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410
Beowulf
Anonymous Anglo-Saxon epic poem, well known in Old English -
410
Information
The Romans withdrew from Britain, leaving it to Germanic and Scandinavian settlers. Anglo-Saxon poetry reflected the transition from traditional pagan beliefs to Christian ideas, and the struggle to blend the two into a new worldview. -
Period: 410 to 1066
Old English
Begins with the Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. -
1066
Old English ends
Ended with the Norman invasion of 1066. -
Period: 1066 to 1500
Middle English
In 1066, the Normans, arrived from France, conquer it. French replaced Anglo-Saxon as the language of the upper classes. Middle English, known as the Geoffrey Chaucer language. -
1200
Medieval romances
From 1200, the main genres are: the "romance", the lyrics... The medieval romance captured the new concerns and ideals of feudalism, including courtly love, courtesy and chivalry. The tales of King Arthur, were popular. -
1387
The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) Author of the Canterbury stories, these are about: Stories narrated by people of various social classes, met by chance on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. -
Period: 1500 to
English Renaissance
John Milton, known for his epic poem "Paradise Lost," and John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, are important names from the 17th century. Herbert Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan and others explored the implications of England's Protestant reformation. -
1558
Elizabethan Literature
Flourishing of literature, especially drama: producing the so-called Elizabethan theater. During this period the writer William Shakespeare made his appearance. Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet to England in the early 16th century. -
1567
Jacobean Literature
The King James Bible was one of the most important translation projects in English history, started in 1604 and completed until 1611. The works of revenge, popularized by John Webster and Thomas Kyd were famous. -
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is the best known author of the Elizabethan period. He was an English playwright, poet and actor. Shakespeare is considered the most important writer in the English language and one of the most famous in world literature. Some of his works are: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet. -
Period: to
Puritan Literature
The Puritans have numerous poets, whose content is almost entirely religious, and a refined and charming poet: Andrew Marvell. -
John Milton
He was a very famous Author for writing Lycidoas, beautiful pastoral elegy, and the charming mojiganga, Paradise lost, who makes you laugh and think at the same time. -
Period: to
Restoration age
Poetry flourished, John Dryden's work was very famous; the time is especially remembered for the traditional comedies. -
Period: to
Eighteen Century
The 18th century is famous for its essayists and satirists and for the appearance of the novel, a long prose narrative with realistic setting and three-dimensional characters. The characteristic concerns of the Age of Enlightenment, including justice, politics, science, education, progress... appeared in the essays and satires of the 18th century. -
Augustan age
One of the most striking genders was travel literature, pure testimony, or used as a means to criticize one's own reality from other points of view. One of these books, The Adventures of the Shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe (1719), by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) -
Novel and Essay
Such authors as Daniel Defoe, with his Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift, with his Gulliver's Travels, and Henry Fielding, with his Tom Jones, laid the groundwork for the rise of the novel, while Samuel Johnson, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele developed the essay. -
Period: to
Romanticism
Most English novels during the 19th century used one or more stories of love and courtship as vehicles to explore such issues as the rise of the middle class, the obligations of the higher classes to the lower, and the need for reform in English society. The romantic movement emphasized nature and emotion, produced great poetry like that of William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, and John Keats. -
Romantic Period
Produced authors who wrote about life, love, and nature. Many of these authors had a melancholic inclination towards their works. John Keats is the most famous author of this period. William Wordsworth is also a key figure, with the poem "The World Is Too Much With Us, Late and Soon", as is Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who wrote "The Ancient Mariner's Frost." -
Period: to
Victorian
Includes the love poems of Elizabeth and Robert Browning, Lord Alfred Tennyson's sweeping Camelot saga entitled "Idylls of the King" and Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure stories and novels, including his famous "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. -
Important works
-Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) -Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861) -Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847) -The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890) -
Period: to
Modern Literature
It was characterized by stylistic experimentation and the questioning of traditional values. The Modernists introduced important stylistic innovations such as stream of consciousness. -
Modern works
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) - Cathleen ni Houlihan - Ideas of Good and Evil. Virginia Woolf (1882- 1941) - Mrs. Dalloway- To the lighthouse James Joyce (1882- 1941) - Dublineses - Portrait of teenage artist DH Lawrence (1885- 1930) - Sons and lovers -The Rainbow -
Sigmund Freud
The Modernists were concerned with the uncertainty and complexity of the postwar world, and were heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud's ideas about sexuality and the unconscious. -
Period: to
Post Modern
It is defined as a style or trend that emerged in the post-WWII era. Postmodern works are seen as a response against the dogmatic following of Enlightenment thought and modernist approaches to literature. -
Precursor Novels
Impressions d’Afrique (1910) and Locus Solus (1914) by Raymond Roussel, and Hebdomeros (1929) by Giorgio de Chirico have also been identified as an important “postmodern precursor”. -
Period: to
Contemporary
It is precisely the time that we find and we are part of the new literary creations.
