Literary Movements
Discover the main literary movements
15th–16th cent.
Portuguese Renaissance
Portugal
Golden age of Portuguese literature with Camões, Sá de Miranda and Gil Vicente; confluence of medieval influences and Renaissance humanists.
16th–17th c.
English Renaissance (Elizabethan)
England
English literary flourishing in the Elizabethan era; Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sidney, and Spenser are its central figures.
1549–17th century
La Pléiade
France
Group of French poets led by Ronsard and Du Bellay who advocated for the renewal of the French language and literature based on classical models.
16th–17th century
Spanish Golden Age
Spain
Period of greatest flourishing of Spanish literature with Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Góngora, Quevedo, and Calderón.
15th–16th cent.
Northern Renaissance
Northern Europe
Nordic and Germanic expression of Renaissance humanism, with influences from the Protestant Reformation in literature and vernacular language.
16th–17th century
Mannerism
Italy / Europe
Transitional style between the Renaissance and Baroque, characterized by artificiality, formal sophistication, and expressive tension.
17th century
Conceptism
Spain
Spanish Baroque current based on the play of concepts, witticisms, and intellectual paradoxes; represented by Quevedo and Gracián.
17th century
Culteranismo / Gongorism
Spain
Spanish baroque current of elaborate language, latinate and of dense sensory imagery; initiated by Góngora.
17th century
Marinism
Italy
Italian baroque current of excessive ornamentation and surprising imagery, initiated by Giambattista Marino.
17th–18th century
Portuguese and Brazilian Baroque
Portugal / Brazil
Iberian expression of Baroque with Padre António Vieira in prose and Gregório de Matos in Brazilian poetry; strong religious and satirical presence.
17th century
Metaphysical poets
England
Group of English poets combining intellectual argument, unusual imagery, and emotional intensity; John Donne is the central figure.
17th century
German Baroque
Germany
German baroque literature marked by the context of the Thirty Years' War; Andreas Gryphius stands out in lyric poetry and drama.
17th century
Shofu haikai
Japan
Haiku school founded by Matsuo Basho, which elevated the form to poetry of philosophical depth and contemplation of nature.
18th century
Neoclassicism
Europe
Return to Greco-Roman models in reaction to the Baroque; valorization of reason, order, balance and formal clarity in literature and the arts.
18th century
Encyclopedism
France
French intellectual movement associated with Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie; it influenced the prose of ideas and literary criticism of the Enlightenment.
18th century
Augustan Age
England
English poetry of the 18th century with a classical Latin inspiration; Pope, Dryden and Swift cultivated satire, the heroic-comic and the formal ode.
1767–1785
Sturm und Drang
Germany
German pre-Romantic literary movement of exaltation of feeling, individual genius, and revolt against neoclassical norms; Goethe and Schiller in their early phase.
18th century
Literary Rococo
France / Europe
Literary expression of the Rococo style, characterized by lightness, grace, gallantry, and frivolous love themes; parallel to Rococo in the decorative arts.
1795–1850
German Romanticism
Germany
Philosophical and literary strand of Romanticism with Novalis, the Schlegel brothers, Hölderlin, and Kleist; strong philosophical dimension and interest in folklore and myth.
1785–1850
English Romanticism
England
English Romanticism with two generations of poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge in the first; Byron, Shelley and Keats in the second.
1820–1850
French Romanticism
France
French Romanticism with Hugo, Lamartine, Musset and Vigny; marked by historical drama, lyric poetry and historical novel.
1815–1850
Italian Romanticism
Italy
Italian Romanticism with Leopardi in poetry and Manzoni in prose; linked to the Risorgimento and the ideal of national unification.
1825–1865
Portuguese Romanticism
Portugal
Romanticism in Portugal introduced by Almeida Garrett and Alexandre Herculano; historical, patriotic, and sentimental themes; Camilo Castelo Branco in the novel.
1836–1881
Brazilian Romanticism
Brazil
Romanticism in Brazil across three generations: Indianism (Gonçalves Dias), Ultra-Romanticism (Álvares de Azevedo), and Condorism (Castro Alves).
1840–1870
Ultra-Romanticism
Portugal / Brazil
Darkest and most sentimental phase of Iberian Romanticism; exaltation of suffering, death, impossible love, and poetic Satanism.
1836–1860
Transcendentalism
USA
American philosophical and literary movement that valued intuition, nature, and the immanent divinity; Emerson and Thoreau in prose, Whitman in poetry.
1836–1870
Indianism
Brazil
Brazilian romantic current that idealized the indigenous as a symbol of national identity; Gonçalves Dias in poetry and José de Alencar in prose.
1820–1880
Romantic nationalism
Europe
Use of literature to build national identities; collection of folklore, vernacular languages, and medieval epics as cultural affirmation.
1890s–1910
Japan Romantic School
Japan
Japanese literary school of European influence that valued sentiment, aesthetic beauty, and individualism in reaction to naturalism.
1860–1880
Condorism
Brazil
Third generation of Brazilian Romanticism, with social and libertarian poetry, associated with the abolition of slavery; Castro Alves is the central figure.
1865–1900
Naturalism
France / Europe
Current of Realism that applies scientific methods to literature, exploring heredity and environment as determinants of human behavior; Zola is the main theorist.
1865–1871
Coimbra Question
Portugal
Portuguese literary polemic that opposed the realist generation (Antero de Quental, Eça) to Castilho's romanticism; a landmark of Portuguese cultural renewal.
1870–1890
Generation of 1870
Portugal
Generation of Portuguese intellectuals and writers associated with the 1871 Casino Conferences; Antero de Quental, Eça de Queirós, Ramalho Ortigão, and Oliveira Martins.
1870–1900
Verism
Italy
Italian version of literary Realism/Naturalism; Giovanni Verga is the main representative, focusing on the lives of Sicilian peasants.
1840–1890
Russian Realism
Russia
Great Russian realist tradition with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, and Chekhov; deep psychological analysis and social criticism.
1850–1900
Literary Positivism
Europe / Brazil
Influence of philosophical positivism in literary criticism and production; valorization of determinism, science, and objective social analysis.
1880–1900
Decadentism
France / Europe
Fin de siècle literary movement marked by pessimism, aestheticism, artifice, and fascination with decadence and the morbid; related to Symbolism.
1870–1900
Aestheticism
England
English art for art's sake movement, which places beauty above any moral or social function; Oscar Wilde is its most representative figure.
1848–1900
Pre-Raphaelitism
England
English artistic and literary brotherhood that sought pre-Raphaelite medieval purity; Dante Gabriel Rossetti cultivated both painting and poetry.
1880–1900
Fin de siècle
Europe
European cultural climate of the late 19th century marked by pessimism, crisis of values, and the search for new aesthetic forms.