The Literary Eras

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Antiquity

The Renaissance

Enlightenment

Realism

Modernism

Post-modernism

Medieval times

You can view history as a linear thing,

a TIME LINE.

Romanticism

The conqueror writes the history.

Keep in mind:

You can also think of time as a pendulum,

that swings between ideas, ideals and identities.

Cause - Effect

Thesis - Antithetis - Synthesis

What was the first word ever spoken?

One theory says that speech developed when people had to work together when hunting large prey.

Another theory claims it might have been the sound for mother. 

All animals communicate!

What does this frog "say"?

Bees do a waggle dance to describe where pollen can be found

Reading and Writing are "markers of civilization"

Reading and Writing developed from

the human urge to convey complex ideas and experiences between people.

We communicate because

we are social animals.

Antiquity

3000 B.C. - 500 A.D.

• An oral tradition
• Rethorical skill was important 
• Literacy increased as society underwent urbanisation.
• Approx. 1/3 of the population could read.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

 Homer's Illiad and Odyssey

Sappho's poems

Plato's writings

Medieval times

Monk in a scriptorium

ca . 500 - 1500

We call Medieval times the "Dark ages"

- why?

Only those with wealth and power could read.

Only those with wealth and power could afford to own a book.

The feudal system

Lords

Peasantry

Vassals

Code of chivalry

To live one's Life so that it is worthy of respect and honor by

Fair Play

Nobility

Valor

Honor

Courtesy

Loyalty

Courtly literature, heroic epics and knightly novels

Eleanor of Aquitaine

Known works from the Middle Ages:

Chanson de Roland

Tristan and Isolde

Beowulf

Divine Comedy

The Edda

Thousand and One Nights

Hildegard of Bingen - religious revelations

Saint Bridget

Beowulf

ca. 700-1000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WcIK_8f7oQ&t=10s

The next era has something to do with washing your clothes?

The Renaissance

Ca. 1400 - 1700

ca 1450 Gutenberg - invented 

The Printing Press

Books could now be copied

at a rapid pace.

Books became cheaper and

easier to get hold of.

The written language was stylized.

(However, people in Europe were unaware that books had been printed on paper in China for

at least 1,000 years,

 and that the loose type method had been used for more than 400 years.)

"A renaissance man"

The Ambassadors - Holbein

"Memento mori" to ward off hubris

Leonardo Da Vinci

1452-1519

The Virtuvian Man 1492

Da Vinci

Literature - part of the arts during the Renaissance

Playwrights like Shakespeare

and Marlowe

and lyricists such as Petrarch

lived during this era.

Machiavelli wrote The Prince - non-fiction

Thomas Moore wrote Utopia - social criticism

Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote "Handbook for the Christian Knight" - religious handbook

The Enlightenment

1700s

"The era of reason"

The Enlightenment is the era of the brain.

The first encyclopedias are written.

Reason, intellect, deductive ability

Why? Question everything!

Controversial!

Diderot

Linné wrote Systema Naturae

Newton wrote Principia mathematica

Rousseau wrote Emile or On Education

Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Voltaire

1694-1778

The seeds planted by the Enlightenment

led to scientific and technological

advances, but also to ideas about

rationalism and reason.

Torture and censorship were abolished in Prussia.

The Emperor of Austria worked for religious tolerance

The humanistic ideas of the Enlightenment led to revolutions.

Then the pendulum swings

from brain and reason

to heart and emotion

Our modern take on what's romantic.

Silly!

Longing

Passion

Desire

Extacy

Horror
Terror

Rage
Madness

Anguish

The Romantic era

1800s

Revolutions and Industrialism -

the world changes. 

Why?

American revolution (1775-1783)

French revolution (1789-1799)

Friheten på barrikaderna - Delacroix 1830

Urbanization and slums

Beer street and gin Alley - Hogarth

A hard life led to dreams about returning

to nature and a simpler lifestyle. 

That's called escapism:

Wanting to escape from your reality!

The ideals of the Romantic era

Emotion and Heart

The metaphysics and the soul

Escapism

Back to nature
"The cult of sensitivity" - the depiction of Life from a female and Child perspective.

Truth as Beauty in art, literature and philosophy.

Sturm und drang

Storm and longing

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The first Best seller

Sold in 13 million copies in Europe

upon its release.

Hot fashion

Lord Byron

1788-1824

"Mad, bad and dangerous to know."

-Lady Caroline Lamb

Childe Harold's pilgrimage 1812-1818

A Rainy summer....1816

Villa Diodati, Genève

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

1797-1851

Frankenstein - 1818

All our modern genres stem from the Romantic era: Science fiction, horror, detective novels, biographies, paranormal, fantasy.

