History of English Literature

l the classic period HOMERIC OR HEROIC

1200 BCE

The main source is the Homeric poems (Iliada, Odyssey) dated at the end of the s. VIII, in the region of Ionia.
In them we see that the past is remembered as a golden age.
This is a chaotic period of warrior princes, wandering marine merchants and fierce pirates.

II GREEK CLASSIC PERIOD

800 BCE

It is a historical era in which the power of the Greek polis and the cultural manifestations that developed in them reached their peak.
The fifth century (499-400 BC) in particular is known as The Golden Age of Greece, this was the sophisticated era of the polis, or the individual City-State, and early democracy, some of the best art , poetry, drama, architecture and philosophy of the world originated in Athens.

IV. PATRISTIC PERIOD

70

Patristics is the study of Christianity of the first centuries and its first authors known as fathers of the Church.
it is the phase in the history of Christian organization and theology that extends from the end of early Christianity, with the consolidation of the New Testament canon, until around the century
VIII, the first Christian writers include Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Saint Cyprian, Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome.

II THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD (period of ancient english)

428

The period of ancient English formally ended shortly after the Norman conquest, when the language was greatly influenced by the ancient Norman spoken by the Normans. The use of the term "Anglo-Saxon" to describe the mixture of languages and cultures is of relatively modern formation.
The so-called "Middle Ages" (455 CE -799 CE) occurred after the fall of Rome and the barbarian tribes moved to Europe.

II THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF ENGLISH

1066

In 1066, Norman French armies invaded and conquered England under William I. This marks the end of the Anglo-Saxon hierarchy and the rise of the 12th-century Renaissance (c. 1100-1200 CE). The French chivalrous romances, such as the works of Chretien de Troyes, and the French fables, such as the works of Marie de France and Jeun de Meun, spread in popularity. Abelardo and other humanists produced great scholastic and theological works.

LATE OR HIGH MEDIEVAL PERIOD

1200

This often tumultuous period is marked by the mid-English writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet "Gawain" or "Pearl," the teacher of Wakefield and William Langland.
Other writers include Italian and French authors such as Boccaccio, Petrarca, Dante and Christine de Pisan.

III. THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION

1485

The Reformation of the 16th century was a movement within Western Christianity to purge the church of medieval abuses and reestablish the doctrines and practices that they believed were consistent with the Bible and with the model of the church in the New Testament. The cultural Renaissance was during the century and a half was a necessary preliminary, because it increased the level of education and re-emphasized the ancient classics.

I. EARLY TUDOR PERIOD

1485

The War of the Roses ended in England with Henry Tudor (Henry VII) claiming the throne.
The separation of Martin Luther with Rome marks the rise of Protestantism, followed by the Anglican schism of Henry VIII, which created the first Protestant church in England. Edmund Spenser is a sample poet.

II. Elizabethan Period

1558

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 represent this period as the golden age of the England history
Queen Elizabeth saved England from the Spanish invasion and internal disputes at home. His reign is marked by the first works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd and Sydney.

IV. THE ENLIGHTENMENT (NEOCLASSICAL) PERIOD

1660

"Neoclassical" refers to the greatest influence of classical literature in these centuries.
The neoclassical period is also called the "Enlightenment" due to the greater reverence for logic and disdain for superstition.
The period is marked by the rise of deism, the intellectual reaction against previous Puritanism and the United States revolution against England.

I. RESTORATION PERIOD

1700

This period marks the British king's restoration to the throne after a long period of Puritan domination in England. Its symptoms include the dominance of French and Classical influences on poetry and drama.

II. THE AUGUSTAN AGE

1750

This period is marked by the imitation of Virgil and Horace's literature in English letters. The principal English writers include Addison, Steele, Swift, and Alexander Pope. Abroad, Voltaire was the dominant French writer.

III. THE AGE OF JOHNSON

1790

This period marks the transition to the next Romanticism, although the period is still largely neoclassical. Lead writers include Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell and Edward Gibbon, who represent neoclassical tendencies, while writers such as Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, Cowper and Crabbe show a movement away from the neoclassical ideal. In America, this period is called the colonial period. It includes colonial writers and revolutionaries: Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

V. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD

1830

Romantic poets wrote about nature, imagination, and individuality in England. Some Romantics include Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley in Britain and Johann von Goethe in Germany. Jane Austen also wrote at this time, though she is typically not categorized with the male Romantic poets. In America, this period is mirrored in the Transcendental Period from about 1830-1850 Transcendentalists include Emerson and Thoreau.

VI. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD AND THE 19TH CENTURY

1832

Writings from the period of Queen Victoria's reign include sentimental novels. British writers include Elizabeth Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, and the Brontë sisters.
The end of the Victorian Period is marked by the intellectual movements of Aestheticism and "the Decadence" in the writings of Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.

VII. THE MODERN PERIOD

1914

In the Modern Age the two "worlds" were found that had remained almost absolutely isolated since Prehistory: the New World (America) and the Old World (Eurasia and Africa). When the European exploration of Australia was consolidated, we talked about the New World.
The historiographic discipline that studies it is called Modern History, and its historians,"modernists"In Britain, modernist writers include WB Yeats,Seamus Heaney,Dylan Thomas , WH Auden,Virginia Woolf y Wilfred Owen .

VIII. THE POSTMODERN PERIOD

1945

VIII. The Postmodern Period (1945 - onward)
T.S. Eliot's Love Song for J. Alfred PrufrockT. S. Eliot, Morrison, Shaw, Beckett, Stoppard, Fowles, Calvino, Ginsberg, Pynchon, and other modern writers, poets, and playwrights experimented with metafiction and fragmented poetry.
Magic Realists such as Gabriel García Márquez, Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Günter Grass, and Salman Rushdie flourished with surrealistic writings embroidered in the conventions of realism