This document summarizes various periods and movements in literature, including Renaissance literature, Enlightenment literature, Romanticism, Victorian literature, and Modernism. It provides brief descriptions of each period, including key dates, historical context, and characteristics of the literature produced during that time. The Renaissance focused on Greek/Roman influences and humanism. The Enlightenment emphasized reason and scientific rationalism. Romanticism featured imagination/emotion over reason and an interest in nature. Victorian literature reflected Christianity and traditional gender roles. Modernism experimented with form and individualism through techniques like stream of consciousness.

1. Third Form Literature
Literature Periods and
Movements
Maria Jose Galleno

2. Scholars often group works from a certain timeframe together
and label it as a period or movement.
❖ Renaissance Literature
❖ The Enlightenment
❖ Romanticism
❖ Transcendentalism
❖ Victorian Literature
❖ Realism
❖ Naturalism
❖ Modernism
❖ Bloomsbury Group
❖ Existentialism
❖ Beat Generation

4. Renaissance
❖ 1500 - 1670
❖ Renaissance literally means rebirth
❖ An awakening from the Dark Ages
❖ What had been a stagnant, even backsliding kind of society re-invested in
the promise of material and spiritual gain.
❖ belief that humanity was making progress towards a noble summit of
perfect existence
❖ The steady rise of nationalism, coupled with the first flourishing of
democracy, were traits common to the entire European Continent.
❖ The single greatest innovation of the Renaissance era was the printing press
❖ The English Renaissance produced some of the greatest works of literature
the world has known
❖ The spirit of optimism, unlimited potential, and the stoic English character
all coalesced to generate literature of the first order

5. Renaissance Literature
❖ Characteristics
❖ increased interest in literatures of the Greek and Romans (e.g. Shakespeare)
❖ Humanism
❖ humans as superior beings and distinguished
❖ Concepts of hierarchy
❖ Literature as imitation of reality
❖ People began to question the Pope

6. The Enlightenment
❖ 1700-1800
❖ referred to as the Age of Reason
❖ Scientific rationalism, exemplified by the scientific method
❖ The Church, in particular, was singled out as stymieing the
forward march of human reason.
❖ Enlightenment thinkers believed that the advances of science
and industry heralded a new age of egalitarianism and progress
for humankind
❖ More goods were being produced for less money, people were
traveling more, and the chances for the upwardly mobile to
actually change their station in life were significantly improving
❖ Political movements were the natural outgrowth of these
populist venues, but still a very exclusive one. Women,
minorities, and the lower classes were not exactly welcomed
into this new civil discourse.

7. Enlightenment Literature
❖ Characteristics
❖ most was nonfiction
❖ realistic
❖ it aimed to instruct, enlighten and make people think
❖ reason shows life as it is wheras imagination shows life as people wish it
were or fear it may be

8. Romanticism
❖ 1798-1970
❖ Romanticism is concerned with the individual more than
with society
❖ Melancholy
❖ There was a clearly mystical quality to Romantic writing that
sets it apart from other literary periods
❖ Thanks largely to the Industrial Revolution, English society
was undergoing the most severe paradigm shifts it had seen
in living memory. The response of many early Romantics
was to yearn for an idealized, simpler past.
❖ The Romantic poets were regarded as innovators, but a bit
lost in their own imaginations. The real problems of life in
the world seemed to be pushed aside. As modernization
continued unchecked, a more earthy kind of literature was
demanded, and the Romantics simply did not fit that bill.

9. Romanticism Literature
❖ Characteristics
❖ imagination and emotion more important than reason and formal rules
❖ intuition and reliance on natural feelings as guide of conduct instead of
control and rationality
❖ emphasise:
❖ love of nature, respect for primitivism, country life
❖ interested in the Medieval past, supernatural, mystical, gothic and exotic
Source: http://www.odessa.edu/dept/english/dsmith/rom.lit.char.pdf

10. Victorian Literature
❖ 1837-1901
❖ The name given to the period is borrowed
from the royal matriarch of England, Queen
Victoria.
❖ If there is one transcending aspect to Victorian
England life and society, that aspect is change
❖ Nearly every institution of society was shaken
by rapid and unpredictable change.
❖ Women in the Victorian world held very little
power and had to fight hard for the change
they wanted in their lives.

11. Victorian Literature
❖ Characteristics
❖ Christianity and God, personal duty and morals
❖ novels reinforced class hierarchy and traditional domestic roles of women
❖ Poetry long and follow an adventure story about a hero
❖ follow rigid structures in terms of rhyme and rhythm.
Source: http://classroom.synonym.com/characteristics-early-victorian-literature-4428.html

12. Modernism
❖ 1910-1965
❖ In broad terms, the period was marked by
sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional
ways of viewing and interacting with the world.
❖ Experimentation and individualism became
virtues, where in the past they were often heartily
discouraged.
❖ Modernism was set in motion, in one sense,
through a series of cultural shocks
❖ World War One
❖ a break with traditions is one of the
fundamental constants of the Modernist stance

13. Modern Literature
❖ Characteristics:
❖ spoke of the inner self and consciousness
❖ saw a decline in civilisation
❖ writers saw cold machinery and increased capitalism, alienating the individual,
leading to loneliness
❖ written in the first person
❖ stories were a stream of consciousness
❖ irony, satire and comparisons
Source: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/literature/what-are-characteristics-of-modernist-literature-fiction-in-particular