The Literary Eras
Bessemerbiblioteket
Antiquity
The Renaissance
Enlightenment
Realism
Modernism
Post-modernism
Medieval times
You can view history as a linear thing,
a TIME LINE.
Cause - Effect
Thesis - Antithetis - Synthesis
The conqueror writes the history.
You can also think of time as a pendulum,
that swings between ideas, ideals and identities.
Keep in mind:
Reading and Writing are "markers of civilization"
Reading and Writing are
the human urge to convey complex ideas and experiences between people.
We communicate because
we are social animals.
That doesn't mean that animals don't communicate!
What does this frog "say"?
Bees do a waggle dance to describe where pollen can be found
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. (mamma, mama)
In the olden days most people died
of poor dental hygiene?!
Medieval times
Monk in a scriptorium
ca . 500 - 1500
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
We call Medieval times the "Dark ages"
- why?
The average life expectancy was
only about 28 years
Literacy
Religious
Hocus Pocus
Superstition
Only those with wealth and power could read.
Only those with wealth and power could afford to own a book.
Beowulf
ca. 700-1000
The next era has something to do with washing your clothes?
The Renaissance
Ca. 1400 - 1700
Gutenberg - 1450s
The Printing press
Suddenly books could be copied at a rapid rate which brought down the cost of books.
"A renaissance man"
The Ambassadors - Holbein
"Memento mori" to ward off hubris
Leonardo Da Vinci
1452-1519
The Virtuvian Man 1492
Da Vinci
Shakespeare
1564-1616
The catholic church becomes worried?
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
Stiftsbibliotek - Admont
The Enlightenment
1700s
The era of reason
The enlightenment is
concerned with the brain and its faculties!
Reason, intellect, deduction!
Voltaire
1694-1778
The seeds planted by the Enlightenment
led to scientific and technological
advances, but also to ideas about
rationalism and reason.
Our modern take on romanticism
Would be foreign for the people who lived during the Romantic era.
Longing
Passion
Desire
Extacy
Horror
Terror
Rage
Madness
Anguish
The Romantic era
1800s
Friheten på barrikaderna - Delacroix 1830
American revolution (1775-1783)
French revolution (1789-1799)
Industrialism
Industrialism led to big Changes for
how our society is structured.
Slums - crowded, stinking, unhygienic!
Escapism:
Wanting to escape from your reality!
Beer street and gin Alley - Hogarth
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.
(Rousseau - Emile)
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.
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"
Realism and naturalism
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.
Realism 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 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
What do you Think it will be called?