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Period: 450 to 1066
The Old English Period
Also Anglo-Saxon Literature.
Genres included are: Epic Poetry, Hagiography, Sermons, Bible translations, Chronicles and Riddles. -
Period: 1066 to 1500
The Middle English Period
The Anglo-Saxon language became less popular. Many dialects were used to write their literature, according to the region and culture. Religious works were still popular.
The first English Language work of historiography presented was the Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
More literary genres appeared, as the Romance and the Medieval Thater and Plays. -
Period: 1500 to
The English Renaissance Period
With cultural and artistic movements, this period includes semi-periods as follows:
The Elizabethan period from 1558-1603. Poetry and Drama take place and William Shakespeare repreesnts this period with plays including genres such as history, tragedy, comedy and romance.
The Jacobean period from 1603-1625. Ben Jonson was the most important literary figure of this Jacobean era. Besides the drama and the poetry, the prose was also included.
Others were the Caroline and Puritan period, 1625-1660. -
Period: to
The Restoration Age.
In this era the king Charles II restored the Monarchy and genres like the poetry, the prose and the drama were still the most important ones. The beginning of novels was in this era and the long fiction and fictional biographies began to distinguish themselves among other forms during this period. -
Period: to
The 18th Century Period
this period is divided in 2, the Augustan literature from 1700-1750 and the age of sensibility from 1750-1798.
Here, poetry, drama and prose, including the novels were present, and in the age of sensibility the romantic genres were born before the 19th century, during this 18th century period of English Literature. -
Period: to
The Romanticism Period
During this period we can find romantic poetry and romantic novels. During this period it was evidenced one of the major social changes in England and Wales, due to the changes with the industrial cities growing more than the countryside. -
Period: to
The Victorian Period
During the voctorian period, the novel bacame the leader literary genre in English. Also, during this era, women played an important role since the numbers increased in both as writers and as readers. The romantic American novel went from the Romanticism to the Realism and the genre of literature for children was developed. -
Period: to
The 20th Century Period
This is the type of literature called the Modern Literature, and so the Modernism took place and from 1901 to 1922 it intended to gain popularity and become important, and it continued to the 1930s being the working-class included in the creation of literature. -
Period: to
The Postmodernism Period
In this period ideas from the modernism period were taken and together with new ideas, the postmodernism took place with the novels, drama and poetry still as the most important literary figures. -
Period: to
The Contemporary Period
Although experts are not certain about the characteristics of the contemporary literature, there are only interpretations in which they say it is the works done after 1940, and also it reflects about the social and politic view points in society, and current events. This literature is more about real life things.