Periods of English Literature
Periods of English Literature.
For convenience of discussion, historians divide the continuity of English literature into segments of time that are called "periods." The exact number, dates, and names of these periods vary,but the list below conforms to widespread practice. The list is followed by a brief comment on each period, in chronological order.
450-1066 Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period
1066-1500 Middle English Period
1500-1660 The Renaissance (or Early Modern) 1558-1603 Elizabethan Age 1603-1625 Jacobean Age 1625-1649 Caroline Age 1649-1660 Commonwealth Period (or Puritan Interregnum)
1660-1785 The Neoclassical Period 1660-1700 The Restoration 1700-1745 The Augustan Age (or Age of Pope) 1745-1785 The Age of Sensibility (or Age of Johnson)
1785-1830 The Romantic Period
1832-1901 The Victorian Period
1848-1860 The Pre-Raphaelites
1880-1901 Aestheticism and Decadence
1901-1914 The Edwardian Period
1910-1936 The Georgian Period 1914- The Modern Period
1945- Postmodernism
The Old English Period, or the Anglo-Saxon Period, extended from the invasion of Celtic England by Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) in the first half of the fifth century to the conquest of England in 1066 by the
Norman French under the leadership of William the Conqueror. Only after they had been converted to Christianity in the seventh century did the
Anglo-Saxons, whose earlier literature had been oral, begin to develop a written literature. (See oral formulaic poetry.) A high level of culture and learning was soon achieved in various monasteries; the eighth-century churchmen
Bede and Alcuin were major scholars who wrote in Latin, the standard language of international scholarship. The poetry written in the vernacular
Anglo-Saxon, known also as Old English, included Beowulf (eighth century), the greatest of Germanic epic poems, and such lyric laments as "The Wanderer,"
"The Seafarer," and "Deor," all of which,
For convenience of discussion, historians divide the continuity of English literature into segments of time that are called "periods." The exact number, dates, and names of these periods vary,but the list below conforms to widespread practice. The list is followed by a brief comment on each period, in chronological order.
450-1066 Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period
1066-1500 Middle English Period
1500-1660 The Renaissance (or Early Modern) 1558-1603 Elizabethan Age 1603-1625 Jacobean Age 1625-1649 Caroline Age 1649-1660 Commonwealth Period (or Puritan Interregnum)
1660-1785 The Neoclassical Period 1660-1700 The Restoration 1700-1745 The Augustan Age (or Age of Pope) 1745-1785 The Age of Sensibility (or Age of Johnson)
1785-1830 The Romantic Period
1832-1901 The Victorian Period
1848-1860 The Pre-Raphaelites
1880-1901 Aestheticism and Decadence
1901-1914 The Edwardian Period
1910-1936 The Georgian Period 1914- The Modern Period
1945- Postmodernism
The Old English Period, or the Anglo-Saxon Period, extended from the invasion of Celtic England by Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) in the first half of the fifth century to the conquest of England in 1066 by the
Norman French under the leadership of William the Conqueror. Only after they had been converted to Christianity in the seventh century did the
Anglo-Saxons, whose earlier literature had been oral, begin to develop a written literature. (See oral formulaic poetry.) A high level of culture and learning was soon achieved in various monasteries; the eighth-century churchmen
Bede and Alcuin were major scholars who wrote in Latin, the standard language of international scholarship. The poetry written in the vernacular
Anglo-Saxon, known also as Old English, included Beowulf (eighth century), the greatest of Germanic epic poems, and such lyric laments as "The Wanderer,"
"The Seafarer," and "Deor," all of which,