The 8 most important literary movements

Throughout the history of literature, there have been different currents shared by their authors. These are the literary movements, sets of currents, genres and styles that have marked a period and group of writers at different times in the history of the arts.

There have been many literary movements that have existed because each era has its preferences regarding the literature, just as there have been different currents at the same time and variations from country to country.

Next let's see what the main literary movements have been, in addition to talking about what its main characteristics are.

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What are literary movements?

Literary movements are known as the different historical and aesthetic trends that are part of the history of literature. Each one of these movements is made up of a group of writers or works, grouped together because the specialized public considers that they share a style or common features can be extracted. Thus, it is normal that when referring to a renowned writer or a famous work it is included in literary movements such as, for example, Modernism, Classicism, Baroque.

There have been many literary movements throughout history and even have presented variations according to the region where they became popular. There were extremely popular, long-lasting and influential ones and, practically always, they were accompanied by currents similar in other arts and fields of knowledge apart from literature, such as painting, sculpture, music or philosophy.

Although there have been literary movements that arose from the union of writers, who came together to share a common style or goal, in most cases these movements have been created to posterior. That is to say, It usually happens that the writers that we associate today with a certain artistic current were not aware that they belonged to it, but they have been specialists and later literary critics who have interpreted their works have found common characteristics and have put them in the same literary movement.

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Characteristics of literary movements

Before talking about the main literary movements, it is important to take into account what are the most distinctive characteristics of this type of artistic movement:

1. They serve to organize the history of literature

Literary scholars group writers and works that share certain traits under the name of a given literary movement. It must be said, however, that Sometimes it has happened that the movements were formed by groups of writers who came together expressly to create a new artistic trend.. We have an example of this with surrealism, whose artists were very aware of sharing some ideas and applying the same techniques in the world of the arts.

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2. Non-strict temporal and geographical limits

In the history of literature it is normal to attribute a specific time period and geographical location to artistic movements; however, these factors are not necessarily strict.

Some movements are made up of writers who shared a style or characteristics, but who did not live in the same time or place.. It also happens that the same author may have followed several currents throughout his life, beginning his life as a writer following a specific literary trend and then evolving into another very different.

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3. Are appreciated in hindsight

Many literary movements can only be appreciated in retrospect, once that current has come to an end. The reason for this is that, unlike other forms of art, literature is an extremely slow one: books must be written, edited, published and, once they are out on the market, made known to be read and, hopefully, appreciated. If they become important enough, these works will become the focus of interest for literary critics who will organize them into movements.

The problem is that this recognition can occur long after the work has been published, sometimes after several centuries. For this reason, many movements have been named and recognized much later, when literary experts found common traits in a set of authors.

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4. Purpose and specific characteristics

Literary movements differ from each other in their conception of literature, their purpose, and the specific way in which they use language. Each movement is characterized by a particular style or way of writing the works..

5. span different genres

There is no literary movement that has not experimented with various genres. In addition to the narrative, in most of them also plays with poetry, dramaturgy and the didactic genre, among others.

What are the main literary movements?

As we said, there are many literary movements that have existed. These have varied over time and have also presented their particularities depending on the country where they were successful. It is not possible to speak of absolutely all the literary movements that have existed and their particularities, but it is possible to speak of the most important, of those whose authors and works have contributed significantly to history.

However, it is worth mentioning that the classification that we are going to see is very focused on the literature art movements that one would expect to study in a language and literature class in Western bachelor. As might be expected, in other parts of the world such as China, Japan, India, the Arab countries or the world Slavonic have had their particular literary movements, which if we took into account would greatly enrich the ready.

These that we will see next have been the main western literary movements.

1. Renaissance (c. XV-XVI)

The literature of the Renaissance had as its main themes love, mythology and nature.. One of the remarkable aspects of the Renaissance authors was their marked anthropocentrism and constant vindication of the values ​​of the Greco-Latin authors.

