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450
Old literature
Or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England -
Period: 450 to 1066
Old English literature
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. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles and riddles. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period. -
Period: 1066 to 1500
Middle English
French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society. Their language and literature mingled with that of the natives, and the Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman. From then until the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. than any other dialect and Middle English literature was written in the many dialects that corresponded to the region, history, culture, and background of individual writers -
Period: 1500 to
English Renaissance
After William Caxton introduced the printing press in England in 1476, vernacular literature flourished. The Reformation inspired the production of vernacular liturgy which led to the Book of Common Prayer (1549), a lasting influence on literary language. 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. -
1558
Elizabethan Period
refers to bodies of work produced during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), and is one of the most splendid ages of English literature. -
Period: 1558 to
Elizabethan period
During her reign a London-centred culture, both courtly and popular, produced great poetry and drama. English playwrights combined the influence of the Medieval theatre with the Renaissance's rediscovery of the Roman dramatists, Seneca, for tragedy, and Plautus and Terence, for comedy. Italy was an important source for Renaissance ideas in England. Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599) was one of the most important poets of the Elizabethan period, author of The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596). -
Period: to
Jacobean period
The poet and dramatist Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was the leading literary figure of the Jacobean era. Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages and his characters embody the theory of humours, which was based on contemporary medical theory. Jonson's comedies include Volpone (1605 or 1606)) and Bartholomew Fair (1614). Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote the popular comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a satire of the rising middle class. -
Period: to
Puritan
Puritan literature relied on a religiousthem, they thought of writing as a tool to reach people with the story of God. Works focused on realistic messages illustrating the idea that everyone was born a sinner and that his or her salvation had been pre-determined, a concept known as predestination. Puritan literature also relied on specific genres and most Puritan literature took the form of a sermon, poem, letter, or historical narrative. -
Period: to
Restoration Age
At the heart of this literature is the attempt to come to terms with the political events that had occurred in previous decades. The writings of this time are both innovative and varied; the style and subject matter of the literature produced during the Restoration period spanned the spectrum from definitively religious to satirical and risqué. In 1688, James II, Charles II's brother, was removed from the throne, which many scholars use to mark the end of Restoration literature. -
Restoration Age
John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress -
Period: to
18TH CENTURY
European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama, satire, and novels) produced in Europe during this period. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 Robinson Crusoe is probably the best known. -
Period: to
Augustan literature
It was during this time that poet James Thomson (1700–1748) produced his melancholy The Seasons (1728–30) and Edward Young (1681–1765) wrote his poem Night Thoughts (1742), though the most outstanding poet of the age is Alexander Pope (1688–1744). At the same time, the mock-heroic was at its zenith and Pope's Rape of the Lock (1712–17) and The Dunciad (1728–43) are still the greatest mock-heroic poems ever written.Pope also translated the Iliad (1715–20) and the Odyssey (1725–26). -
Period: to
Age of Sensibility
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. Johnson has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". -
Romanticism
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. -
Period: to
Romanticism
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. Romanticism may be seen in part as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, though it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, as well a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. -
Victorian literature
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) emerged on the literary scene in the late 1830s and soon became probably the most famous novelist in the history of English literature. Dickens fiercely satirised various aspects of society, including the workhouse in Oliver Twist, the failures of the legal system in Bleak House, -
Period: to
Victorian
Became the leading literary genre in English. Women played an important part in this rising popularity both as authors and as readers, was a means of commenting on abuses of government and industry and the suffering of the poor, who were not profiting from England's economic prosperity.Significant early examples of this genre include Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845) by Benjamin Disraeli, and Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke (1849). -
Modernism
He was a British writer and poet. Author of stories, children's stories, novels and poetry. Some of his most popular works are the collection of stories The Jungle Book (The Book of the Virgin Lands, 1894), the spy novel Kim (1901), the short story «The Man Who Would Be King» («The man who could be king », 1888), originally published in the volume The Phantom Rickshaw, or the poems« Gunga Din »(1892) -
Period: to
Modern Literature
Modernist literature was a predominantly English genre of fiction writing, popular from roughly the 1910s into the 1960s. Modernist literature came into its own due to increasing industrialization and globalization. -
Period: to
Post Moderns
Is 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. -
Period: to
Contemporary
Contemporary literature reflects current trends in life and culture and because these things change often, contemporary literature changes often as well. Contemporary literature most often reflects the author's perspective and can come across as cynical. It questions facts, historical perspectives and often presents two contradictory arguments side by side.
