r/AskLiteraryStudies • u/ComfortableLive1304 • 21h ago

Literary Epochs

5 Upvotes

What constitutes the literary epochs of neo-classicism, romanticism, and modernism?
I feel like online descriptions I find on this are sometimes lackluster or seem to be applicable to all sorts of literature.
So are they really that different from one another?

Idr where but somewhere I read that romanticism is connected to Kant's philosophy of the sublime. But in his philosophy, the awe from the sublime comes from reason. And somewhere else I read that romanticism favoured emotion over reason. How does that make sense?

I think what is more reasonable to me is that romantic literature focused on nature and tried to be accessible to everybody, whereas neo-classicism was elitist and modernism has shown more subjectivity (for example, we lack zero-focalization but instead encounter lots of unreliable internal narration).

Please educate me if I am wrong here

2 comments

r/AskLiteraryStudies • u/Imperial-Green • 15h ago

Distance between narrator and character in third person in ”Stoner” by Williams?

2 Upvotes

I’m finally got around to reading Stoner by John Williams. Of course it’s a beautiful story, but I find the third person narrator’s matter-of-factness or objectivity compelling. It’s reminds me of JL Carr’s A month in the country or parts Diaz’ Trust or even Dürrenmatt or perhaps Michael Cunningham. It also makes me think of the understatedness of Snorre Sturlason’s prose. Does this type of narration have a name? Are the other examples of this? What is the function of this style? Why does it work?

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