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450
Old English literature (c. 450–1066)
For example: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, from the 9th century, that chronicle is the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The poem Battle of Maldon also deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion. -
450
Old English literature (c. 450–1066)
This period encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England (Jutes and the Angles) c. 450, after the withdrawal of the Romans, and "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066. -
1066
Medieval theatre - Middle English literature (1066–1500) -
In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from enactments of the liturgy. Another form of medieval theatre was the mummers' plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality. -
1066
Middle English literature (1066–1500)
For example: Middle English Bible translations, notably Wycliffe's Bible, helped to establish English as a literary language. Wycliffe's Bible is the name now given to a group of Bible translations into Middle English that were made under the direction of, or at the instigation of, John Wycliffe. They appeared between about 1382 and 1395. -
1066
Middle English literature (1066–1500)
This period is characterized by the great influence of French literature on the forms and themes. From the Norman conquest of England in 1066 until the fourteenth century, the French language replaced the English language in literary compositions, and Latin maintained its status as an erudite language. Among the poems that present a certain formal continuity with respect to ancient English, Piers highlights the labrador of William Langland. -
1500
English Renaissance (1500–1660)
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. -
1500
English Renaissance (1500–1660)
Major literary figures in the English Renaissance include: Francis Bacon
Francis Beaumont
Thomas Campion
George Chapman
Francis Hubert
Thomas Dekker
John Donne
John Fletcher
John Ford
Ben Jonson
Thomas Kyd
Christopher Marlowe
Philip Massinger
Thomas Middleton
Thomas More
Thomas Nashe
William Rowley
William Shakespeare
James Shirley
Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
William Tyndale
John Webster
Thomas Wyatt -
1558
Elizabethan period (1558–1603)
The Elizabethan era is the era in English history marked by the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), and until the death of James I in 1625. Historians often portray this period as the golden age of England history. During this period, England experienced an intense phase of economic, cultural and social development. This "golden age" represented the heyday of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry, music and literature. -
1558
Elizabethan period (1558–1603)
Example: Poetry - The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books I to III were first published in 1590, and then republished in 1596 together with books IV to VI. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it is one of the longest poems in the English language as well as the origin of the verse form known as the Spenserian stanza. -
Jacobean period (1603–1625)
An example of this period is The revenge tragedy, or revenge play, is a dramatic genre in which the protagonist seeks revenge for an imagined or actual injury. -
Jacobean period (1603–1625)
The Jacobin era is the period of English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland (1567-1625), who also inherited the crown of England with the name of Jacob I. The Jacobin era succeeds the Elizabethan, and it is often applied to the specific styles of architecture, literature, and the visual and decorative arts that characterize that period. -
Late Renaissance (1625–1660)
It is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. -
Restoration Age (1660–1700)
Some examples of this period include both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of Pilgrim's Progress. -
Restoration Age (1660–1700)
It is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration (1660–1689), which corresponds to the last years of the direct Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that center on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. -
18th century - Augustan literature (1700–1750)
An example of this period is The Spectator : was a daily publication founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England, lasting from 1711 to 1712. Each "paper", or "number", was approximately 2,500 words long, and the original run consisted of 555 numbers, beginning on 1 March 1711. -
18th century - Augustan literature (1700–1750)
During the 18th century literature reflected the worldview of the Age of Enlightenment (or Age of Reason): a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues that promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility. -
Age of Sensibility (1750–1798)
This period is known as the Age of Sensibility, but it is also sometimes described as the "Age of Johnson". Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. -
Age of Sensibility (1750–1798)
Example of this period
A Dictionary of the English Language: was published in 1755, and it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship. -
Romanticism (1798–1837)
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Romanticism arrived later in other parts of the English-speaking world. The Romantic period was one of major social change in England and Wales, because of the depopulation of the countryside and the rapid development of overcrowded industrial cities, that took place in the period roughly between 1750 and 1850. -
Romanticism (1798–1837)
A great example of this period is Songs of Experience; a poetry collection of 26 poems forming the second part of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Some of the poems, such as "The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found", were moved by Blake to Songs of Innocence and were frequently moved between the two books. -
Victorian literature (1837–1901)
Victorian literature is literature, mainly written in English, during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901) (the Victorian era). It was preceded by Romanticism and followed by the Edwardian era (1901–1910). Women played an important part in this rising popularity. -
20th century - Modernism (1901–1922)
English literary modernism developed in the early twentieth-century out of a general sense of disillusionment with Victorian era attitudes of certainty, conservatism, and belief in the idea of objective truth. It is characterized by a very self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction. -
Modernism (1922–1940)
The modernist movement continued through the 1920s, 1930s, and beyond. Important British writers between the World Wars, include the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978), who began publishing in the 1920s, and novelist Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), who was an influential feminist, and a major stylistic innovato. -
Post–modernism (1940–2000)
Postmodern literature is both a continuation of the experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is difficult to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature.
