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439
Old English (439 - 1066)
•Anglo- Saxons: were Germanic tribes and settlers that were a mixture of people from north Germany, Denmark, and northern Holland. Most were Saxons, Angles, and Jutes.
•Characteristics of the Anglo-Saxons: They were a Germanic warrior society that emphasized bravery, honor, and glory.
•Contributions: Religion (believed in Pagan Gods), language (Old English), literature (poetry)
•Authors: Beowulf, and those by period poets Caedmon and Cynewulf. -
1066
Middle English Period (1066 - 1500)
•The Norman Conquest, the end of Anglo Saxon period.
•William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold, King of England
•1066The Battle of Hastings.
•William landed in England at Pevensey, on Britain’s southeast coast, with approximately 7,000 troops and cavalry.
•Norman French was the prestige language, English the language of everyday folk.
•Significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. -
1500
The Renaissance (1500 - 1660)
•Cultivation of human potential through proper education; focus on individual consciousness and the Interior mind.
•Concern with the refinement of the language and the development of national.
•it was subdivided into four parts: Elizabethan (1558–1603), Jacobean Age (1603–1625), Caroline Age (1625–1649), the Commonwealth Period (1649–1660).
•Noted authors: Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare - Marlowe: - The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus -Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet -
The neoclassical (1600 - 1785)
•The literature of the 17th century divided into two sub period: Jacobean P. ( JAMES 1st 1603- 1625) and Caroline P.( Charles 1st 1625- 1649)
•A clash between Catholics and Protestants.
•Extreme fundamentalism
•Rebellion began during the age of Charles I
•Civil war between Charles I and Puritans for 7 years
•Authors: John Milton, The first literary epic poet, mathematics and music
•Works: Paradise Lost, Paradise regained, Comus, On Blindness, lycidas -
The Romantic Period (1785 -1832)
•Inaugurated with the publication of the Lyrical Ballads(1798)
•English Romanticism came from Germany, give importance to subjectivity, love for external nature the influence of French literature Important
•Writers and works: William Wordsworth:-The Prelude, The Excursion. Samuel Taylor Coleridge:-Biographia Literaria, Kubla Khan, Lord Byron:-Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, House of Idleness Cain, John Keats:-Isabella, Hyperion, Lamia, an ode to Nightingale, Jane Austen:-Pride and Prejudice, Emma. -
The Victorian Period (1837 - 1901)
•This was the great age of the English novel—realistic, thickly plotted.
•It was the ideal form to describe contemporary life and to entertain the middle class, literature was mainly written in English, during the reign of Queen Victoria.
•The population and the cities grew, producing a noteworthy change in people’s lives.
•Authors: Emily, Anne and Charlotte Bronte, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Lord Tennyson, Lewis Carroll. -
The Edwardian Period: (1901 - 1914)
•The short reign of Edward VII, the outbreak of World War I
•Economic and social changes create mobility. Rising interest in socialism. Common laborers and women become politicized.
•Authors and works: Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, and Henry James (who was born in America but spent most of his writing career in England); notable poets such as Alfred Noyes and William Butler Yeats; and dramatists such as James Barrie, George Bernard Shaw, and John Galsworthy. -
The Georgian Period (1910 - 1936)
•Period refers to the period that is named for the reign of George V
•This era also produced a group of poets known as the Georgian poets.
• Georgian poetry today is typically considered to be the works of minor poets anthologized by Edward Marsh
•Writers and works: George Bernard Shaw and H.G.Wells attacked social injustice and the selfishness of the upper classes. William Butler Yeats, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard. -
Modern Literature (1914- 1950)
•The period saw an abrupt break away from the old ways of interacting with the world.
•First World War made to react about values and appeared new literary genres (poetry, free verse, epiphanies begin to appear in literature, speeches, memoir, and, novels)
•Modernists were concerned with the uncertainty and complexity of the postwar world.
•Notable writers: the novelists James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Dorothy Richardson, Graham Greene, E.M. -
Post moderns (1945-2000)
•Postmodernism is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues.
•Characterized by reliance on narrative techniques such as fragmentation, paradox.
•Postmodernism shares many of the features of Modernism. Both schools reject the rigid boundaries between high and low art.
•Significant works until the 1980s, including Waiting for Godot (1953),Happy Days (1961). -
Contemporary to presnt
•It is defined as literature written after World War II.
•contemporary period not only refers to a quality/style of writing but also to poetry and prose, which includes works of fiction such as novels, novellas, essays, and dramatic works.
• It has been used to discuss socio-politico, economic, and religious topics. Besides, the World Wide Web.
• Author: Suzanne Collins: She wrote Little Bear (children's TV show) Clarissa Explains It All, as well as Gregor the Overlander (2003).
