Literary Movements

Made by: Fernando Sols, Ian M. Reynaud, Juan E.

Hernndez and Mariano Acosta

Characteristics
Classical
Refers to any literary composition from ancient

times, especially Greece or Roman.

Is recognized for its artistic excellence.
Is considered a canon or model to follow.

Medieval
The presence of a growing Christian spiritually

in every aspect of the social life.

Renaissance
Going back to humanism.
Invention of the printing press made literature

more accessible to a bigger part of the

population.

Modernism
The first literary movement in Spanish initiated

in the America continent.

To exalt passions and to energetically refuse
oppression.

Contemporary
It refuses vulgarity.
It search for perfection and creation of images

with an aesthetic and refined language.

Authors of literary
movements

Classicism

Homer (c. 750 BC)

It is of interest to note that Homer, whom many consider one of the greatest
poets of western civilization, may not have existed.

Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)

Pierre Corneille was born June 6, 1606, in Rouen, France. The man who
would one day be remembered as the Father of French Tragedy, In his spare
time, Corneille wrote plays.

Classicism location:
Greece and Italy

Contemporary

William Timothy "Tim" O'Brien (born October 1, 1946)

American novelist best known for his work of fiction, The Things They Carried
(1990), a critically acclaimed collection of semi-autobiographical, interrelated
short stories inspired by O'Brien's experiences in the Vietnam War

Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr. (April 12, 1947 October 1, 2013)

American novelist and video game designer best known for his
technically detailed espionage and military-science story lines set
during and after the Cold War.

Contemporary location:
France and Spain

Modernism

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

Polish-born English author and master mariner wrote Heart of Darkness

(1902)

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

American-British poet and literary critic, author of Prufrock and

Other Observations (1917) won numerous awards and honours in
his lifetime, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948

Modernism location:
Spain

Renaissance

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

The Bard of Avon', English poet and playwright wrote the famous 154
Sonnets and numerous highly successful oft quoted dramatic works including
the tragedy of the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet

Christopher Marlowe (bap. 1564, d. 1593),

The Muses Darling', English poet and playwright of drama wrote Doctor
Faustus. Critics and scholars alike have praised his poetic dramas and
innovation of blank verse.

Renaissance location:
Italy

Fragments of Representative
Texts

THE ILLIAD (Classic)

By Homer
BOOK I
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that
brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul
did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it
yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of
Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of
men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.
And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It
was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king
and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people,
because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest.
Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free
his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom:
moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed
with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but
most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.

BEOWULF (Medieval)
By Unknown
VIII
UNFERTH spake, the son of Ecglaf,
who sat at the feet of the Scyldings lord, unbound the battle-runes. 8a Beowulfs quest,
sturdy seafarers, sorely galled him;
ever he envied that other men
should more achieve in middle-earth
of fame under heaven than he himself.
Art thou that Beowulf, Brecas rival,
who emulous swam on the open sea,
when for pride the pair of you proved the floods, and wantonly dared in waters deep
to risk your lives? No living man,
or lief or loath, from your labor dire
could you dissuade, from swimming the main. Ocean-tides with your arms ye covered,
with strenuous hands the sea-streets measured, swam oer the waters. Winters storm
rolled the rough waves. In realm of sea
a sennight strove ye. In swimming he topped thee, had more of main! Him at morning-tide
billows bore to the Battling Reamas,
whence he hied to his home so dear
beloved of his liegemen, to land of Brondings, fastness fair, where his folk he ruled,
town and treasure. In triumph oer thee Beanstans bairn 8b his boast achieved.
So ween I for thee a worse adventure
though in buffet of battle thou brave hast been, in struggle grim, if Grendels approach
thou darst await through the watch of night!

HAMLET (Reinassance)
By William Shakespeare
ACT I SCENE I

Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

[FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO]

BERNARDO

Who's there?

FRANCISCO

Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO

Long live the king!

FRANCISCO

Bernardo?

BERNARDO

He.

FRANCISCO

You come most carefully upon your hour.

BERNARDO

'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO

Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO

Not a mouse stirring.

BERNARDO

Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
FRANCISCO

I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

[Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS]

HORATIO Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS

And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO

Give you good night.

MARCELLUS

O, farewell, honest soldier:

Who hath relieved you?

FRANCISCO

Bernardo has my place.

Give you good night.

[Exit]

MODERN LITERATURE

MOBY DICK (Romanticism Novel)

By Hermann Melville
Chapter 58 Brit
Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast
meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the
Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues undulated
round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless
fields of ripe and golden wheat.
On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who,
secure from the attack of a Sperm-Whaler like the Pequod, with
open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to
the fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their
mouths, was in that manner separated from the water that
escaped at the lips.
As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly
advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy
meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange,
grassy, cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths
of blue upon the yellow sea.*

MADAME BOVARY (Realism Novel)

