Time Periods in Literature

By Sol Santayana
  • 1200 BCE

    The Classical Period (1200 BCE - 455 CE)

    1. HOMERIC or HEROIC PERIOD: (1200-800 BCE)
    2. CLASSICAL GREEK PERIOD (800-200 BCE)
    3. CLASSICAL ROMAN PERIOD (200 BCE-455 CE)
    4. PATRISTIC PERIOD (c. 70 CE-455 CE)
  • 450

    Anglo saxon period (450-1066)

  • 455

    The Medieval Period (455 CE-1485 CE)

    1. THE OLD ENGLISH (ANGLO-SAXON) PERIOD (428-1066 CE)
    2. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (c. 1066-1450 CE)
  • 1066

    Middle english period (1066-1500)

  • 1485

    The Renaissance and Reformation (1485-1660 CE)

    1. Early Tudor Period (1485-1558)
    2. Elizabethan Period (1558-1603)
    3. Jacobean Period (1603-1625)
    4. Caroline Age (1625-1649)
    5. Commonwealth Period/Puritan Interregnum (1649-1660)

  • The Enlightenment (Neoclassical) Period (1660-1790 CE)

    Restoration Period (1660-1700)
    The Augustan Age (1700-1750)
    The Age of Johnson (1750-1790

  • Restoration period (1660-1700)

  • Augustan period (1700-1745)

  • Age of sensibility (1745-1785)

  • Romantic period (1785-1837)

    1. Romantic poets wrote about nature, imagination, and individuality in England
    2. Gothic writings (c. 1790-1890) overlap with the Romantic and Victorian periods

  • Victorian Age (1837-1901)

    The end of the Victorian Period is marked by the intellectual movements of Aestheticism and "the Decadence"

  • Edwardian period (1901-1914)

  • Modern Age (1914-1945)

    1. The Harlem Renaissance marks the rise of black writers
    2. Realism is the dominant fashion, but the disillusionment with the World Wars lead to new experimentation.

  • Post modern age (1945-still going on)

    1. Multiculturalism
    2. Magic Realists