First Oral Presentation

Hello everybody!!
As you know Jane Austen was born in 1775 and she died in 1817.
But I won't to talk you about Jane Austen's life, but I'm going to talk you about the literary movements that there are in the 18th and 19th centuries.

18th century: Neoclassicism and Illustration
In the 18th century there is a very important movement, the Neoclassicism. It is based on the classical art(Greece and Rome). It appears in opposition to the Baroque and Rococo. Its characteristics are:
- the reason is more important than the feelings.
- the works have to be teaching.
- they don't like poetry because it expresses feelings.
- the theatre has to do the three units: action, time and place.
- the favourite genre is the essay.
This movement is really influenced by the Illustration.
There was a very important wirter and philosopher, Jean - Jaques Rousseau, and he said that the society of this period made the wickedness of all the people. And the only way to transform the mankind was the education, an education system base on the reason.
But this is only for man. Rousseau and the ohter philosophers thought that the woman had an others obligations, in other words, they exclude the women of their education plans.
They thought that the women had to be educated to be a good wife and a good mother. And also the women had to be accomplished. Because, without that, they didn't find husband and it was one of the most aims in woman's life in 18th century.
But Jane Austen wanted a more liberal educatin for the women. Opinions that are reflected on her works. This is an evidence of the Romanticism.
In this century there are a lot of important philosophers like: Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Kant etc.
And also there are a lot of important writers like: Goethe or Gray.

19th century: Romanticism
In the 19century there was another important literary movement, The Romanticism.
It characteristics are:
- feelings are more important than the reason.
- Idea of liberalism.
- they are imperfect and unfinished works, with open ends.
The romantics broke with the rules which reduce their freedom. They wanted to find the superstition, sinister places etc.
They didn't write about Greece and Rome, but they wrote with a nationalist spirit. For example: Jane Austen wrote about a society that she knew perfectly.
They thougth that the feelings were really important and because of that they wrote stories in which the feelings have a very important role, and the characters wanted to express them. For example: Pride and Prejudice talks about th feelings of Elisabeth and Darcy, Jane and Bingley, Lydia and Wickam and they wanted to express them to each other.
There are a lot of important writers in all Europe:
In France: Zola, Flaubert.
In Spain: Beneito Pérez Galdós and Leopoldo Alas "Clarín".
In UK: Charles Dickens.
In Russia: Dostoievski and Tolstoi.
In the Romanticism, we can find literary movements like realism or naturalism.
- Naturalism: Proponents of this movement believe heredity and environment control people. Writers: Zola and Crane.
- Realism: this movement is based in the reality of people. They write about the poverty and day by day problems. Writers: Flaubert, Tolstoi and Honoré de Balzac.
These are the most important movements, but also there are other ones like nationalism and symbolism.