By Gustave Flaubert
Chapter Six
She had read "Paul and Virginia," and she had dreamed of the little bamboo-house, the
nigger Domingo, the dog Fidele, but above all of the sweet friendship of some dear little
brother, who seeks red fruit for you on trees taller than steeples, or who runs barefoot over
the sand, bringing you a bird's nest.
When she was thirteen, her father himself took her to town to place her in the convent.
They stopped at an inn in the St. Gervais quarter, where, at their supper, they used
painted plates that set forth the story of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The explanatory
legends, chipped here and there by the scratching of knives, all glorified religion, the
tendernesses of the heart, and the pomps of court.
Far from being bored at first at the convent, she took pleasure in the society of the good
sisters, who, to amuse her, took her to the chapel, which one entered from the refectory by
a long corridor. She played very little during recreation hours, knew her catechism well,
and it was she who always answered Monsieur le Vicaire's difficult questions. Living thus,
without ever leaving the warm atmosphere of the classrooms, and amid these pale-faced
women wearing rosaries with brass crosses, she was softly lulled by the mystic languor
exhaled in the perfumes of the altar, the freshness of the holy water, and the lights of the
tapers. Instead of attending to mass, she looked at the pious vignettes with their azure
borders in her book, and she loved the sick lamb, the sacred heart pierced with sharp
arrows, or the poor Jesus sinking beneath the cross he carries. She tried, by way of
mortification, to eat nothing a whole day. She puzzled her head to find some vow to fulfil.
When she went to confession, she invented little sins in order that she might stay there
longer, kneeling in the shadow, her hands joined, her face against the grating beneath the
whispering of the priest. The comparisons of betrothed, husband, celestial lover, and
eternal marriage, that recur in sermons, stirred within her soul depths of unexpected
sweetness.

NANA (Naturalism Novel)

By Emile Zola
CHAPTER V
At the Varietes they were giving the thirty-fourth performance of the Blonde Venus. The first act had just
finished, and in the greenroom Simonne, dressed as the little laundress, was standing in front of a console
table, surmounted by a looking glass and situated between the two corner doors which opened obliquely on
the end of the dressing-room passage. No one was with her, and she was scrutinizing her face and rubbing
her finger up and down below her eyes with a view to putting the finishing touches to her make-up. The gas
jets on either side of the mirror flooded her with warm, crude light.
"Has he arrived?" asked Prulliere, entering the room in his Alpine admiral's costume, which was set off by a
big sword, enormous top boots and a vast tuft of plumes.
"Who d'you mean?" said Simonne, taking no notice of him and laughing into the mirror in order to see how
her lips looked.
"The prince."
"I don't know; I've just come down. Oh, he's certainly due here tonight; he comes every time!"
Prulliere had drawn near the hearth opposite the console table, where a coke fire was blazing and two more
gas jets were flaring brightly. He lifted his eyes and looked at the clock and the barometer on his right hand
and on his left. They had gilded sphinxes by way of adornment in the style of the First Empire. Then he
stretched himself out in a huge armchair with ears, the green velvet of which had been so worn by four
generations of comedians that it looked yellow in places, and there he stayed, with moveless limbs and
vacant eyes, in that weary and resigned attitude peculiar to actors who are used to long waits before their
turn for going on the stage.
Old Bosc, too, had just made his appearance. He came in dragging one foot behind the other and coughing.
He was wrapped in an old box coat, part of which had slipped from his shoulder in such a way as to uncover
the gold-laced cloak of King Dagobert. He put his crown on the piano and for a moment or two stood moodily
stamping his feet. His hands were trembling slightly with the first beginnings of alcoholism, but he looked a
sterling old fellow for all that, and a long white beard lent that fiery tippler's face of his a truly venerable
appearance. Then in the silence of the room, while the shower of hail was whipping the panes of the great
window that looked out on the courtyard, he shook himself disgustedly.
"What filthy weather!" he growled.

CONTEMPORARY
LITERATURE

PROSAS PROFANAS (Contemporary)

By Ruben Dario
Era un aire suave, de pausados giros; El hada Harmona
rifmaba sus vuclos;
E iban frases vagas y tenues suspiros Entre los sollozos de
los violoncelos.
Sobre la terraza, junio a los ramajes, '"^Dirase un tremolo
de liras eolias
Cuando acariciaban los sedosos trajes,
Sobre el tallo erguidas, las blancas magnolias.
La marquesa Eulalia risas y desvos Daba a un tiempo
mismo para dos rivales: El vizconde rubio de ios desafos
Y el abate joven de los madrigales.
Cerca, coronado con hojas de vina, Rea en su mscara
Termino barbudo, y, como un efebo que fuese una nina,
Mostraba una Diana su mrmol desnudo.

PALE FIRE (Avant-Garde)

By Vladimir Nabokov
Aboard the small and uncomfortable plane flying into the
sun he found himself wedged among several belated
delegates to the New Wye Linguistic Conference, all of them
lapel-labeled, and representing the same foreign language,
but none being able to speak it, so that conversation was
conducted (across our hunched-up killer and on all sides of
his immobile face) in rather ordinary Anglo-American.
During this ordeal, poor Gradus kept wondering what
caused another discompfort which kept troubling him on
and off throughout the flight, and which was worse than the
babble of the monolinguists. He could not settle what to
attribute it to - pork, cabbage, fried potatoes or melon - for
upon retasting them one by one in spasmodic retrospect he
found little to choose between their different but equally
sickening flavors. My own opinion, which I would like the
doctor to confirm, is that the French sandwich was engaged