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450 BCE
Old English Period
- Also called the Anglo-Saxon Period.
- Old English was a mixture of the Native Brythonic Language and tribal Germanic language.
- Anglo-Saxons used Alliteration and Kennings in their poetry.
- Heroic Poetry: Beowulf.
- Lyric Poetry: Wanderer, Seafarer.
- Christian Poetry: Dream of the road.
- Popular poets: Caedmon and Cynewulf.
- Saint Augustine converted England to a Christian Nation in 597 AD.
- King Alfred the Great started The Anglo Saxon Chronicles.
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Period: 450 to 1485
The Medieval Period
The period of European history extending from about 500 to 1400–1500 is traditionally known as the Middle Ages. -
1066
Anglo Norman Period
- It started with the Norman Conquest in 1066 AD.
- Upper-class people spoke French. Ordinary people spoke Old English.
- Oxford University was established during the 12th Century.
- Cambridge University was established in the 13th century.
- Poets: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace, Laymon, Pearl Poet.
- Works: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Owl and the Nightingale.
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1340
Age of Chaucer
- Opening moment of English Literature.
- Geoffrey Chaucer lived under the rule of 3kings: Edward lll, Richard ll, and Henry IV.
- Hundred Years War (1337-1453)
- Black Death (1348)
- Peasant Rebellion (1381)
- Works of Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, The Book of Duchess, House of Fame, Parliament of Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde, Legend of Good Women.
- Other poets: William Langland, John Gower.
- John Wycliff translated Latin- Bible into Vernacular English.
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1400
Age of Revival
- Arrival of Printing Press
- Reformation by Martin Luther (Protestants)
- War of Roses between the House of York and the House of Lancaster.
- Tudor Dynasty started.
- Henry 7 was the 1st Tudor King.
- His successor was Henry 8 who married 6 times for a son.
- His 15t wife, Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a daughter Mary.
- His 2nd wife, Anne Bolyn gave birth to Elizabeth.
- Authors of Age of Revival: Erasmus, Thomas More, William Tyndale, Thomas Malory.
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Period: 1485 to
The Renaissance and Reformation
Renaissance was a cultural movement that began in Italy and spread across Europe while the reformation was the Northern European Christian movement. Renaissance paved the way for the advancement in art and architecture, whereas Reformation paved the way for religious fragmentation. -
1558
Elizabethan Age
- Queen Elizabeth, a Protestantrestored peace after the violent reign of Queen Mary (Catholic).
- Renaissance Humanism.
- Drama flourished.
- Francis Bacon was the founder of the Scientific Movement.
- Poets: Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney
- Dramatists: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, William Shakespeare
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Jacobean Age
- King James 1 ruled. He was the 1st Stuart King.
- Gun Powder Treason (Guy Fawkes was the main conspirator)
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Caroline Age
- King Charles, I ruled.
- Dramatists: Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, John Webster, Thomas Middleton.
- Poets: Metaphysical Poets(Andrew Marvel, John Donne, George Herbert)
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Civil War and Common Wealth
- Civil War took place between King Charles 1 and Parliament.
- In 1649, Charles 1 was executed.
- Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector of England.
- Theatres were banned.
- Writers: John Milton, John Bunyan.
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Restoration Age
- Charles ll, son of King Charles I was restored to the throne.
- The Theatre ban was lifted.
- 2 political parties emerged: Whigs and Tories
- Writers: John Dryden, William Congreve, John Vanbrugh, Aphra Behn, Thomas Rymer
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Period: to
The Enlightenment
It represents a phase in the intellectual history of Europe and also programs of reform, inspired by a belief in the possibility of a better world, that outlined specific targets for criticism and programs of action. -
Enlightenment Age
- Also called The Age of Reason, The Age of Sensibility, the Neoclassical Age, and the Augustan Age.
- Scientific Revolution with scientists like Newton and Galileo.
- Coffee House culture started that led to the publication of magazines.
- The dictionary of the English Language was published by Samuel Johnson.
- Writers: Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson
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Period: to
The Romantic Period
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. -
Romantic Age
- Started with the publication of a Lyrical Ballad.
- Industrial Revolution started.
- Writers turned towards Nature. Idealization of Rural Life. Feelings and Emotions were important. Poets wrote in plain and simple language.
- Romantic Poets: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, Lord Byron, P. B. Shelley, John Keats.
- Novelists: Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Horace Walpole, Richard Sheridan
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Period: to
The Vicorian Period
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign. -
Period: to
American Renaissance
The American Renaissance period in American literature ran from about 1830 to around the Civil War. -
Period: to
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. -
Victorian Age
- Reign of Queen Victoria
- British working class Movement
- Charles Darwin published "Origin of Species. A clash between faith and reason.
- Poets: Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Matthew Arnold, Gerald Manley Hoplins, D. G. Rossetti
- Novelists: Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte, Thomas Hardy, Oscar Wilde, William Makepeace Thackeray.
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Period: to
American Realism and Regionalism
Regionalism focused on rural and agrarian America. Social Realism had a more urban focus and presented strong political and social commentaries. -
Modern Age
- Society became fragmented.
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Great Depression (1929-1930)
- Modern writers saw a decline in civilization and degradation in humanity.
- Writers became interested in the functioning of the mind after Sigmund Freud published 'Interpretation of Dreams' in 1900
- Stream of Consciousness Novels.
- Modern writers: T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, G. B. Shaw
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Period: to
The Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. -
Post-Modern Age
- The USA became a superpower.
- Defined by an attitude of Irony and skepticism.
- Writers started celebrating the disorientation and absurdity.
- Theatre of Absurd, Angry Young Man Theatre, Confessional
- Poetry became popular
- Post-Modern Writers: Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, John Osborne, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Agatha Christie, Somerset Maugham, Doris Lessing, Angela Carter.
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Period: to
Post-Modernism
Postmodernism developed in the mid-twentieth century as a rejection of modernism and has been observed across many disciplines.