Literature through time

Literature has been with humans, through our history. In classes we saw the different points of view or trends about What is Literature, through time. I invite you, in this entry, to read a little about the different points of view, that I put below in a chronological order.

Greeks: in the 5th Century philosophers like Plato and Aristole, debate about Literature in reference to the imitation of life, ontology, epistemology, politics and moralty.


Romanticism: appears in the early 19th century, and believe in poetry as an expression of feeling though common language. Also another characteristics of the Romanticism, are that is stereotypically associated with intoxication through wine; poetic reverie, the beauty of nature and the life of ordinary people).


Scientific Determinism: in simple words, literary text became an object of scientific study (Literature became a science itself).


New Criticism: the text main focus, is self-contained, independenly from all extrinsic forces, including the author. "The only important thing is the text".
Reader-Response: implies a relationship between the reader and the text. The interpretation of the reader, has an important role.

Structuralism: Saussere´s ideas postulate that words are signs, compound by a signifier (sound) and a signified (image).


Poststructuralism: dont worry about what a sing is, but is interested in what a sign isn´t. We learnt by diference. For example, we know love, because we know hate.


Marxism: establishes that all text have  a subtext, which are extension of historical and ideological conflict, that are related to real life (something real).


Feminism: describe and interpreteate womens experience, maybe feelings or emotions, by literature.


Cultural Poetics: it describes History as the body of knowledge. Knowing the history of a particular group, we would know better what they try to explain in their text (relationship between the meaning and the history of a society/group).


Postcolonial Criticism: it characteristic from colonized countries. In those text (from colonized countries) we can find topics, such as nationalism, ethnicity, language, history, etc.


During time passes, Literature, have change in a considerable way, so, How it´s going to be Literature in 50 years more? Literature will exist in the future? Something to reflect.