-
It dates back to the invasion of Cela England around the year 450. The Era ended in 1066 when Norman France under the command of William conquered England. Half of this period featured oral literature. The prose during this time was translated from something else.
-
The era extends from 1066 to around 1500. It is a difficult period to identify because it is a time of transition between two epochs that have a more solid definition: Old English and Modern English. This period is home to characters like Chaucer , Thomas Malory and Robert Henryson.
Notable works include "Piers Plowman" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". -
The ideals of courtly love reached England and authors began to write romances, both in verse and prose. Themes related to King Arthur and his court were especially popular. The first great English author, Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), wrote in medieval English. His most famous work is the Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories in disparate genres told by a group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury.
-
English Renaissance is the term used to describe the artistic and cultural movement that existed in England from the 16th century to the mid-17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance (according to the thoughts of some historians) which originated in Italy in the 14th century. This era of English cultural history is also known as “The Shakespearean Age” or “The Elizabethan Age”, referring to the most important author and monarch of the time.
-
Set of works written during the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558–1603), probably the most splendid era in the history of English literature, during which writers such as Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Roger Ascham, Richard Hooker, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. The Elizabethan epithet is merely a chronological reference and does not describe any special features of the script.
-
The poet and playwright Ben Jonson led Jacobean literature after Shakespeare's death. Several authors followed his style, such as Beaumont and Fletcher, all of whom were called "sons of Ben." Another popular style of the time was revenge theater made popular by John Webster and Tomas Kyd. He was often in a somber mood, questioning the stability of the social order.
-
The most powerful public figures at the time were King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. It is the time of the Commonwealth (1649-1660), the Protectorate (1654-1658) and the Civil War (1642-1688). Thus, in this turbulent time, political and pamphleteering literature was born. Notable authors such as Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) John Milton and Andrew Marvell. Newspapers are also born, Henry Muddiman, John Birkenhead and Marchamont Needham stand out as period journalists.
-
In this period people took stock of what had been acquired. People classified, analyzed and systematized many things that had no importance before. The use of the English language as a medium for instruction and for storing data and transmitting facts began.
-
Some literary historians speak of the period as delimited by the reign of Charles II (1660-1685), others prefer to include within its scope the writings produced during the reign of James II (1685-1688). Much of the best poetry, especially by John Dryden (the great literary figure of his day), the Earl of Rochester, Samuel Butler, and John Oldham, was satirical and led to the later achievements of Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, and John Gay in the age of Augustus.
-
Style that corresponds to the reigns of Queen Anne, King George I, and George II. The critics refer to the literature developed between 1700 and 1789. The time when the novel was developed, the evolution of theater from political satire to melodrama, and an evolution towards poetry of personal exploration. In the middle of the 18th century the novel was established by authors such as Henry Fielding, Laurence Stern and Samuel Richardson; Fielding and Stern moved closer to the comic genre.
-
The reaction towards industrialization and urbanism pushed poets to explore nature, like the group of "The poets of the lake" in which we include William Wordsworth. These romantic poets brought to English literature a new degree of sentimentality and introspection. Among the most important authors of the second generation of romantic poets we find Lord Byron, Percy Bysse Shelley and John Keats.
-
It is characterized by the "democratization" of literature. It is the rise of other literary forms such as newspapers, magazines and the novel becomes the narrative work par excellence.
-
The novel was the most important literary form. Among the best-known works of this period we highlight: the works of strong emotional content by the Brontë sisters; William Makepeace Thackery's satire Vanity Fair; George Eliot's realistic novel; and Anthony Trollope's insightful portraits of landed life and the professional class. Charles Dickens came on the scene in 1830 under the trend of serial publication.
-
The universal exhibitions begin and it is a period in which the current of positivism has great influence. It is the golden age in which Victorian values and appearances in society. There will be a schism in faith since Charles Darwin introduces doubt with the theory of the evolution of species. Finally it is the golden age in the mannerist, domestic novel and psychological realism develops with George Eliot and Henry James.
-
Skepticism spreads over the decadence of Victorian principles. A very broad theme is the double standards and hypocrisy that occurred in high society, so there is also a critical movement towards past writers, towards the excess of subjectivity of romantic poets. The main movements within Victorian literature are: Pre-Raphaelism, decadence, aestheticism, realism and naturalism.
-
It is a period in which writers rebelled against nineteenth-century literary norms that had mostly a clear narrative story. They used new storytelling techniques such as free verse, multiple points of view, and the "stream of consciousness" as in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. The forerunners are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman; other Poets are: Wilfred Owen, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Mina Loy.
-
Due to the great influence of the Internet and social networks, short stories, micro-stories and literature capsules are increasingly popular. One of the best-known and best-selling English authors is Ken Follett and his The Century Trilogy (The Fall of the Giants -2010, The Winter of the World -2012, The Threshold of Eternity -2014). In the literature of the 21st century, gender and sexual identity, issues related to the LGBTQIA+ community and the feminist movement also stand out.
-
Contemporary literature is a vast group of written works produced from a specific time in history to the present day. Some see this period as an extension of postmodern literature, but most refer to it as a literary era of its own.