List of literary movements
This is a list of modern literary movements: that is, movements after the Renaissance. These terms, helpful for curricula or anthologies, evolved over time to group writers who are often loosely related. Some of these movements (such as Dada and Beat) were defined by the members themselves, while other terms (the metaphysical poets, for example) emerged decades or centuries after the periods in question. Ordering is approximate, as there is considerable overlap.
These are movements either drawn from or influential for literature in the English language.
Amatory fiction
- Romantic fiction written in the 18th century and 19th century.
Cavalier Poets
Metaphysical poets
- 17th century English movement using extended conceit, often (though not always) about religion.
The Augustans
Romanticism
- 1800 to 1860 century movement emphasizing emotion and imagination, rather than logic and scientific thought. Response to the Enlightenment.
Gothic novel
- Fiction in which Romantic ideals are combined with an interest in the supernatural and in violence.
Lake Poets
American Romanticism
- Distinct from European Romanticism, the American form emerged somewhat later, was based more in fiction than in poetry, and incorporated a (sometimes almost suffocating) awareness of history, particularly the darkest aspects of American history.
Pre-Raphaelitism
- 19th century, primarily English movement based ostensibly on undoing innovations by the painter Raphael. Many were both painters and poets.
Transcendentalism
- 19th century American movement: poetry and philosophy concerned with self-reliance, independence from modern technology.
Dark romanticism
- 19th century American movement in reaction to Transcendentalism. Finds man inherently sinful and self-destructive and nature a dark, mysterious force.
Realism
- Late-19th century movement based on a simplification of style and image and an interest in poverty and everyday concerns.
Naturalism
- Also late 19th century. Proponents of this movement believe heredity and environment control people.
Symbolism
Stream of consciousness
- Early-20th century fiction consisting of literary representations of quotidian thought, without authorial presence.
Modernism
The Lost Generation
Dada
- Touted by its proponents as anti-art, dada focused on going against artistic norms and conventions.
First World War Poets
- Poets who documented both the idealism and the horrors of the war and the period in which it took place.
Stridentism
- Mexican artistic avant-garde movement. They exalted modern urban life and social revolution.
Los Contemporáneos
Imagism
- Poetry based on description rather than theme, and on the motto, "the natural object is always the adequate symbol."
Harlem Renaissance
Surrealism
- Originally a French movement, influenced by Surrealist painting, that uses surprising images and transitions to play off of formal expectations and depict the unconscious rather than conscious mind.
Southern Agrarians
Oulipo
- Mid-20th century poetry and prose based on seemingly arbitrary rules for the sake of added challenge.
Postmodernism
- Postwar movement skeptical of absolutes and embracing diversity, irony, and word play.
Black Mountain Poets
- A self-identified group of poets, originally based at Black Mountain College, who eschewed patterned form in favor of the rhythms and inflections of the human voice.
Beat poets
Hungryalist Poets
- A literary movement in postcolonial India (Kolkata) during 1961-65 as a counter-discourse to Colonial Bengali poetry.
Confessional poetry
- Poetry that, often brutally, exposes the self as part of an aesthetic of the beauty and power of human frailty.
New York School
- Urban, gay or gay-friendly, leftist poets, writers, and painters of the 1960s.
Magical Realism
- Literary movement in which magical elements appear in otherwise realistic circumstances. Most often associated with the Latin American literary boom of the 20th century.
Postcolonialism
- A diverse, loosely connected movement of writers from former colonies of European countries, whose work is frequently politically charged.
Prakalpana Movement
- This ongoing movement launched in 1969 based in Calcutta, by the Prakalpana group of Indian writers in Bengali literature, who created new forms of Prakalpana fiction, Sarbangin poetry and the philosophy of Chetanavyasism, later spreads world wide.
Spiralism
- A literary movement founded in the late 1960s by René Philoctète, Jean-Claude Fignolé, and Frankétienne centered around the idea that the universe is interconnected, unpredictable, and governed by chaos.
Spoken Word
- A postmodern literary movement where writers use their speaking voice to present fiction, poetry, monologues, and storytelling arising in the 1980s in the urban centers of the United States.
Performance Poetry
- This is the lasting viral component of Spoken Word and one of the most popular forms of poetry in the twenty-first century. It is a new oral poetry originating in the 1980s in Austin, Texas, using the speaking voice and other theatrical elements. Practitioners write for the speaking voice instead of writing poetry for the silent printed page. The major figure is American Hedwig Gorski who began broadcasting live radio poetry with East of Eden Band during the early 1980s. Gorski, considered a post-Beat, created the term Performance Poetry to define and distinguish what she and the band did. Instead of books, poets use audio recordings and digital media along with television spawning Slam Poetry and Def Poets on television and Broadway.