Key Avant-garde Movements and Spain’s Generation of ’27
Avant-garde Movements: Origins and Impact
The avant-garde movements are artistic currents that sought to reject previous conventions and forge new paths. They began in Paris with Futurism, challenging the subjectivism of romanticism and traditional realism.
Futurism: Embracing Modernity
Originating in Italy in 1909 with Filippo Marinetti’s manifesto, Futurism advocated for the rejection of emotional, individual, and romantic themes, instead admiring the technical advancements of the era.
Cubism: A New
Read MoreMedieval Spanish Poetry: Romances and Learned Verse
The Romance: Medieval Poetry in the 14th Century
Medieval poetry continued into the 14th century with the emergence of the romance. These compositions, of variable extent, were written in eight-syllable lines with rhyming assonance in pairs. The earliest romances are known as the old romances.
The origin of this genre appears to be in the fragmentation of medieval epic poems, where each hemistich became a caesura in verse.
The oldest romances date back to the 15th century. While poetry was part of
Read MoreLiterary Forms, Genres, and Medieval Literary Traditions
Literary Language and Genres: Forms and Structures
The Artistic Use of Language: Oral and Written
Literary language encompasses both oral and written forms, employing distinct methods for presenting text.
Prose vs. Verse: Fundamental Textual Structures
Prose: Continuous Flow and Syntactic Repetition
- Continuous Form: Text flows without line breaks based on metrical patterns.
- Syntactic Repetition: Ideas are often reinforced through repeated syntactic structures.
- Closeness to Spoken Language: Generally considered
Literary Devices & Genres: Definitions and Examples
Understanding Literary Devices and Genres
Common Literary Devices
- Alliteration: Combines certain sounds repeatedly along a line.
- Autology: Explanation of thinking using the same thinking.
- Anaphora: Repeats one or more words at the beginning of each verse.
- Anadiplosis: Repeats the word that ended a verse at the beginning of the next.
- Asyndeton: Suppression of conjunctions or links.
- Antithesis: Contrasts two opposite ideas or thoughts.
- Apostrophe: An exclamation or question addressed with vehemence to an
Understanding Keats’s La Belle Dame sans Merci
John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci”
John Keats: A Romantic Poet’s Life
John Keats (1795–1821) was a prominent English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets and also part of The Cockney School, alongside Leigh Hunt. The early deaths of his father, mother, and brother gave him a premonition of his own early demise from tuberculosis. This profound awareness led to a heightened interest in literature as an escape from the realities and tragedies
Read MoreBritish Society Transformed: Women, Reformation, and Enlightenment
Women’s Changing Role in Post-War Britain (1945-1970s)
After the Second World War, Britain underwent a significant social and cultural transformation. The role of women changed dramatically, influenced by several factors:
- The post-war ‘baby boom’
- Rising divorce rates and the beginning of new sexual openness
- Cinema sex symbols defining a ‘third war’ for women
During the 1960s, the women’s movement successfully campaigned for new rights. In 1967, the Family Planning Act made oral contraceptives available
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