Talk:List of literary movements

VfD

On April 16, this article was nominated for deletion. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Literary movements. The result was keep. —Xezbeth 18:02, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions for further expansion

As currently constituted, this list contains descriptions of each movement. These descriptions are tricky because so short and hence rather vague--I'm particularly uncomfortable with the current def. of modernism. Here is a list of future possible inclusions. If we're prepared to dump the descriptions and just have a list, I'll put a bunch in. If not, we'll have to do them one at a time.

Literary movements, culled (heavily) from Literature Online:

 Aesthetic Movement 
 American Romanticism 
 Beat poets
 Black Arts Movement
 Black Mountain School 
 Cavalier Poets
 Chicago Renaissance 
 Cockney School
 Confederation Poets
 Confessional Poets
 Decadent Movement
 Feminist Writers
 First World War Poets
 Gonzo  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.26.235.14 (talk) 04:17, 14 July 2009 (UTC) 
 Gothic Novel
 The Group
 Harlem Renaissance
 Imagism 
 Lake Poets 
 Lesbian/Gay Writing
 Lost Generation 
 Metaphysical Poets
 The Movement 
 Naturalism 
 Neoclassicism 
 Objectivism 
 Postcolonialism
 Pre-Raphaelitism
 Primitivists 
 Stream of Consciousness
 Surrealism 
 Symbolism
 Transcendentalism 

Daunting, isn't it? We can start with the big ones. Chick Bowen 23:43, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

It certainly is a daunting list, but I do think including short descriptions of each movement will make it a better entry. --~jared~ 19:37, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

• I added naturalism but I feel it's description and list of notable authors needs some work (Dreiser was the only naturalist I could think of). Feel free to work on it.--HistoricalPisces 17:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Benjamin Rosenbaum Cyberpunk, anyone? :-)

An extremely interesting list, needs to be handled with objectivity

This list mixes movements which created, defined and named themselvels with others we have created in order to insinuate that our own game of literary history has always been plaid.

One should bring the list into a chronological sequence and note who defined these movements. The "Augustans" make Swift and Pope form a "group" under very strange ideals. Both would have never done this. The metaphysical poets - no idea when this label appeared... --Olaf Simons 06:48, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about objectivity, and I've added a sort of disclaimer based on your comment to the top of the list. As for individual entries, the consensus has been that the annotations should be as short as possible (see the original deletion vote, linked above, as well as User talk:Chick Bowen and User talk:Dwbird2)—originally they were too much like mini-essays. Yes, they should be in chronological order; I'll get to that at some point, but feel free to do it (just make sure the first instance of a linked term remains the one that's linked). Incidentally, the term "metaphysical poets" was originally used by Samuel Johnson, though he meant a somewhat different group; the modern definition is ascribed to T. S. Eliot. Chick Bowen 15:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Chronological order is a good point that I failed to think about. I did this entry rather quickly and only wrote about the limited number of literary movements I was familiar with. Chick Bowen aptly said that writing the short descriptions was tricky, and I tried my best to be objective, noting who defined the movements is an idea I wholeheartedly support. I'll try my best to help and continue editing the article, but I suspect that as it develops I'll have less too contribute. After all, I'm only seventeen and still a high school student. --~jared~ 19:37, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Herr Professor Simon's point is well made. I do think, though, that we must resist the temptation to expand this list too much. Detail and provenance of specific terms are the bailiwick of the relevant main articles, not this list; this list is, it seems to me, a quick reference rather than a survey.Dave1898 21:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Could, perhaps, this list be chronologically ordered instead of alphabetically?

About Surrealism

When I first wrote the entry I debated as to whether or not I should add surrealism as a literary movement. When I couldn't think of any surrealist writers I decided against it. A look at the surrealism article provides a few good examples of surrealism. I don't see how a surrealistic novel could be put together though. You can have weird experiences or an odd phot and say, "wow, that's surreal", but the structures necessary to make a novel readable don't seem to mesh well with the almost-gibberish concept of surrealism. Just my two cents worth... --~jared~ 01:40, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

In literature, surrealism is primarily a poetic movement, but there are certainly examples of surrealist novels, mostly in French. In English, Virginia Woolf's Orlando is generally considered surrealist, as are some of the stories in Dylan Thomas's Adventures in the Skin Trade. I'll add it to the list. Chick Bowen 03:55, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

As it happens, there is quite a bit of surrealist literature in Latin America during the 20th century. While surrealism mustn't be confused with magical realism, there are novels like Ernesto Sabato's On Heroes and Tombs or the Nobel winner Miguel Angel Asturias's Mr President that are distinctly surrealist in construction. Obviously it's hard for a linguistic artifact like a story or a novel to be surreal, because of the intrinsic linearity of language--that's why surrealism in literature tends to stick to poetry. But Spanish-language literature does indeed include surreal prose. I applaud Jared's caution in applying the term, though, because as he rightly points out the term "surreal" has become rather generic, now not always pointing to "surrealism" that Dali, Bunuel, or Magritte would recognize.Dave1898 21:13, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

English

These are movements either drawn from or influential for literature in the English language.

So this article lists only English language literary movements? Then it should be at: List of English language literary movements. — goethean ॐ 20:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC) he had amassive back side

Have added Indonesian and Russian. DayakSibiriak (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Anyone know enough to complete this?

This list is woefully incomplete. It leaves out so much literature like science fiction and immigrant lit that has shaped this century and the one before it. I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject to do the page justice, but if there is someone who can, it would be much obliged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.190.114 (talk) 23:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Aestheticism developed into the Decadent Movement. The Aethetes should include Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Rennell Rodd, Max Beerbohm, E.F. Benson, Aubrey Beardsley and James A. McNeill Whistler. It merged with the Decadents, Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Jean Genet. Aestheticism was heavily influenced by Plato and the Pre-Raphaelites, and it had close ties with the Symbolist Movement. hicks142

Globalize and reorganize

The most important literary movements aren't confined within national boundaries. There would be merit in creating lists of movements for the literature of a particular language (some of the more obscure and minor things might not belong in this main list), but since literary movement redirects here, we should start with a brief explanation of what a "literary movement" is. I deleted the cautionary sentence that the list deals primarily with English-language literature, because that isn't entirely true and that isn't the real problem. The real problem is that it isn't global.

Also, alphabetical order is just about the most useless way that such a list could be organized. The list should be chronological, so that movements can be seen to grow out of or react to what came before, or to mark a deliberate break. A chronological order would also show what was going on at the same time in different literatures, when the list is properly globalized. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Better, the unlimited list of global as well as nitable national movs with national subschools of the glibal. No so much them. DayakSibiriak (talk) 03:42, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Spiralism

Noticed Spiralism was the only movement in the list without an article page - currently working on it Springskies (talk) 06:12, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Consistency

Many of the currents shown are avant-garde (a subtype of currents). The qualification is bad and some references are scarce to *make valid* some current *new* of antiquity. Victor Gibby (talk) 19:54, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

21st century literature

Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing and discussing literary works. 2001:4455:14F:D900:89BE:820A:1FD0:6D08 (talk) 11:36, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Time

Would someone be so kind and add an extra column with all the dates. Great addition to the article if you ask me Tiedren1 (talk) 06:38, 16 January 2024 (UTC)