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400
OLD ENGLISH (ANGLO-SAXON) PERIOD
From 450 to 1066
This period began after Rome Empire fell and barbarian moved into Europe.
From this period we have Early Old English poems such as Beowulf, The Wanderer, and The Seafarer. Also the Carolingian Renaissance (800- 850 CE) emerged in Europe. In central Europe, texts include early medieval grammars, encyclopedias, etc. -
1066
MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
1066-1500 This period began after Norman French armies invaded and conquered England under William I. From this period we can find French chivalric romances by Chretien de Troyes and French fables by Marie de France and Jeun de Meun. Also Abelard and other humanists produced great scholastic and theological works. -
1500
ENGLISH RENAISSANCE PERIOD
This period took place in 1500-1660 and we can see three main periods:
Elizabethan Period (1558-1603) was marked by the early works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, and Sidney.
Jacobean Period (1603-1625) We can find Shakespeare's later work: Aemilia Lanyer, Ben Jonson, and John Donne
Caroline Age (1625-1649) We can find writers like John Milton, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, the "Sons of Ben" and others. -
PURITAN PERIOD
1653-1660
This period occured under Cromwell's Puritan dictatorship and there were writers likeJohn Milton, Andrew Marvell and Sir Thomas Browne. -
RESTORATION PERIOD
1660-1700
During this period the British kings recovered the throne after Puritan domination in England. At that time there were influences of French and Classical poetry and drama. Some writers include John Dryden, John Locke, Sir William Temple, and Samuel Pepys. Aphra Behn in England. And in other countries there were writers like Jean Racine and Molière. -
XVIII CENTURY PERIOD (1700-1798)
This period had two important parts:
The Augustan Age: Marked by imitation of Virgil and Horace's literature in English letters. Main writers were Addison, Steele, Swift, and Alexander Pope.
The Age of Johnson: Dr.Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Edward Gibbon represent Neoclassical tendencies, while writers Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, Cowper, Crabbe leave Neoclassical ideal. In America, this period is called the Colonial Period with writers like Ben Franklin, ThomasJefferson and Thomas Paine. -
ROMANTICISM (1798-1837)
During this period romantic poets wrote about nature, imagination, and individuality in England. Some romantic writers were Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley in Britain and Johann von Goethe in Germany. Jane Austen also wrote at this time. In America, there was the Transcendental Period from 1830-1850. Transcendentalists include Emerson and Thoreau. -
VICTORIAN PERIOD (1837-1901)
Queen Victoria reigned during this period and we can find sentimental novel writers like Elizabeth Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Brontë sisters. Pre-Raphaelites: the Rossetti siblings and William Morris.
The end of this period is marked by movements of Aestheticism and "the Decadence" from Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. In America there were naturalist writers like Stephen Crane and free verse poets like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson. -
MODERN LITERATURE PERIOD (1901-1940)
During this period there were modernist writers like W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, Wilfred Owen. In America: Robert Frost, Flannery O'Connor, and the writers of The Jazz Age like Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Faulkner.
The Harlem Renaissance marks the rise of black writers like Baldwin and Ellison. Realism was a fashion, but the the World Wars problems led to new styles. -
POST MODERNS PERIOD (1940-2000)
This was a period of metafiction and multiculturalism with writers like
T. S. Eliot, Morrison, Shaw, Beckett, Stoppard, Fowles, Calvino, Ginsberg, Pynchon, and others. Multiculturalism allowed non-Caucasian writers like Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisneros, and Zora Neal Hurston. Surrealistic writings became famous with Gabriel García Márquez, Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Günter Grass, and Salman Rushdie. -
CONTEMPORARY PERIOD (2000-2020)
This period is marked with science fiction and contemporary issues such as global warming and international conflicts.
Some important writers are David Mitchell, Heaney, Michel Fabers, and McEwan. -
REFERENCES
Mississippi College (2019) English Literature: Literary Periods & Genres. Retrieved from://mc.libguides.com/eng/literaryperiods Muñoz, M. (2018). History of English Literature. [Video File]. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10596/20315 Pallardy R.(2019) The 21st Century Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Eric-Linklater