Some examples of works of this movement are:

• "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
• "Don Quixote de la Mancha", by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
• "The Divine Comedy", by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

2. Baroque (s. seventeenth)

During the Baroque, one of the most outstanding literatures was Spanish. Baroque authors were characterized by the abundant use of figures and literary devices, having as recurring themes love, disappointment, lies and death.

Some of the most notable works of this period, mostly in Spanish, are:

• “Fuenteovejuna” (YEAR), by Lope de Vega (1562-1635)
• "The Trickster of Seville", by Tirso de Molina (1583-1648)
• “Life is a dream”, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681)

3. Neoclassicism (c. XVIII)

Neoclassicism was a movement that set his sights on ancient times, haunted by the seeming perfection of classical Rome and Greece. The authors of this movement were characterized by the predominance of reason and their interest in transmitting values ​​such as harmony, beauty and order. This movement arose as a contrast to the Baroque, seen as irregular and imperfect.

Some notable neoclassical works are:

• “Erudite and Curious Letters”, by Fray Benito Jerónimo Feijoo (1676-1764)
• "The yes of the girls", by Leandro Fernandez de Moratín (1760-1828)
• "The meadow of San Isidro", by Ramón de la Cruz (1731-1794)

4. Romanticism (s. XVII-XIX)

romantic literature valued above all the sensitivity of the author, especially in poetry. The romantics moved away from the rational and cosmopolitan world, just what the authors of Realism valued.

Romanticism stands out for talking about legends, myths, traditions and other aspects of the imaginary of the towns, being the seed for the nationalisms as we know them today in day. The stories in which the interiority of the characters was shown were also recurrent.

Some works of this movement are:

• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (1802-1885)
• "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Johann W. von Goethe (1749-1832)
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1797-1851)

5. realism (s. nineteenth)

The literature of realism was marked by the philosophical ideals of the French Enlightenment and was directly opposed to the romantic postulates. Realist writers conceived literature as an art capable of faithfully representing reality, and for this they used the narrative, especially the novel. If something defines Realism, it is the use of a precise, meticulous, objective and totally detached language from the emotional.

Some notable works of Realism are:

• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)
• "War and Peace" by Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910)

6. Surrealism (s. XX)

Surrealism was a meeting point for poets and playwrights rather than storytellers. Surrealist writers sought to reproduce in their works a state of nonsense and spontaneity by creating, something very well represented in other arts bathed in Surrealism such as painting or cinema. The writers of this movement sought to reproduce in their works mysterious connections resulting from unbridled creativity.

The surrealists valued what sane people would not value: madness, delirium, the breaking of forms... They practiced the technique of the exquisite corpse and automatic writing. They are credited with being among the first to practice what we now know as "artistic performances.", in addition to making extremely innovative combinations for his time, such as combining poetry with painting.

One of the most remarkable works of Surrealism is the "Manifesto of Surrealism", written by the French author André Breton (1896-1966). The title of this work may seem pretentious at first, but Breton is certainly credited with being the father of this movement in terms of its literary version.

7. Modernism (s. XIX-XX)

Modernist literature emerged in Latin America, but became especially influential in Spain. So much so that the movement became known as "The Return of the Caravels", since its way of writing, with classicist and baroque features, was later imitated in Spain. The modernists had the intention of renewing the literary language and introduced a certain preciousness in its forms and themes.especially in poetry.

Some notable modernist works are:

• “The Blue Poetry Book”, by Rubén Darío (1867-1916).
• "Platero and I", by Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958).
• "Ismaelillo", by José Martí (1853-1895).

8. Magic Realism (s. XX-XXI)

The literature of magical realism he intended to incorporate the fantastic and the marvelous into the stories, without emphasizing their astonishing nature. The followers of this movement, still in force today, tell stories in a realistic and everyday way. One of the exponents of Magical Realism is without a doubt the Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), with his work "One Hundred Years of Solitude", a work that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.