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450
1. Old English.
- It dates back to the invasion of Cela England around the year 450.
- The Era ended in 1066 when Norman France under the command of William conquered England.
- Half of this period featured oral literature.
- The prose during this time was translated from something else.
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Period: 450 to 1066
Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period.
- Works such as Beowulf stand out, the poem is a series of adventure stories about a village called Geats and a war hero called Beowulf.
- Poets like Caedmon and Cynewulf stand out in this era.
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1066
2. Middle English.
- The era extends from 1066 to around 1500.
- It is a difficult period to identify because it is a time of transition between two epochs that have a more solid definition: Old English and Modern English.
- This period is home to characters like Chaucer , Thomas Malory and Robert Henryson.
- Notable works include "Piers Plowman" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight".
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Period: 1066 to 1500
Middle English Period.
- There are changes in the English language, the growing dependence on alternative means of expression, using the order of prepositional words and constructions rather than word endings to express relationships of meaning.
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1500
3. English Renaissance.
- This period is subdivided into four parts.
- The Elizabethan age (1558-1603), was the golden age of English drama. Some of his notable figures include Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, William Shakespeare.
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Period: 1500 to
English Renaissance Period.
- The Jacobean Age (1603-1625), is named after the reign of James I. It includes the plays of John Donne, Shakespeare, Michael Drayton.
- The Carolina Age (1625-1649), covers the reign of Charles I ("Carolus"). John Milton and George Herbert are some of the notable figures.
- The Commonwealth Period (1649-1660) was named for the period between the end of the English Civil War and the restoration of the Stuart monarchy. Prose writers such as Thomas Fuller, Abraham Cowley.
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4. Puritan.
- The literature of the Seventeenth Century, The Puritan Age or the Milton Age (1600-1660), which extends into the Jacobean and Carolinian periods after the names of the regulation James I (1603-1625 ) and Charles I (1625-1649).
- In this period people took stock of what had been acquired. People classified, analyzed and systematized many things that had no importance before. The use of the English language as a medium for instruction and for storing data and transmitting facts began.
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Period: to
Puritan Time Period.
- There were also secular poets who called themselves the poets of Caser. While the metaphysical poet delighted in mysticism and religiosity, the poets Cavalier dealt with the subject of love. The poets Cavalier - Herrick, Carew, Lovelaceand Suckling.
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Restoration Age Period.
- Restoration marks a complete break with the past.
- People believed in the present, the real and the material. Writers, both in prose and in poetry, tacitly agreed upon the rules and principles according to which they should write. Literary rules and conventions became more important than the depth and seriousness of the subject for writers of this period.
- Dryden was the first of the new ones. Butler’s Hudibras is a scathing satire on Puritans.
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5. Restoration Age.
- The period from 1660 to 1700 is known as the Restoration period or the Dryden Age.
- Dryden was the representative writer of this period. The restoration of King Charles II in 1660 marked the beginning of a new era in both the life and literature of England.
- The king was received with great joy upon his return from exile. The change of government from Commonwealth to Kingship corresponded to a change in the nation’s mood.
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6. Romanticism.
- Romanticism is a literary movement that extends approximately between 1790 and 1850.
- The movement was characterized by a celebration of nature and the common man, a focus on the individual experience, an idealization of women and an embrace of isolation and melancholy.
- Prominent romantic writers include John Keats, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley.
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Romantic Period.
- Romantic literature is marked by six main characteristics: celebration of nature, focus on the individual and spirituality, celebration of isolation and melancholy, interest in the common man, idealization of women and pathetic impersonation and fallacy.
- There is also a minor period, also quite popular (between 1786-1800), called the Gothic era. Notable writers of this period include Matthew Lewis, Anne Radcliffe, and William Beckford.
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7. Victorian.
- This period is the set of poetry , fiction , essays and letters produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) and during the period that bears her name.
- The period has often been divided into "Early" periods (1832-1848), "Middle" periods (1848-1870) and "Late" periods (1870-1901) or into two phases, that of the Pre-Raphaelites (1848-1860). and that of Aesthetics and Decadence (1880-1901).
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Victorian Period.
- The Victorian period is in sharp dispute with the Romantic period as being the most popular, influential and prolific period of all English (and world) literature.
- During the 19th century, the novel became the main form of English literature. The 19th century is often regarded as a highlight in European and Victorian literature, including the works of Emily and Charlotte, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, among others.
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9. Modern Age.
- Modern artists, who deliberately sought to break with traditional styles, innovated a wide range of new aesthetics.
- Modern literature can be divided into two approaches, realism and radicalism, which date back to ca. 1850.
- The modern period is traditionally applied to works written after the beginning of World War I.
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Modern Period.
- The five major nations of modern literature (ca. 1800-present) have been France, Germany, Russia, England, and the United States. The figures bearing the title "greatest novelist" and /or "greatest poet" of each nation are almost all widely accepted; most lived in the 19th century.
- Some of the most notable writers of this period include novelists James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley; and playwrights Tom Stoppard, George Bernard Shaw.
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10. Post Modern.
- The postmodern period begins about the time when the Second World War ended.
- Some say that the period ended around 1990, but it is probably too early to declare it closed.
- Postmodernism refers in general to a sociocultural and literary theory, and a change of perspective that has manifested itself in a variety of disciplines, including the social sciences, art, architecture, literature, fashion, communications and technology.
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PostModerns Period.
- In literature, writers often playfully avoid the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this.
- Postmodern literature, as expressed in the writings of Beckett, Robbe Grillet, Borges, Marquez, Naguib Mahfouz and Angela Carter, is based on the recognition of the complex nature of reality and experience, the role of time and memory in human perception, of self and the world as historical constructions, and the problematic nature of language.
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Period: to
Contemporary Period.
- Contemporary literature presents a somewhat modern narrative, but it also contains a harsher reality. Contemporary written works tend to be influenced by a new reality that flourished in the post-war mind, and included a personal cynicism, disillusionment, and frustration that are common to this literary period.
- These authors are the most popular in this period: Isabel Allende, Jonathan Franzen, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami, Zadie Smith, John Updike.
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11. Contemporary.
- Contemporary literature is a vast group of written works produced from a specific time in history to the present day.
- Some see this period as an extension of postmodern literature, but most refer to it as a literary era of its own.
- Although there are some disagreements about the beginning of this literary period, the biggest dispute revolves around what qualifies a work written as literature. This term also refers to the quality of writing.