LITERARY

MOVEMENTS AND By Edwin Medina, PhD.

LITERARY GENRES
WHAT ARE 'LITERARY
MOVEMENTS'?

A literary movement or epoch is a body of literary works (plays,

novels, novellas, serialised stories, poems) composed during a set
time period, or era. This body of literary works is grouped together
based on certain features, such as a common perspective,
philosophy or ideology, aesthetic, school of thought, or its social,
political and cultural influences.
WHY ARE LITERARY MOVEMENTS
IMPORTANT?

While you could definitely read a literary text without knowing

which literary movement it belongs to, knowing about the literary
movement and time period it belongs to will certainly enhance your
understanding and perhaps even your enjoyment of it. History and
literature go hand in hand. Learning about the context of a work of
literature and the literary movement it belong to, will result in a
better appreciation of it and an enhanced ability to analyse it. You
will not only have opinions but informed opinions on what you
analyse.
WHAT IS A LITERARY GENRE?

A literary genre is a category that authors use to describe the primary

content and tone of their writing. The genre an author chooses can help
them determine what type of plot, characters and setting to create.
Literary genres typically describe writing styles such as poetry, essays,
novels, short stories and plays. Some literary works comprise more than
one type of genre, but most have a primary category they fall into. For
example, a novel could be a historical fiction piece with aspects of the
romance genre
LITERARY MOVEMENTS
Attention to the context in which a work of literature was created
and distributed is a critical layer to include in one’s analysis.
Beyond specific historical or cultural events relevant to a given
literary work, appreciating the rise and fall of the prominence of
particular literary movements can inform the interpretations of
what we read. There are four major literary movements applicable
to the study of modern short
fiction: Romanticism , Realism , Naturalism , and Modernism
Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated
in Europe towards the end of the eighteenth century characterized by a
heightened interest in nature and an emphasis on individual expression
of emotion and imagination. Romanticism flourished from the early to the
mid-nineteenth century, partly as a reaction to the rationalism and
empiricism of the previous age (the Enlightenment). In fiction,
Romanticism is often expressed through an emphasis on the individual (a
main character) and the expression of his or her emotional experience,
such as by having the plot coincide with the character’s emotional
conflicts. In opposition to the logic of the previous age, Romantic fiction
sometimes even returns to Gothic elements, which often includes stories
about the supernatural of the uncanny. (The Three Musketeers, The
Count of Monte Cristo and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)
Realism was an artistic and intellectual movement of the late
nineteenth century that stressed the faithful representation of reality
or verisimilitude . Realism was a reaction to what were viewed as the
exaggerations or flights of fancy of Romanticism. Realists sought to
develop an artistic style that valued the faithful portrayal of everyday
experience, what Henry James described as “the drama of a broken tea
cup.” The development of realism coincided with the rise of social reform
movements and many realistic writers and artists chose to focus on
social issues, such as poverty and the plight of the working class, in cities
as well as in the country. The height of realist writing in American
literature is considered to have occurred from the time of the U.S. Civil
War (c. 1865) to the turn of the century (c. 1900). Realism as a literary
movement swept across the country. This wave also fostered an interest
in Regionalism , the realistic portrayal of specific areas and locales
almost as a fictional form of travel literature. It should be noted that
literary realism was equally popular in Europe, such as in the work of
Charles Dickens or George Eliot in England, Honoré de Balzac and
Gustave Flaubert in France, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy in
Russia.
Madame Bovary (1857), Anna Karenina (1875), La desheredada (1881), O primo
Basilio (1883), La Regenta (1885), La mujer del farsante (1885) del inglés George
Moore, Los Pazos de Ulloa ( 1886), Fortunata y Jacinta (1887), La muñeca (1890) del
polaco Boleslaw Pru
Overlapping with the development of Realism was the literary movement
known as Naturalism (approximately 1880–1930). Naturalist literature
sought to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to the
characters and subjects represented in novels and short fiction. In this
way, Naturalism is influenced more by philosophical ideals than literary
techniques including, though not exclusively, existentialism and social
determinism. Characters in naturalistic stories frequently confront social
conditions or personal conflicts which cannot be reconciled through the
exercise of free will alone; these characters may fall upon tragic
circumstance due to their social class, the harsh realities of nature or the
inner strife of conflicting emotions, morals, and passions. Naturalist
authors borrowed some of the stylistic innovations of Realism, yet often
felt Realist works did not portray everyday experience in its full grit and
trauma, remaining more to middle class tastes. In order to convey what
they felt to be the harshness of life circumstances across the spectrum of
human experience, some Naturalist writers combined elements of
Realism (a focus on the everyday) with elements of Romanticism (a focus
on emotion and symbolism) in order to portray what they understood to
be the futility of human striving in an indifferent universe.
Modernism became the predominant literary and artistic movement of the
20 th century. Modernism is a broad term referring to the social thought,
cultural expressions, and artistic techniques that broke with past traditions
following the political upheavals across Europe in the mid–1800s (including
the French Revolution) through the horrors of the first World War, as well as
the scientific and technological developments flowing from the Industrial
Revolution. Yet, “modernism” also is a term that is specifically used in
relation to a precise style of fiction that attempted to chronicle the personal
alienation, cultural disruption, and even loneliness of living in a century of
rapid and often traumatic change. Some modernist literature (Virginia Woolf,
James Joyce, William Faulkner) relied on a style of writing known as stream-
of-consciousness , where the narrative followed the organic (and
sometimes chaotic) pathways of one or more characters’ thoughts. Other
modernist authors, such as Hemingway, sought to pare down the
comparatively flowery language of previous literary movements and present
the complexity of modern life through crisp, sharp detail. Many modernist
writers sought to create work that represented not simply a moment or a
region (as in Realistic fiction) but a larger, universal truth that transcended
personal experience. (Examples of this literary movement include William
Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law.”)
The Modernist movement (which many believe is still active) is followed
by postmodern innovations in fiction; post-modernist literature extends
the disillusionment and disruption that characterized modernism by
further fragmenting language and literary structures, even by creating
“hybrid” forms so that it becomes less clear what is a poem and what is a
story, for example. Some postmodernist literature exaggerates the irony
at the height of Modernism to the point of becoming parody, obscuring
what is comic and what is tragic about the subjects being represented.
The work of the American author Kurt Vonnegut, particularly his
novel SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE , is a prime example of postmodern
fiction.