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The Old English period (Anglo-Saxon period): language from the middle of the 5th to the beginning of the 12th century.
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Middle English: diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and the 1480s.
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Canterbury Tales
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Utopia (1516)
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This period is often subdivided into four parts, including the Elizabethan Age (1558–1603), the Jacobean Age (1603–1625), the Caroline Age (1625–1649), and the Commonwealth Period (1649–1660).
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The Faerie Queene (1590-1596)
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Doctor Faustus (1604)
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Henry VI, Richard III, Hamlet, Sonnets, The Tempest (1592-1611)
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The Neoclassical period is subdivided into ages, including The Restoration (1660–1700), The Augustan Age (1700–1745), and The Age of Sensibility (1745–1785).
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Gulliver's Travels (1726)
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Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of Experience (1794)
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Lyrical Ballads (1798)
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Lyrical Ballads (1798)
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Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813)
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The beginning date for the Romantic period is often debated. Some claim it is 1785, immediately following the Age of Sensibility. Others say it began in 1789 with the start of the French Revolution, and still others believe that 1798, the publication year for William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s book Lyrical Ballads is its true beginning.
The time period ends with the passage of the Reform Bill (which signaled the Victorian Era) and with the death of Sir Walter Scott. -
She Walks in Beauty (1814), When We Two Parted (1817)
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Queen Mab (1813)
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Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819), Ode to a Nightingale (1819)
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The Scarlet Letter (1850)
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The Black Cat (1834), The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)
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Vanity Fair (1848)
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Oliver Twist (1837), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1849), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860)
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Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), Jayne Eyre (1847)
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Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), Wuthering Heights (1847)
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The Mill on the Floss (1860)
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Leaves of Grass (1855)
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Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1847), Agnes Grey (1847)
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This period is named for the reign of Queen Victoria, who ascended to the throne in 1837, and it lasts until her death in 1901. It was a time of great social, religious, intellectual, and economic issues, heralded by the passage of the Reform Bill, which expanded voting rights. The period has often been divided into “Early” (1832–1848), “Mid” (1848–1870) and “Late” (1870–1901) periods or into two phases, that of the Pre-Raphaelites (1848–1860) and that of Aestheticism and Decadence (1880–1901).
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Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
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The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), The Importance of Being Earnest (1899)
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Pygmalion (1912)
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Heart of Darkness (1899)
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The Jungle Book (1894)
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The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889)
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The War of Worlds (1898)
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The Red Badge of Honour (1895)
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Dubliners (1914), Ulysses (1921)
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A Room of One's Own (1929)
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Brave New World (1932)
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The Sound and the Fury (1929)
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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.
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Waiting for Godot (1949)
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The Georgian period usually refers to the reign of George V (1910–1936).
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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. Yeats’ words, “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold,” are often referred to when describing the core tenet or “feeling” of modernist concerns.
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The grass is singing (1950), The golden notebook (1062)
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Howl (1956)
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The postmodern period begins about the time that World War II ended. Many believe it is a direct response to modernism. Some say the period ended about 1990, but it is likely too soon to declare this period closed.
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Discworld (1983)
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Harry Potter (1997-2007)