Chels

When I started my undergraduate degree, I felt a lot of impostor syndrome. I studied film, something not typically offered as a GCSE or A level subject. There were no prerequisites to taking the course, but during the first few weeks, I felt like everyone else had a base knowledge that I somehow missed. In time (and after spending many train commutes poring over recommended texts) I found my footing. 

Apparently, I hadn’t tortured myself enough, so when I returned to university to get my Master’s degree, I switched to English – a subject I hadn’t taken since A levels, five years prior. Once again I felt utterly out of place when lecturers would ask us to share our experiences of certain genres or movements, and many of my references came from the film and social psychology modules I’d studied, rather than literature. In a way it worked out in my favour, because at the time, the big academia buzzword was interdisciplinary (is it still? Or have we moved on to another?)

Still, whenever I look back on my time as a student, I’m acutely aware of the impostor syndrome I felt, and of the near-constant fear during the first terms that I was out of my depth and underqualified (as a sidenote – if you’ve been accepted onto a university course, you are qualified, and you do deserve to be there). So, in an effort to hopefully save someone from the same feelings of inadequacy, I’ve put together a cheat sheet of some of the key movements, genres, and eras in literature. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, but it covers the basics.

All of the dates given are generally considered to be the beginning and end of the movement’s most popular era, though some may have begun slightly earlier and later gained popularity, and many movements still inspire writers today.

Medieval Literature (500-1500)

Medieval literature is the hardest to define – largely because much of the work was based in the oral tradition and passed through communities without ever being written down. During this period, a majority of people were illiterate, so written works were less commonly available. As well as this, many of the works that were written were destroyed or lost to time. The surviving works are typically written in Old or Middle English, and in some cases, there are words and phrases that we just can’t translate. 

Poems were often lyrical or epics, narrative stories of battles or religious (specifically Christian) homilies. Alliterative poems were quite popular, it seems, and many surviving works feature alliteration and assonance. Caesura was a notable stylistic device in many Old English works, likely a result of the oral tradition – poetry was performance, to be spoken or sung, rather than read.

Key texts: Beowulf, The Song of Roland, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

Renaissance Literature (1500-1670)

The Renaissance period began in Italy around the 14th century and came to England much later. There was a great emphasis on ancient Greek and Roman works. The Renaissance period benefitted from the introduction of the printing press – prior to this, works were typically produced in much smaller quantities, and almost exclusively in Latin or Greek. With the printing press, works of literature could be printed en masse, and in local vernacular, which meant that ideals could become more widespread. Renaissance literature was typically focused on anthropocentric themes – individualism and faith in reason, as well as love and beauty, and classicalism.

The most popular Renaissance works are typically plays and poems.

Key texts: The plays of William Shakespeare, The Faerie Queen, Paradise Lost, the Divine Comedy

Enlightenment Literature (1700-1800)

The Enlightenment was a period in European history that emphasised science and reasoning. Religious doctrines faced challenge and criticism in favour of the scientific method. While it’s generally associated with science and academia, literature was key to educating the masses on new philosophical schools of thought and social critique. 

Nonfiction flourished, but novels delved into social issues, and from this period, the satire was formed. Authors took inspiration from real social issues and provided comedic solutions played out by characters.

Key texts: Voltaire’s Candide, A Modest Proposal, and A Vindication of the Rights of Women (non-fiction)

Gothic Literature (1750s-1850s)

Gothic literature deals with the taboo – obsession, madness, death, unease and uncertainty. The genre is most associated with vivid descriptions of eerie atmospheres, with works typically set in haunted castles or sprawling country estates. Gothic literature encompasses gothic horror – and while monstrous villains like Frankenstein’s monster and Count Dracula abound, the Gothic also explores the more mundane villains – leering eyes and men who overpower their female victims. 

Gothic literature tends to have almost stock characters – the damsel in distress, the monstrous (whether physically or emotionally) villain, the haunted house (locations are characters in themselves in Gothic literature). Atmosphere is key – weather events and small details play a huge part in the narratives. Gothic literature hasn’t really seen a huge decline – it remains a prevalent influence on a lot of present-day horror, but its popularity peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Key texts: Frankenstein, The Fall of the House of Usher, Rebecca, and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Romantic Literature (1798-1870)

Capital-R Romantic literature marked a sharp turn away from the logical and realist Enlightenment period. For the Romantics, emotion was key. They wrote of nature and imagination, and of deeply personal relationships with the world around them.

