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450
OLD ENGLISH (450-1066)
The oldest surviving text of Old English literature is “Cædmon's Hymn”, which was composed between 658 and 680, and the longest was the ongoing “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”. But by far the best known is the long epic poem “Beowulf”. -
1066
MIDDLE ENGLISH (1066-1500)
The Normans brought their language, culture and literature, whose poetry is based on syllables, rhymes and stanzas. These formal characteristics are picked up by the romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Innumerable different uses and regional dialects grew, and in fact the proliferation of regional dialects during this time was so extreme that people in one part of England could not even understand people in another part only 50 miles away. -
1500
ENGLISH RENAISSANCE (1500-1660)
Great changes happened,Sir Thomas Wyatt is one of the first poets to use forms Petrarchists, Authors are given as Hamlet (1600) and King Lear (1605), but the one that stands out is the author William Shakespeare.
This had a profound impact not only on writing but also on art and philosophy. -
1558
Elizabethan period (1558–1603)
In this period there was a thriving literary production, especially in the field of theater. William Shakespeare was an outstanding author of poetry and plays, surely the most relevant figure that English literature has had in its history, but also other figures have had a relevant weight in the theater such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont The urban comedy genre was also developed very often and admired. -
Jacobean Period (1603–1625)
Jacobean poetry encompassed both the graceful verse of Jonson and the courtly poets as well as the intellectual complexities of the metaphysical poetry of John Donne and others. In prose, writers such as Francis Bacon and Robert Burton showed novel flexibility and stylistic cohesion. The main prose work of the period was the bible version of King James (1611). -
RESTORATION AGE (1660–1700)
The mobility of society, which followed the social upheavals of the previous generation, provided the ideas for the creation of the comedy of manners. Aphra Behn was the first female novelist and professional dramatist. The allegory of John Bunyan, The Pilgrim, is one of the most read works of this period. -
AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT (1700 – 1800)
It was a time of optimism, believing that society in all its aspects could be improved for the benefit of all, by using rational analysis to design acceptable reforms.
The era is marked by political changes such as government consolidation, the creation of nations, greater rights for ordinary people and a decrease in the influence of authoritarian institutions such as the nobility and the Church. -
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1798-1830)
The reaction to industrialization and urbanism pushed poets to explore nature, such as the "Lake Poets" group in which we included William Wordsworth. These romantic poets brought to English literature a new degree of sentimentality and introspection. Among the most important authors of the second generation of romantic poets are Lord Byron, Percy Bysse Shelley and John Keats -
VICTORIAN LITERATURE (1837–1901)
Women played an important role in this growing popularity, both as authors and as readers. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) appeared on the literary scene in the late 1830s and soon became probably the most famous novelist in the history of English literature.
The Brontë sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne, were other important novelists in the 1840s and 1850s. -
MODERNISM (1901-1939)
It describes a set of trends and cultural movements, which originally arose from large-scale and powerful changes in Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An important advance, which began in the thirties and forties, was the tradition of working-class novels, actually written by background writers of the working class. Among these were coal miner Jack Jones. -
POST-MODERN PERIOD (1940-2000)
Two examples of English postmodern literature are: John Fowles and Julian Barnes. Some important writers of the beginning of the 21st century are: Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Will Self, Andrew Motion and Salman Rushdie. Featured author Martin Amis. (It relies heavily on, for example, fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) as a reaction against the enlightened ideas implied in modernist literature.
