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We began the history of English literature with the Old English Period, which, with its poems on the theme of heroism (alluding to the warrior, the adventurer and the conqueror), gave way to the study of medieval English history, Wales and Scotland.Geoffrey
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Geoffrey Chaucer (a.k.a "The father of English Poetry") (l. c. 1343-1400 CE) was a medieval English poet, writer, and philosopher best known for his work The Canterbury Tales, a masterpiece of world literature. The Canterbury Tales is a work of poetry featuring a group of pilgrims from different social classes on a journey to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury who agree to tell each other stories to pass the time (Joshua, J. Mark, 2019).
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We began the history of English literature with the Old English Period, which, with its poems on the theme of heroism (alluding to the warrior, the adventurer and the conqueror), gave way to the study of medieval English history, Wales and Scotland.
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Linguistically and historically, the poems that emerged during the Old English Period were conceptualised by the heroic theme, the religious theme, the elegy theme and the war theme.
Some of the authors were:
Bede (673 - 735).
Caedmon.
Cynewulf.
King Alfred. -
The Anglo-Norman period was the period of transition. So the literature, culture, and language of the times were also in a state of flux. There were three major forces: Latin, French and the native English language exerting their influence on the Anglo-Norman life and culture (Vinay, S. Pendse, 2021). There are three main types of Middle English literature: religious, courtly love, and Arthurian
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The Beowulf poet (700-750); it's author is so far unknown, as it's said to have had several authors who kept it for many years. "It tells the story of the Scandinavian hero Beowulf, who gains fame as a young man by vanquishing the monster Grendel and Grendel's mother; later, as an aging king, he kills a dragon but dies soon after, honoured and lamented." (Britannica, T. August 23th, 2022).
Geoffrey Chaucer
The Gawain Poet
Sir Tomas Malory
Margery Kempe -
Geoffrey Chaucer (a.k.a "The father of English Poetry") (l. c. 1343-1400 CE) was a medieval English poet, writer, and philosopher best known for his work The Canterbury Tales, a masterpiece of world literature. The Canterbury Tales is a work of poetry featuring a group of pilgrims from different social classes on a journey to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury who agree to tell each other stories to pass the time (Joshua, J. Mark, 2019). -
The Renaissance was a period between the 1300s and 1660. The word "Renaissance" comes from the French word for "rebirth," referring to the movement's origins following the Dark Ages and the new interest in and rediscovery of Greek and Roman texts that inspired the minds of the time (Debbie Notari; Michel M. del Campo, May 26th, 2022). Focused more on the human being as an individual. The poetic forms developed during this period were the lyric, tragedy, elegy or pastoral.
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William Shakespeare
Geoffrey Chaucer
Nicholas Machiavelli
Miguel de Cervantes
Dante Alighieri
John Donne
Edmund Spenser
Giovanni Boccaccio
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
John Milton
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Molière)
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Among the Neoclassical forms of literature, the most famous were the essay, both in verse and prose. While drama declined and almost disappeared during the later part of the period, Novel made its beginnings. The literature of the age was mostly comic and satiric
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Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)
John Dryden (1631 - 1700)
Daniel Defoe ( - 1731)
Perpessicius (1891 - 1971)
Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771)
Ion Luca Caragiale ( 1852 - 1912) -
During this time, many writers finding inspiration from the French Revolution. "Romantic literature is marked by six primary characteristics: celebration of nature, focus on the individual and spirituality, celebration of isolation and melancholy, interest in the common man, idealization of women, and personification and pathetic fallacy." (Jeffrey Somers, December 18, 2019).
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William Blake (1757-1827)
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
George Gordon
6th Lord Byron (1788-1824)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
John Keats (1795-1821). -
"While the novel was the dominant form of literature during the Victorian era, poets continued to experiment with style and methods of story-telling in their poems. Examples of this experimentation include long narrative poems (epic poems) and the dramatic monologue." (Allie Myers, Kathryn Kummer, Julie Wigley, Karen Bilotti, July 15, 2018).
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Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870)
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811 - 1863)
Charlotte Brontë ( 1816 - 1855)
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888)
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) -
the modernist writers were against the rules that had been in place for centuries. Encouraging the freedom as democracy grew as a political system, individualism, breaking with tradition and disillusionment were the main themes of this period.
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William Shakespeare is considered by many to be the father of modern English Literature
"The Harlem Renaissance marks the rise of black writers such as Baldwin and Ellison. Realism is the dominant fashion, but the disillusionment with the World Wars lead to new experimentation." (Dr. Wheeler, Jul 20, 2022).
W. B. Yeats
Seamus Heaney
Dylan Thomas
W. H. Auden
Virginia Woolf
Wilfred Owen. -
During this period, readers have seen the development of numerous genres, such as dystopian fiction, contemporary horror, New Wave fiction, the psychological thriller, romantic comedy, and more. Additionally, within this time period, readers can find important novels, short stories, poems, essays, and more. Three of the most important movements within contemporary literature can be explored below. (Poem Analysis)
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"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." (Dr. Wheeler, Jul 20, 2022).
T. S. Eliot
Morrison
Shaw
Beckett
Stoppard
Fowles
Calvino
Ginsberg
Pynchon