History of English Literature

Ancient Age

Period: 4000 BCE to 476

Began around at 4000 b.c and finished with fall down of Roman Empire

Anglo-Saxon Period

450

Into this period we find that the first people that practice an old english was the Saxons and the Anglos, with text very marked for the war between kingdoms, the military and the bravery.

• Literary Features:
  The prose was acroos to translation of medical, legal religious texts.
  The dialects were Northumbrian, Kentish, West Saxon and Mercian.
• Main Works:
  The Beowulf Poem.
  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
  The Caedmon's Hymn Poem.
• Main Authors:
  Caedmon.
  Beda.
  Alfredo el Grande.
  Cynewulf.

Middle Age

Period: 476 to 1492

Since fall down of Roman Empire to America's Discovery

Middle English Period

1066

This huge period was influenced by the church, so this was established like spiritual adviser and like school, and the people of this stage believed in all that the religion imposed.

• Literary Features:
  In this period with the norman invasion to England the monarchy and the upper class used the french idiom, and the English was for the poors and the lower class.
• Main Texts:
  Piers Plowman.
  Sir Gawain and the Green Knigth.
• Main Authors:
  Chaucer.
  Thomas Malory.
  Robert Henryson.

Modern Age

Period: 1492 to 1789

Since America's Discovery to French Revolution

Elizabethan Age (The Early Renaissance)

1558

During this period the british people living in peace and start the renaissance, so finally the end of dark middle age had come. And now the peace and the tolerance thrive.

• Literary Features
  Elizabethan literature is considered as one of more splendid of english literature.
  Into this period born the sonet, the spenserian stanza and the withe verse into poetry.
• Main Texts:
  Euphues, the anatomy of wit
  Euphues and his England
• Main Authors:
  Edmund Spenser.
  John Lyly.
  Shakespeare

The Jacobean Age (The Middle Renaissance)

1603

This stage of renaissance began at finished elizabethan age, when James VI from Scotia got the Englad crown and he was named James I. This fact caused the unification of Scotia and Englad.

• Literary Features:
  One important literary fact in this period was the translation of Iliada and Odisea to English Idiom by George Chapman.
• Main Texts:
  Macbeth
  King Lear
  The tempest
• Main Authors:
  W. Shakespeare.
  John Webster.
  Thomas Middleton.
  John Ford.
  Ben Jonson.

The Caroline Age (The Middle Renaissance)

1625

This was the period of king Carlos I, during which began again the social, political and religious discord between the king and the parliament. Also happened the colonization of North America with the founding of Carolina, Maryland , Connecticut y Rhode Island.
- Literary Features:
The cavalry poetry was the topic of trend by then and we found that the literature is around it.
- Main Texts:
Ask me no More.
To Althea From Prision.
- Main Authors:
Thomas Carew.
Richard Lovelace.
John Suckling.

The Commonwealth Period (The Late Renaissance)

1649

A short period during which England was Declared like commonwealth, withouth monarchy and under the command of Oliver Crownwell with the title of Lord Protector, Then of decapitation of king Carlos I.
- Literary Features:
During this period born the political literature across to texts which talk us about the civil war and the possible ways of organize the monarchy.
- Main Texts:
Leviathan.
Areopagitica.
- Main Authors:
Thomas Hobbes.
Jhon Milton.
Thomas Browne.

The Restoration (Neoclasical Period)

1660

This period happened with the comeback of the son of Carlos I, Carlos II to Englad Crown and again the monarchy was the model of goverment into Englad.
- Literary Features:
The king Carlos II was a cheerful man and woke up again the artistic spirit of people from Englad and with this the literature continued growing.
Here born the restoration comedy.
- Main Texts:
The paradise lost.
Sodoma.
The Pilgrim's Progress
- Main Authors:
John Milton
John Wilmot
John Bunyan

The Augustan Age (Neoclasical Period)

1700

Is named the augustan age to the reigns of Queen Ana and the Kings Jorge I and Jorge II during the first half of XVIII century to 1745 decade with the dead of Alexander pope and Jonathan Swift.
- Literary Features:
During this stage was developed the novel and the philosophy, but the main literary movement was the satire and the politic satire.
- Main Texts:
A Dictionary of the English Language
Guilliver's Travels
- Main Authors:
Jhonathan Swift
Alexander Pope
Samuel Johnson

The Age of Sensibility (Neoclasical Period)

1745

This period Began with the last Battle Betwen Scotia and England caused for the rebellion Jacobite under the command of Carlos Eduardo Estuardo who wanted conquer the Englad Crown but lost the battle.
- Literary Features:
In this period happened a transition of emotions and interest of Englad society, who now were worried for their lifes and personal development all this was caused for the literature.
- Main Texts:
Vanity of Human Wishes
London
taxaxion no tiranny
- Main Authors:
Dr. Johnson

The Romantic Period

1785

This was a literary, intellectual, artistic and musical movement, and was the first period which wasn't just into Englad, now the English literature have many perspectives and many references with topics as the individualism, the nature, the sciencia and the industrialization.

• Main Texts:
  The rim of the Ancient Mariner
  Song of Innocence and Experience
  She walks in Beauty
• Main Authors:
  Coleridge
  William Blake
  Lord Byron

Contemporary Age

Period: 1789 to 2022

Since French Revolution to Present

The Victorian Period

1832

This was a period of English Literature during the reign of Victoria Queen. For this moment the people now leave second flat the romanticism and the love and the relevance is for the realism and the education, furthermore in this stage the women writer began to express to society across literature.

• Main Texts:
  Christma's Tales
  The Goblin Market
  Tennyson Poems
• Main Authors:
  Charles Dickens
  Christina Rossetti
  Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Edwardian Period

1901

This period was during the reign of Eduardo VII, son of Victoria Queen, This stage is marked by the elegance and luxury between the rich and monarchy of this time. If we talk about literature, in this stage the readers building fiction novels works where was evident the symbolism and moral losseness.

• Texts: Peter Pan Ana of the Five Towns Orthodoxy
• Writters: Jm Barrie Arnold Bennett GK Chesterton

The Modern Period

1910

Fot this age, the literature was aimed to philosophical questions such as espiricism, formality, relativism, psychoanalysis and irrationalism. and the main texts was marked by the study and the individual development of the people.
- Main Texts:
The Waste Land
Ulises

• Main Authors: T. S. Eliot James Joyce

The Post-Modernisnm

1950

Into Post - Modernism we find literary topics such as magic poetry, metafiction, multiculturalism, self - flexibility, political issues and history. So now the people find a social building, ontological questions and truth and knowledge.
- Main Texts:
Narnia and the Lion
i Know why the Caged Birds Sing
Harry Potter an the P's Stone

• Main Authors: C. S. Lewis Maya Angelou J. K. Rowling

The Contemporary Period

2000

For the 2000s the society acroos many problems that racism, family problems and the search a goodness in humanity, and obviously the literature of our age is focus on these topics. a society where all want his/her space and we need live together no matter the diferences.

• Texts:
  The hunger Games
  Cormoran Strike
• Authors:
  Suzanne Collins
  J. K. Rowling