"Feuilletones"

The Brothers Grimm
Jacob (1785-1863) Wilhelm (1786-1859)

"Disneyfication" - romantic (heterosexual) love and happiness ever after.

Fairy tales have traditionally served to educate, teach morals and to ward of dangers.

- Be kind, humble and patient.

- Being helpful can pay off.

- Being selfish and vane will lead to downfall.

Realism and naturalism

1870-1910

Realism concerned itself with how life was structured socially, economically, politically, and culturally in the mid-nineteenth century.

This led to unflinching, sometimes "ugly" portrayals of life's unpleasant moments .

Stop dreaming, see Life as it is!

The stone breakers - Courbet

The Gleaners - Courbet

Waiting for the ferry - Knight

Realism in literature

The authors strived to present Life truthfully and avoided supernatural, exotic

or implausible elements.

Naturalism pushed the envelope even further and included social conditions, hereditary and environmental aspects as

something that shaped human existence.

Influenced by Darwin's Theory of evolution.

Emile Zola wroteTheresé Raquin

Gustav Flaubert wrote Madame Bovary

Jack London wrote The Call of the Wild

John Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men

Realism also has something

to do with a blue soap dish?

A blue soap dish

Details, details, details!

In Gustave Flauberts

"A simple heart"

A blue soap dish is mentioned, just as a detail. It is has nothing to do with the plot of the story.

However, we as modern readers can easily miss what the soap dish is meant to convey: possibly something to do with the consumerism of the time, increasing urbanisation and the rise of the bourgeois.

Charles Dickens

1812-1870

During the Victorian era (1837-1901) reading becomes a pasttime for the common citizen. The language of literature changed to sound more like people actually spoke.

Please sir, I want some more?

Modernism and postmodernism

The 1900s

The development of individualism, capitalism and techonolgical and political progress. 

The World becomes smaller

Steam Engines, Trains, Planes

We understand it better.

We have microscopes and telescopes.

Two World wars in one century

Two and a half wars - The Cold war!

Literacy increases

Universal schooling

Reading becomes a way to

make social change

Reading helped boost

the economic and scientific boom

in developed countries during the 1900s

The role of the author/artist changes

from an intellectual superior

to a person who wants to experience life

and write about it.

They want to challenge even the format of art itself.

Does a book need covers?

Does a painting need to hang from a wall?

Ceci n'est pas une pipe - Magritte

Berndnaut Smilde - Nimbus cloud

Our World becomes even smaller

We can carry the World in our pocket!

We are experiencing unrest and upheaval

due to an unbloody revolution

between industrialism and the next era to come.

And the future?

What will coming generations call our era?

The era of economism

The era of information

The Plastic era

The era of recycling

The era of AI?

What do you think our era will be called?

And what do you think we will be reading about in the future?

AI - "en study buddy på steroider"

ChatGPT

Använd ungefär som ett uppslagsverk i stil med Wikipedia eller NE, skillnaden är att du inte kan skriva källa: ChatGPT.

Vi kan massor som inte AI kan!

Resonera - sunt förnuft

Förstå abstrakta koncept

Vara kreativ

Känslor och medvetande

Empatikrävande uppgifter

Intuitionskrävande uppgifter

Förstå kontext

 Erfarenhet av den fysiska världen

Förståelse av idiomatiska uttryck

Hänga med i dagsfärska nyheter

https://databasetown.com/what-artificial-intelligence-cannot-do/

Den AI som finns idag är inte ond,

den är duktig på ett litet snävt område.

Det forskare och andra varnar för är

generell artificiell intelligens eller

superintelligens.

"Den teknologiska singulariteten" är den punkt där datorerna har blivit superintelligenta

och kan börja designa nya maskiner som sen blir ännu smartare och ännu smartare.

Vad händer då med människan?

Här är det vissa som hävdar att den här utvecklingen är snabb och att vi redan har passerat tidpunkten då vi hade kunnat reglera den t.ex. politiskt.

Forskare inom området säger att GPT-4 visar "begynnande tecken på intelligens".

Den klarar av Turingtestet. 

Andra säger att det kommer att ske nästa århundrade.

Domedagskänsla?

AI är inte ond eller god, den är en produkt av mänskligt skapande, och vi människor har en oändlig förmåga till empati och medmänsklighet.  

I alla tider då ny teknik uppfunnits har det medfört oro för att den ska ta våra jobb, skada oss eller göra oss överflödiga. Men historien visar också att tekniska innovationer oftare leder till ökat välstånd och utveckling för mänskligheten på sikt.

The end

Baroque movement

ca.1600 - 1700

thought of as a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, theater, and Music.

The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the Catholic Church.

Baroque - strange, over the top, religious!

The Castle of Versailles

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