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This period of literature dates back to their invasion of Celtic England circa 450.
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The Middle English period sees a huge transition in the language, culture, and lifestyle of England and results in what we can recognize today as a form of «modern» English. This period is home to the likes of Chaucer, Thomas Malory, and Robert Henryson.
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The Jacobean Age is named after the reign of James I. It includes the works of John Donne, Shakespeare, Michael Drayton, John Webster, Elizabeth Cary, Ben Jonson, and Lady Mary Wroth. The King James translation of the Bible also appeared during the Jacobean Age. John Milton, Robert Burton, and George Herbert are some of the notable figures. Finally, the Commonwealth Period was so named for the period between the end of the English Civil War and the restoration of the Stuart monarchy.
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The Neoclassical period is also subdivided into ages, including The Restoration, The Augustan Age, and The Age of Sensibility. Restoration comedies developed during this time under the talent of playwrights like William Congreve and John Dryden. Other notable writers of the age include Aphra Behn, John Bunyan, and John Locke.
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The time period ends with the passage of the Reform Bill and with the death of Sir Walter Scott. American literature has its own Romantic period, but typically when one speaks of Romanticism, one is referring to this great and diverse age of British literature, perhaps the most popular and well-known of all literary ages.
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This period is named after the reign of Queen Victoria, who ascended to the throne in 1837, and it lasts until her death in 1901. The period has often been divided into «Early», «Mid» and «Late» periods or into two phases, that of the Pre-Raphaelites and that of Aestheticism and Decadence. The Victorian period is in strong contention with the Romantic period for being the most popular, influential, and prolific period in all of English literature.
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This period is named for King Edward VII and covers the period between Victoria’s death and the outbreak of World War I. Although a short period (and a short reign for Edward VII), the era includes incredible classic novelists such as Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, and Henry James; notable poets such as Alfred Noyes and William Butler Yeats; and dramatists such as James Barrie, George Bernard Shaw, and John Galsworthy.
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The Georgian period usually refers to the reign of George V but sometimes also includes the reigns of the four successive Georges from 1714–1830. Davies, and Rupert Brooke.
Georgian poetry today is typically considered to be the works of minor poets anthologized by Edward Marsh. The themes and subject matter tended to be rural or pastoral in nature, treated delicately and traditionally rather than with passion or with experimentation. -
The modern period traditionally applies to works written after the start of World War I. Common features include bold experimentation with subject matter, style, and form, encompassing narrative, verse, and drama. W.B. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Dorothy Richardson, Graham Greene, E.M. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Wilfred Owens, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Graves; and the dramatists Tom Stoppard, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Frank McGuinness, Harold Pinter, and Caryl Churchill.
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Some say the period ended about 1990, but it is likely too soon to declare this period closed. Some notable writers of the period include Samuel Beckett, Joseph Heller, Anthony Burgess, John Fowles, Penelope M.