in art as an end in itself. Aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde and
Walter Pater rejected the view that art had to posses a higher moral or
political value and believed instead in “art for art’s sake.”
Gothic fiction (c. 1764–1820): A genre of late-18th-century literature
that featured brooding, mysterious settings and plots and set the stage for
what we now call “horror stories.” Horace Walpole’s Castle of
Otranto, set inside a medieval castle, was the first major Gothic novel.
Later, the term “Gothic” grew to include any work that attempted to
create an atmosphere of terror or the unknown, such as Edgar Allan
Poe’s short stories.
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8. Characteristics of Modern Literary Movements
Characteristics of Neoclassicism
1. It emphasis upon the classical values of objectivity, rationality, decorum,
balance, harmony, proportion, and moderation.
2. It adheres to the Aristotelian ideas of “Probability” and the “Unities”: action,
time, and place.
3. The neoclassical writers reaffirmed literary composition as a rational and rule-
bound process, requiring a great deal of craft, labor, and study.
4. The neoclassicists tended to insist on the separation of poetry and prose, the
purity of each genre, and the hierarchy of genres.
5. Two of the concepts central to neoclassical literary theory and practice were
imitation and nature, which were intimately related.
Characteristics of Romanticism
1. Romanticism has an intense focus on human subjectivity and its expression.
2. It holds an exaltation of nature, which was seen as a vast repository of symbols.
3. It gives a great role to “imagination” as a more comprehensive and inclusive
faculty than reason.
4. The Romantics often insisted on artistic autonomy and attempted to free art
from moralistic and utilitarian constraints.
5. The Romantics exalted the status of the poet as a genius.
6. The most crucial human faculty for such integration was the imagination, which
most Romantics saw as a unifying power, one which could harmonize the other
strata of human perception such as sensation and reason.
The “classic” and the “romantic” as two different styles of poetry.
The Classic Style of Poetry. The Romantic Style of Poetry.
1. It is characterized by formal perfection.
2. The poetry is deficient in emotion and
imagination.
3. It is exclusively a poetry of the city.
4. It has no love for the beauties of nature.
5. Imitation of the ancients is the general rule.
6. In this poetry, there is much reflection and
1. All romantic literature is subjective.
2. Romantic poetry is spontaneous overflow of
powerful passions.
3. The romantic is extraordinarily alive to the
wonder, mystery and beauty of the universe.
4. A romantic is a dissatisfied individual.
5. Zest for the beauties of the external world
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9. The Classic Style of Poetry. The Romantic Style of Poetry.
philosophical comment on man and his
life.
7. With a few exceptions, the poetry of the
age is written in only one metre, the Heroic
couplet .
8. It is a great age of satiric, argumentative
and reflective poetry.
characterises all romantic poetry.
6. Love of Nature leads, by an easy transition, to
the love of those who live in her lap.
7. Not only do the Romantics treat of the common
man, they also use his language for their
purposes.
8. Their interest in the past leads the romantics to
experiment with old metres and poetic forms.
Characteristics of Realism:
1. the use of descriptive and evocative details.
2. avoidance of what was fantastical, imaginary, and mythical
3. adhering to the requirements of probability, and excluding events which were
impossible or improbable
4. inclusion of characters and incidents from all social strata, dealing not merely
with rulers and nobility
5. focusing on the present and choosing topics from contemporary life rather than
longing for some idealized past
6. emphasizing the social rather than the individual (or seeing the individual as a
social being)
7. refraining from the use of elevated language, in favor of more colloquial idioms
and everyday speech, as well as directness and simplicity of expression.
Characteristics of Psychoanalytic Criticism
1. The unconscious governs our behavior, the unconscious is the ultimate source
and explanation of human thought and behavior
2. Freud postulated that we bear a form of “otherness” within ourselves: we cannot
claim fully to comprehend even ourselves, why we act as we do, why we make
certain moral and political decisions, why we harbor given religious
dispositions and intellectual orientations.
3. Even when we think we are acting from a given motive, we may be deluding
ourselves; and much of our thought and action is not freely determined by us
but driven by unconscious forces which we can barely fathom.
4. Moreover, far from being based on reason, our thinking is intimately dependent
upon the body, upon its instincts of survival and aggression.
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