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2019 BCE
450 - 1066 (Old English Literature)
Old English literature is in Anglo-Saxon, It is incomprehensible to a reader familiar only with modern English. Even so, there is a continuous linguistic development between the two. The most significant turning point, from about 1100, is the development of Middle English - differing from Old English in the addition of a French vocabulary after the Norman conquest. French and Germanic influences subsequently compete for the mainstream role in English literature. -
1066 - 1500 (Middle English)
The French poetic tradition inclines to lines of a regular metrical length, usually linked by rhyme into couplets or stanzas. German poetry depends more on rhythm and stress, with repeated consonants (alliteration) to bind the phrases. Elegant or subtle rhymes have a courtly flavour. The hammer blows of alliteration are a type of verbal athleticism more likely to draw applause in a hall full of warriors. -
1500-1660 ( ENGLISH RENAISSANCE )
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance. -
Puritan 1653 -1660
The two sides confronting one another in the war were the supporters of the monarchy, the “Royalists” or “Cavaliers” because of their long hair, and the supporters of Parliament or so called “Roundheads” who cut their hair short because they thought it was sinful to keep it long. The latter ones were led by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) and his follwers. At the beginning of the war Cromwell’s followers didn’t have a professionally trained army but only soldiers on foot and they were ill equipped. -
(1660-1700) RESTORATION AGE
In English literature the period from 1660 to 1700 is called the period of Restoration, because monarchy was restored in England, and Charles II, the son of Charles I who had been defeated and beheaded, came back to England from his exile in France and became the King. It is called the Age of Dryden, because Dryden was the dominating and most representative literary figure of the Age. -
(1564-1616 )The life of Shakespeare
The truth is that William Shakespeare is not such an unknown figure, and the education provided in England's grammar schools of the time is among the best available. Shakespeare's baptism is recorded in Stratford-upon-Avon on 26 April 1564 (this is only three days after St George's Day, making possible the tradition that England's national poet is born, most fortunately, on England's national saint's day). -
Ben Jonson (1606-1616)
Ben Jonson, almost as prolific in his works for the stage as Shakespeare, achieves his most distinctive voice in two satirical comedies based on an interplay of characters seen as types.
In the earlier of the two, Volpone (1606), the characters are even given the Italian names of animals to point up their supposed natures. -
17th century. England's Metaphysical poets
The term Metaphysical has been applied, with no very good reason, to a group of English poets of the early 17th century who share a love of intellectual ingenuity, literary allusion and paradox, and who use language, images and rhythms of a kind not conventionally 'poetic' to startle the reader into thought. In the 20th century, after their merits are championed by T.S. Eliot and others, it becomes one of approval. The earliest of the group (by a generation and more) is John Donne. -
(1700-1750) AUGUSTAN LITERATURE
Literary life in England flourishes so impressively in the early years of the 18th century that contemporaries draw parallels with the heyday of Virgil. The new Augustan Age becomes identified with the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14), though the spirit of the age extends. Augustan authors, Jonathan Swift, first makes his mark in 1704 with The Books, respectively about literary theory and religious discord, reveal that there is a new prose writer on the scene with lethal satirical powers. -
(1750-1798) AGE OF SENSIBILITY
This period is also sometimes described as the "Age of Johnson". Samuel Johnson(1709–1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature". -
ROMANTICISM 1798-1837
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Various dates are given for the Romantic period in British literature, the publishing of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is taken as the beginning, and the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 as its end,The Romantic period was one of major social change in England, because of the depopulation of the countryside and the rapid development of overcrowded industrial cities. -
Victorian literature (1837–1901)
Victorian literature is that produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) or the Victorian era. It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century. The 19th century is often regarded as a high point in British literature as well as in other countries such as France, the United States and Russia. Victorian created a legacy of works with continuing appeal. -
MODERN LITERATURE 1901-1940
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was an important transitional figure between the Victorian era and the 20th century. A major novelist of the late 19th century, to become an important literary movement in the early decades of the new century, there were also many fine writers. During the early decades of the 20th century the Georgian poets like Rupert Brooke, Walter de la Mare, John Masefield. -
POST MODERNS 1940-2000
Among British writers in the 1940s and 1950s were poet Dylan Thomas and novelist Graham Greene whose works span the 1930s to the 1980s, while Evelyn Waugh, W.H. Auden continued publishing into the 1960s, "When (if) modernism petered out and postmodernism began has been contested almost as hotly as when the transition from Victorianism to modernism occurred". In fact a number of modernists were still living and publishing in the 1950s and 1960, including T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner. -
CONTEMPORANY 2000-2019
Contemporary Literature publishes scholarly essays on writing in English, interviews with established and emerging authors, and reviews of recent critical books in the field. The journal welcomes articles on multiple genres, including poetry, the novel, drama, creative nonfiction, new media and digital literature, and graphic narrative. Contemporary Literature published the first articles on Thomas Pynchon and Susan Howe and the first interviews with Margaret Drabble and Don DeLillo.