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450
Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period (450-1066)
This literary period covers from the invasion of Celtic England until the Conquest of England.
Much of this period had the oral literature.
Most of the prose had a religious and medical approach.
Notables work:
The epic poem “Beowulf” from author anonymous, which is a series of adventures of a hero of the Geats.
The appearance of four dialects as: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish that gave origin to the English language. -
1066
Middle English Period (1066-1500)
Recognized as the modern English.
Writings of a religious nature.
The influence of the church.
The use of fables.
Noteworthy authors and works:
G. Chaucer “The Canterbury Tales” is a series of histories with graphic content and crude sexual content.
W. Langland “Piers Plowman” is a poem that tells three visions of the protagonist in his sleep.
Thomas Malory
Robert Henryson -
1500
The Renaissance Period (1500-1660)
The appearance of comedy and drama.
The relation between the monarchy and the clergy.
The rebirth of Greek and Roma
This period is subdivided into:
1. The Elizabeth Age (1558-1603)
William Shakespeare (1597) “Romeo and Juliet”.
2. The Jacobean Age (1603-1625)
John Donne (Famous for his “Holy Sonnets” and “Death, be not proud”
3.The Caroline Age (1625-1649)
John Milton “Paradise Last”.
4. The Common Wealth Period (1649-1660)
John Milton and Thomas Hobbes -
The Neoclassical Period (1600-1785)
This Period was inspired in the culture Greek and Rome.
Dominance of materialism and empirical science.
Restoration of drama
This Period is subdivided into:
1. The Restoration Age (1660-1700)
Noteworthy figures:
William Congreve
John Dryden
2. The Augustan Age (1700-1798)
Noteworthy figures:
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Daniel Defoe
3.The Age of Sensibility (1745-1785)
Noteworthy figures:
Johnson S. (1749) with his work “The vanity of Human Wishes”.
Edmund Burke
Edward Gibbon. -
The Romanticism Period (1785-1832)
Some states that this period start with the French Revolution.
This period was the most popular and well-known as Gothic era.
Glorification of nature.
Poems, verse and lyrics.
Noteworthy figures:
William Wordsworth (He is a key figure with his notable poem “The world is too much with us, late and soon”).
John Keats (Is the most famous author of this period)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who wrote “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”)
Jane Austen (1813) “Pride and Prejudice” -
The Victorian Period (1832-1901)
This period is named by the reign of Queen Victoria.
Industrial Revolution.
Appareance of women writers and novels.
This period was divided into:
Early (1832-1848)
Mid (1848-1870)
Late (1870-1901)
Noteworthy figures:
H.G. Wells “The Time Machine” (1895).
Charles John Huffman Dickens “A Christmas Carol” (1843)
Alfred Lord Tennyson “Idylls of the King”.
Robert Louis Stevenson “The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.
Christina Rossetti. -
The Edwardian Period (1901-1914)
This period is named by the reign monarch of this time the King Edward VII.
Noteworthy figures:
Classic Novelists such as:
Joseph Conrad
Ford Madox Ford
Rudyard Kipling
Henry James -
The Georgian Period (1910-1936)
This time is named by the reign of George V.
Georgian Poets, such as.
Rupert Brooke “1914 and other Poems” (1915).
Ralph Hodgson
John Masefield
W.H. Davies -
The Modern Period (1914 -1945)
This time is known by the narrative, verse and drama.
Also, was known as "The lost generation".
Predominance the theory of Psycho-analysis.
Noteworthy figures:
Virginia Woolf (1925) “Mr. Dalloway”
James Joyce
T.S. Eliot
Joseph Conrad
Aldous Huxley -
The Postmodern Period (1945 -?)
This period start with the World War II.
This time was highlighted by poststructuralist literary theory.
Noteworthy figures:
Bram Stoker & Roger Luck Hurst “Dracula” (2011).
Francis Barton Gummere “Beowulf” (2009)