In France, the French Revolution was underway, and Britain was in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. There was social change, economic change, and political change, and for many, it was a worrying time. The Romantic writers wrote of nostalgia and connection with nature in worlds where nature was being destroyed for the sake of progress. While there were plenty of Romantic novels (not to be confused with romance novels), it’s the Romantic poets who have truly stood the test of time – Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Coleridge, and Shelley’s Romantic poetry has become iconic.

Romantic literature has a lot of overlap with the Gothic – both had a focus on nature and intense emotion – while Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is widely considered a Gothic novel, it’s also often categorised as a Romance.

Key texts: Moby Dick, Lord Byron’s Don Juan, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Charlotte Smith’s Elegiac Sonnets

Realist Literature (1820-1920)

While Romance veered away from Enlightenment literature, Realism rejected the intense emotion and dramatic stories of Romanticism. For the Realists, literature should be straightforward, presenting ordinary subject matter without the supernatural or speculation.

There are several subcategories of Realism that have emerged over the years – Naturalism formed surrounding Darwin’s theories of evolution. While a lot of Naturalist works are non-fiction, Edith Wharton is associated with Naturalist fiction. There’s also psychological realism, exemplified by Dostoevsky’s works. Crime and Punishment in particular portrays guilt realistically yet intensely, creating an unsettling atmosphere that wouldn’t be out of place in the Gothic out of mundane conversations and events.

Satire again returns to popularity with the Realists, most notably Jane Austen, who satirises the social rules and expectations, particularly of young women.

Key texts: Madame Bovary, the novels of Jane Austen, Middlemarch, and Vanity Fair

Victorian Literature (1837-1901)

Victorian Literature continued to explore the impact of industrialisation in Britain. Once again, the ideals of Victorian literature tended to reject the rigidity of Realist literature, and often featured fantasy and the supernatural. Key themes were class struggles, wealth and poverty, love and duty, religion, and societal expectations.

Dickens is typically seen as the figure of Victorian literature, creating an almost romanticised depiction of Victorian London even despite his emphasis on the horrors of poverty. His works are also incredibly long – almost to an offputting degree. While plenty of Victorian novels are quite lengthy, there were also Penny Dreadfuls, short, sensationalist stories featuring the supernatural, horror, and crime.

Key texts: Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and Robert Browning’s poetry

Modernist Literature (1910-1965)

As is becoming the case often, Modernism came to popularity as a response to and rejection of the conventions of Victorian literature. The modernists sought to create works that marked a new era – they rejected traditional ways of writing. Poetry and prose became more experimental, and writers played with form, language, and themes. The Modernists sought to revolutionise art forms and explore previously taboo themes – queerness was explored, as well as a more explicit depiction of sexuality. Of course, the world didn’t suddenly accept these taboos – E.M. Forster’s queer novel Maurice was not published until after his death, and much of D.H. Lawrence’s works (Lady Chatterley’s Lover in particular) were censored or banned in the UK. Stories focus on class and societal expectations, particularly gender expectations. They question previously accepted societal structures through satire, allegory, and narratives.

A lot of modernist poetry and prose seems daunting at first glance as a result of the experimentation with form and structure (if you’ve ever tried to read a work by James Joyce, you’ll relate), but Modernist literature tends to be more accessible in terms of language, and a lot of novels are rather short.

The movement popularised character-driven, stream of consciousness narratives such as Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and again, the works of Joyce.

Key texts: Ezra Pound’s Cantos, The Metamorphosis, The Great Gatsby, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Howard’s End. 

Post-Modernist Literature (1965-Today)

Put simply, Post-modernists hold a lot of similar values to the Modernists, but they push their experimentation to further degrees. In fact, many post-modernist works are inspired by the work of Modernists. Post-modernist fiction deals with metafiction and intertextuality, borrowing from and expanding on existing literature. Stories reflect the rise of counterculture and the rejection of authority, and are rife with political themes. There’s often a focus on war or political unrest, and narrators are often unreliable.

A lot of scholars consider that we’re still in the post-modernist era – think The Hunger Games, a series exploring exploitation by governments, a dystopian future, and an unclear reality.

Key texts: Slaughterhouse Five, Waiting for Godot, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Catch-22

Of course, there’s overlap between movements and eras – Gertrude Stein’s works are almost simultaneously considered to be modernist and post-modernist, and Mary Shelley’s works are both Gothic and Romantic. While some movements built on the foundation of their predecessors, others marked a sharp shift from previous conventions. Hopefully, this whistlestop tour of literary movements can help to navigate the very complex and very long history of literature.