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This period comprehends from the invasion of the Anglo-saxon tribes to the celtic England around 450 AC to 1066 when Norman France conquered england. The first part of this perion had mostly oral literature, and the prose of this time was mostly translations of legal, medical or otherwise religious nature. Important Authors and Works:
(731) The Venerable Bede - History of the English Church and People
(975 - 1025) Beowulf - First great work of Germanic Literature
(959) The material of Eddas -
Within this time frame the culture, the lifestyle and the language suffer great changes that result in what we know today as "moder english". Most of the works of this time frame are still religious in nature, however, from about 1350 onward, secular literature began to rise.
Important Autors and Works
(1367) Piers Plowman - Will
(1387) Chaucer starts the 100 Canterbury Tales
(1469) Morte d'Arthur - Thomas Malory -
This time period also called the "early modern" period consists of 4 parts.
Important Author:
(1510) Erasmus and Thomas Moore -
This time period was the golden age of the English Drama, poetry and a wide variety of prose. It comprehends works written during the reign of Elizabeth I of England.
Important Authors :
- Christopher Marlowe
- Francis Bacon
- Edmund Spenser
- Sir Walter Raleigh
- William Shakespeare -
It is defined by the reign of King James I of Scotland and includes some of the greatest poetry, drama, and essays produced in the English language.
Important Autors and Work:
-John Donne
- William Shakespeare
-Michael Drayton
-John Webster
-Elizabeth Cary
- Ben Jonson
- Lady Mary Wroth -
It covers the reign of Charles I, derived from Carolus, the Latin for Charles. This era was dominated by growing religious, political, and social discord between the King and his supporters.
Important Authors:
- John Milton
- Robert Burton
- George Herbert -
This is the time when Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan, led Parliament, ruled the nation, and to prevent civil uprises the theaters were closes for almost two decades. Important Authors:
- John Milton
- Thomas Hobbes
-Thomas Fuller
- Abraham Cowley
- Andrew Marvell -
This time frame sees some response to the puritanical age, especially in the theater, here the comedies and satires were developed and became quite popular.
Important Authors:
- John Milton- Paradise Lost (1667)
- William Congreve
- John Dryden
- Samuel Butler
- Aphra Behn
- John Bunyan
- John Locke. -
This period is divides in 3 ages. Writers of the Neoclassical period tried to imitate the style of the Romans and Greeks
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On this time perion the poetry was flourishing, the journalism was rising and the fictional writtings became quite popular. Important Authors:
- Alexander Pope - Essay on Man (1734)
- Jonathan Swift - The Gulliver's travels (1726)
- Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722)
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu -
Ssometimes referred to as the Age of Johnson, the comedies continue being popular, however there is a rise of ballads and sentimental poetry, and the novel of sensibility started to appear.
Important Authors and Works:
- Samuel Johnson -The Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
- Edmund Burke
- Edward Gibbon
- Hester Lynch Thrale
- James Boswell
- Henry Fielding
- Samuel Richardson
- Tobias Smollett
- Laurence Sterne
- William Cowper
.Thomas Percy. -
This period the emphasis shifted to the importance of the individual's experience in the world and one's subjective interpretation of that experience, rather the church or tradition. Important Authors and Works:
- William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Lyrical Ballads (1798)
- Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
- Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (1813)
- Oliver Wendell Holmes - The Last Leaf (1831)
- Mary Shelley
- William Blake
- Lord Byron -
This period is named for the reign of Queen Victoria, it was a time of great social, religious, intellectual, and economic issues, heralded by the passage of the Reform Bill, which expanded voting rights.
Important Authors and Works:
- Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol (1843)
- H.G. Wells - The Time Machine (1895)
- Frank Baum - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
- Charlotte and Emily Bronte
- Samuel Butler
- Charlotte and Emily Bronte
-Thomas Hardy -
Named for King Edward VII and covers the period between Victoria’s death and the outbreak of World War I.
Important Authors and Works:
- Beatrix Potter - Tale of Peter Rabbit (1901)
- Lucy Maud Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables (1908)
- H.G. Wells - The History of Mr Polly (1910)
- Joseph Conrad
- Ford Madox Ford
- Rudyard Kipling
- Alfred Noyes
- William Butler Yeats
- James Barrie
- George Bernard Shaw
- John Galsworthy -
The themes and subject matter tended to be rural or pastoral in nature, treated delicately and traditionally rather than with passion or with experimentation.
Important Authors and Works:
- Rupert Brooke - 1914 and Other Poems (1915)
- Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway (1925)
- Frank Harris - My Life and Loves (1928)
- Ralph Hodgson
- John Masefield
- W.H. Davies
- Edward Marshall -
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.
Important Authors and Works:
- Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind (1936)
- Ernest Hemingway - For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940)
- George Orwell - The Farm (1945)
- Virginia Woolf
- Joseph Conrad
- Graham Greene
-W.B. Yeats
- T.S. Eliot
- William Empson -
The postmodern period begins about the time that World War II ended. Many believe it is a direct response to modernism. Poststructuralist literary theory and criticism developed during this time.
Important Authors and Works:
- C.S. Lewis - Chronicles of Narnia: The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
- Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979)
- J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter And the Philosopher Stone (1997)
- Samuel Beckett
- Joseph Heller
- Anthony Burgess -
The term “contemporary literature” refers to written works that were created after World War II. Prior to this, was the modernist period.
Important Authors and Works:
- Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games (2010)
-J.K. Rowlings - Comoran Strike (2013)
