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Period: 450 to 1066
• Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
This period of literature dates back to their invasion of Celtic England around 450 and ends in 1066 when Norman France, under William, conquered England.
It is characterized by:
. He had oral literature.
Much of the prose during this time was a translation of something else or of a legal, medical, or religious nature;
Highlights include the work Beowulf: an epic poem about the geatish warrior of the same name and the works of the poets of the time Caedmon and Cynewulf. -
Period: 1066 to 1500
Middle English
It is characterized
Have a great transition in the language, culture and lifestyle of England and it results in what we can recognize today as a "modern" (recognizable) form of English. The era extends to around 1500.
Most of the writings of Middle English were religious in nature; but from 1350 on, secular literature began to grow.
- Characters such as: Chaucer, Thomas Malory and Robert Henryson and some works such as: "Piers Plowman" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" stand out. -
Period: 1500 to
The Renaissance
This period is subdivided into four parts, including the Elizabethan Age (1558-1603), the Jacobean Age (1603-1625), the Carolina Age (1625-1649), and the Commonwealth Period (1649-1660).
Some of the most prominent figures are: Christopher Marlowe, Bacon, Edmund Spenser, Sir Walter Raleigh, William Shakespeare, and the prose writers Thomas Fuller, Abraham Cowley and Andrew Marvell
Important facts
- The King James Translation of the Bible
- The political writings of John Milton and Thomas Hobbes -
Period: to
The Neoclassical
It is divided into ages, which include The Restoration , Age of Augustus and Age of Sensitivity.
Featured Characters: Playwrights such as William Congreve and John Dryden, the writers Aphra Behn, John Bunyan, and John Locke, the novelists Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Tobias Smollett, and Laurence Sterne, and the poets William Cowper and Thomas Percy.
The genre of comedy, theater, satire and Ideas such as neoclassicism, a critical and literary mode, and the Enlightenment stand out. -
Period: to
The Romantic
It refers to a great era in British literature, perhaps the most popular and well-known of all literary eras. During this period, Feelings, imagination and experiences were valued above all else.
The works of: Wordsworth, Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron, John Keats, Charles Lamb, Mary Wollstonecraft, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas De Quincey, Jane Austen and Mary Shelley stand out. -
Period: to
The Victorian
Named after Queen Victoria, who ascended the throne in 1837, and died in 1901. It was a time of great social, religious, intellectual and economic problems, heralded by the passage of the Reform Project, which expanded voting rights.
Featured: Poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, essayists Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and Walter Pater, and prose fiction of Charles Dickens, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, George -
Period: to
The Edwardian
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 classic novelists such as Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Rudyard Kipling, 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. -
Period: to
The Georgian
It refers to the reign of Jorge.
Georgian poets stand out, such as Ralph Hodgson, John Masefield, W.H. Davies and Rupert Brooke.
Georgian poetry today is typically considered the works of minor poets anthologized by Edward Marsh. Themes and themes tend to be rural or pastoral in nature, treated delicately and traditionally rather than passionately or experimentally. -
Period: to
The Modern
The modern period begins with works written after the start of the First World War.
Characterized by bold experimentation with theme, style, and form, encompassing narrative, verse, and drama.
Some of the most notable writings of this period are: the novelists James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, and Doris Lessing; the poets W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Auden, Seamus Heaney; and playwrights Tom Stoppard, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Frank McGuinness. -
Period: to
The Postmodern
Starts at the time World War II ended.
• Post-structuralist literary theory and criticism developed during this time. Some notable writers of the time include Samuel Beckett, Joseph Heller, Anthony Burgess, John Fowles, Penelope M. Lively, and Iain Banks. Many postmodern authors also wrote during the modern period -
REFERENCES
Burgess, A. (2020). A Brief Overview of British Literary Periods. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/british-literary-periods-739034
Muñoz, M. (2018). History of English Literature. [Video File]. Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia. https://repository.unad.edu.co/handle/10596/20315