Literary Movements through Poetry

1800s to Present

This project is dedicated to

 Little Miss Sunshineaka

Ivy Drexel

For demanding I "read more poems!!" as my final project

1760 - 1850      Gothic Literature

Historical:• reaction and rebellion against

the waning Enlightenmento strict rationality and reasono fasination with Middle Ages

• was an outlet for the terror and cultural anxiety in Europe over French Revolution (1789)o images of chase capture and

threat of evil

• Setting: medieval, eerie and exotic, ruined castles

• Somewhat archaic language• A complex and fragmented

narrative• Mood of fear and horror

experienced by both reader and character

1789 - 1832            Romanticism

Historical:• reaction to Enlightenment• French revloutionary ideas

o the worth and potential freedom of individual, exalted that freedom over traditionally accepted social hierarchy

• Industrial Revolutiono natural world purer than industrial

one, nature place of spiritual truth• Religion

o in general, sought to experience spirituality apart from church

• preferred emotion and imaginative expression to rational analysis

• individual center of all experience, interpretation highest authority

• use of fantastic, or drug induced imagery

• concept of "the Sublime"• poetry is higest form of

literature

1835 -1850      Transcendentalism

Historical:• larger period 1829-1865• Rise of Industry

o economic boom then panic of 1837 led many to question industrialization and material goods

• Period of Reformo Women's rights and slaveryo goal of Transcendentalism

was a liberation of the soul, over time, that goal extended to social liberation

• American movement• Form of Romanticism, stressed

importance of intuition and subjectivity experience in communication with God

• pursued truths that lie beyond realm of reason and perception

• inexorably tied to the theme of American democracy, the idea of human nature as divine and soul as inherently wise

• Free Verse characterized by irregular line length and breaks conventional rules of poetic rhythm and meter

1860 - 1880       Realism

Historical:

• reaction and rejection of overly sentimentalized romanticism

• Mid to Late Century, period of major political and social upheavals as well a stability in Western world

• Sought to portray familiar characters, situations, and settings in a realistic manner

• subjective experiences portrayed in an objective, unbiased, narrative point of view

• endeavored to represent existence in all walks of life, thus addressed themes of socio economic conflict and class struggle

1850 - 1900      Symbolism

Historical:• Reaction and rebellion

against prevailing standards of realism

• Movement began in France• bridges transition from

realism to modernism • Charles Baudelaire ignited

the movement with his collection Les fleurs du mai (Flowers of Evil) in 1857

• To invoke indirectly and symbolically an order of being beyond the material world of the senses

• poetic expression of personal emotion

• relies on metaphorical language to symbolize or approximate an eternal essence of being

• interested in bringing out the musical qualities of language

• Strong moods expressing internal states of mind

1910 - 1925       Expressionism

Historical:

• Blossomed in pre WWI Germanyo had an established middle

classo writers rebelling against

complacency and conventionso increasing urbanization and

mechanization • War melts movement with

activismo pacifism and universal

brotherhood

• Distorted objective features of the sensory world using dreamlike elements 

• illustrates alienating and often emotionally overwhelmed sensibilities 

• poetry representing depth of human experience through series of disjointed symbolic images rather than narrative whole

• Abstraction or distillation of reality into its essence

• present the world not as we see it, but as we experience it.

1860 - 1912       Naturalism

Historical:• Initiated in France, (1870-80)

brought to fruition in America(late 1800s to WWI)

• Realistic period: continuation of realism the disillusioned America turned to after Civil War

• time of widespread acceptance of rationalism and scientific inquiry, demand and desire for truth

• Emile Zola envisioned a type of fiction that would examine human life with the objectivity of scientific inquiry

• Viewed humans as either ruled by hereditary instincts engaged in endless stuggle for survival or ruled by social and economic forces beyond their control

• Symbolism conveying deep meaning in very few words

• Detailed descriptions with goal of giving readers a fully formed perception of the characters

1860 - 1939      Modernism

Historical: • WWI: a devastating and

destructive event for western worldo broke all illusionso end to victorian moralso feeling of horror and

despair with society• Really lasted from the

beginning of the 20th century to the end of WWI

• Encompasses many of other movements discussed

• Defined by its rejection of the literary conventions of the 19th century

• opposition to conventional morality, taste, traditions and economic values

• concerned with the accelerating pace of society forward to destruction adn meaninglessness

• Narration: show world as we experience it, "stream of consciousness" "internal monologue"

1909 - 1917    Imagism

Historical:• Imagists begin the major shift

from romanticism to modernism

• WWI: disillusioned generation, cynical and ready to analyze society and the world around them

• Many of these poets had ties to the Suffrage movement.

• Imagery: main purpose was to present one precise concrete image

• Used common and precise language, spare in use of words, no abstraction, aimed at consciousness

• Free Verse (Pound's tenant) poetry without traditional rules of form, mainly rhyme

• Polyphonic Prose: poem is printed in prose and although lacking in rhyme ect. sound of writing conveys rhythm

1919 - 1939      Surrealism

Historical: French movement• reaction to and rejection of

Dadaism, which it felt was negative and meaninglesso Dadaism: rejection of the

rationalism and logic that they felt had caused the war

• still moving away from logic, but in a more positive wayo looked to Freud's theorieso constructive rebellion

• Sought to express unconscious thoughts and feelings in work

• proposed to unify consciousness and unconsciousness, dream and reality, subjective and objective into a new level of "super realism"

• Automatic writing: passive state of mind writing without thinking

• Imagery and Juxtaposition of contrary images

1940s - 1960s    Existentailism

Historical:• christened and ignited by

Jean-Paul Sartre in early 1940's France

• flourished there during the occupationo insanity and horror of war

provided a perfect backdrop

• After WWII, movement fell apart in France, moved to Americao reached peak in 1950s

authors grappled with meaninglessness around them

• Concerned with nature and perception of human existence 

• existence cannot be fully understood or described by empirical effort

• individuals must bear responsibility for their actions

• No fixed vaules or morals-• individuals can shape thier

own character, shape themselves, through exercising of free will

late 1940-mid 1960   Beat Movement

Historical:• American Poets, starts in the

late 40s will lose momentum in early 60s

• reaction against the conformity and sentimentality of the 1950s

• rejection of all social and literary norms 

• aimed at creating works of the free mind

• unconventional in both subject matter and form

• used stream of consciousness, jazz influenced free verse, and focus on abnormal states of mind (religious ecstasy, drugs)

• "Cut Up" technique, Spontaneous Prose, Contemporary Idiom 

1950 - today        Post Modernism

• Writing from the 1960s forward• characterizd by experimentation and continuing to apply some

fundamentals of modernism• often rejects all basis in traditional form• includes anything and everything