id: [literature genres and summaries overlaid over an aesthetic picture of that Genre.
Old English – Everyone’s speaking in alliterative verse, and the Vikings are coming. Middle English – None of us is free from sin; the only good and righteous thing is ale. Elizabethan – To thine own self be true- unless you are the common man, in which case do better. Jacobean – Someone has done you a great personal wrong, and for this they must die. Late Renaissance – ‘Tis all bus a metaphor for individualism! Age of Enlightenment – We’ve figured out everything, more or less. Sturm and Drang – They’ve figured out nothing. Romanticism – In this world of ours nothing is rational- least of all feelings, of which I am experiencing many. Victorian – Everyone has a public face, a private face, and a tuberculosis face. Transcendentalism – People are okay, I guess, but trees are even better. Literature of the Absurd – Everything is ridiculous and nothing matters in the chaos of an unknowable void. Realism – Machines will be the death of us, although we sure do have a lot of corn these days. The Lost Generation – We’re poor in money, but rich in disillusionment with the American Dream. The Beat Generation – I wrote this poem while I was languishing in a desert, high on peyote. Surrealism – Here is a jumble of words that make sense separately but not together, please enjoy. Magic Realism – All the banalities of daily life, but it’s raining flowers and someone married a tiger. Modernist – Out with the old, in with the ironic. Post-modernist – Marriage is a social construct and so are clocks. end id]
