16th–17th Century: Renaissance & Early Modern Period

4

Period	Movement	Core Feature	Representative Figures
Renaissance	Humanism	Classical revival, dignity of man	William Shakespeare
Metaphysical Poetry	Intellectual wit	Conceits, paradox	John Donne
Puritan/Religious Writing	Moral didacticism	Spiritual struggle	John Milton

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18th Century: Enlightenment & Neoclassicism

4

Movement	Dominant Concern	Features
Neoclassicism	Reason, order	Satire, decorum, classical imitation
Enlightenment	Rational progress	Essay, political prose
Rise of Novel	Individual experience	Realist narration

Key Figures: Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe

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Late 18th–Mid 19th Century: Romanticism & Realism

Movement	Intellectual Shift	Literary Response
Romanticism	Reaction against industrial rationalism	Emotion, nature, imagination
Victorian Realism	Industrial society critique	Social reform fiction

Key Figures: William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens

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Early 20th Century: Modernism

Feature	Explanation
Fragmentation	Collapse of unified narrative
Stream of Consciousness	Interior monologue
Alienation	Urban modern crisis

Key Figures: T. S. Eliot, James Joyce

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Mid–Late 20th Century: Postmodernism & Resistance Literatures

4

Movement	Characteristic
Postmodernism	Irony, metafiction, skepticism
Postcolonial Literature	Empire critique
Feminist Literature	Gendered subjectivity

Key Figures: Thomas Pynchon, Chinua Achebe

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II. Comparative Chart: Romanticism vs Realism vs Modernism vs Postmodernism

Category	Romanticism	Realism	Modernism	Postmodernism
Historical Context	Industrial Revolution	Rise of middle class	World Wars	Cold War & late capitalism
View of Reality	Emotional, sublime	Objective, social	Fragmented, unstable	Constructed, ironic
Subjectivity	Celebrated individual	Social individual	Alienated consciousness	Decentered self
Form	Lyrical, symbolic	Linear narrative	Experimental	Metafictional
Truth	Emotional truth	Empirical observation	Subjective crisis	Relativized
Representative	William Wordsworth	Charles Dickens	James Joyce	Thomas Pynchon

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III. Theory–Movement Alignment Table

This table links major literary theories with corresponding movements.

Literary Theory	Corresponding Movement	Conceptual Overlap
Formalism	Modernism	Focus on structure and aesthetic autonomy
Marxism	Realism / Postcolonial	Class and material conditions
Psychoanalysis	Modernism	Interior consciousness
Structuralism	Modernist/Postmodern narrative	Language systems
Poststructuralism	Postmodernism	Instability of meaning
Feminist Theory	Feminist Literature	Gender critique
Postcolonial Theory	Postcolonial Literature	Empire, hybridity
Existentialism	Modernism	Alienation, absurdity

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IV. Integrated Historical Flow Model

Phase	Dominant Anxiety	Literary Innovation
Classical	Order	Harmony & structure
Romantic	Industrial mechanization	Nature & emotion
Realist	Social inequality	Social documentation
Modernist	Meaning collapse	Fragmentation
Postmodern	Grand narrative crisis	Irony & metafiction
Postcolonial	Empire & identity	Writing back