The RenaissanceRe-birth of learning.Movement towards secular
themes and away from religious themes.Works written in the
vernacular of that country.A little more creative freedom, but
still very restrictive.Sonnets
The EnlightenmentReason was king.Logic was applied to
everythingeven literature.LOTS of political and social
unrest.Middle class gets a voice and demands change.Literature
heavily espoused the philosophies of the day.Satire used a lot to
mask the true meaning of works.CandideLa Fontaines Fables
RomanticismBacklash against reason / emphasized the
imagination.Authors rebelled and experimented with new forms of
writing.Emphasis on the individual.Emphasis on nature.Emphasis on
the supernatural.
Following the natural progression, what comes next?The Age of
ProgressRealismNaturalism
Industrial RevolutionThe explosion of scientific knowledge led
to many new technological advancements.Steam EngineElectric
DynamoProduction of Aluminum and SteelTelegraphElectric
LightRepeating RifleFactories popped up everywhere.Shift from rural
to urbanFarm workers came in droves to find factory jobs.Unprepared
cities could not handle the flux in population and slums
resulted.Darwins Theory of Evolution
Many prospered during the Industrial Revolution.New middle class
of bankers, manufacturers, and lawyers.This dominant class became
optimistic that material progress would better humanity.The
ObjectorsKarl MarxEconomic theorist and philosopher.Major force in
establishing the communist movement.Peasants lived in abject
poverty.The cities became polluted and dangerous.Children and
adults worked twelve hour days, six days a week.Children worked as
draft animals, pulling carts of coal.Factories provided unsafe
working conditions.
Many writers were disturbed by the ever-increasing gap between
the rich and the poor.RealismNaturalism
RealismCareful observers of the world as it is.Romanticism did
this too (in fact, several authors during this time are considered
Romantic and Realist) but it has to do with how they presented the
world they saw day in and day out.Realists eliminated
sentimentality from their tone and excessive decoration from their
descriptions.Their aim was to observe and record the lives of
ordinary people without distorting the truth.Of course, no author
can completely withhold judgment or feeling form his or her work,
and good writing does more than mirror reality.
A radical off-shoot of Realism that developed in France in the
1870s.Led by mile ZolaThe members considered free will an
illusion.Showed characters as helpless victims of heredity, fate,
and environment.Tried to abolish the line between scientist and
artist.Most writers had trouble staying within the narrow limits of
their own ideology.Poetry during this time is marked by
Symbolism.
Realism especially flourished in Russia.Ivan TurgenevLeo
TolstoyFyodor Dostoevsky Anton ChekhovThe realist movement helped
inspire a movement to liberate the serfs, and later, the entire
society.Not based in social reform, but rather trying to ask the
most daunting human questions.How should people live?What are good
and evil?
During the Romantic era, poetry was the dominant form of
writing, and during the Realist movement it was prose.There were a
few notable playwrights including Henrik Ibsen.Nowadays we are used
to being a fly on the wall during a drama performance Ibsen created
that.Prior to Ibsen, plays were usually about extraordinary people
and the lines were delivered in verse.Ibsen popularized dramas
about ordinary people experiencing the heartbreak of ordinary
life.Problem Plays
