Periods of English Literature

Periods of English Literature
By Deastika Bayuning Sudjasmara (0807338)

Based on Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary, literature is written artistic works, especially those with a high and lasting artistic value.

Moreover, Periods of time English literature refers to literature composed in English language, even if the writers are not from England. There are varieties of author of English literature.

The first period of English literature is Old English Period or the Anglo-Saxon Period (450-1066). During the Old English Period, written literature began from oral tradition and most literary works were written to be performed. One of the most well-known Old English pieces of literature is Beowulf. Beowulf is a great Germanic epic poem.

After Old English Period, came The Middle English Period (1066-1500). One of the most well-known Middle English pieces of literature is Geoffrey Chaucer. He was also one of people who produced the first great age of secular literature, beside the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur. During Middle English Period, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, the Pearl Poet wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, William Langland wrote Piers Plowman, and many morality plays and miracle plays were produced.

After that, came The English Renaissance or The Early New English Period (1500-1660). The English Literary Renaissance are began with English humanists, such as Sir Thomas More and Sir Thomas Wyatt. Then, continued by Elizabethan Period (1558-1603). During the Elizabethan Period, lyric poetry, prose, and drama were the styles of literature that flowered. Some writers of the Elizabethan Period are William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Ben Jonson.

After Elizabethan Period, came The Jacobean Period (1603-1625). William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson wrote during the Jacobean Period, as well as John Donne, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Middleton. Then, The Caroline Period (1625-1649) came. John Ford was one of writers during The Caroline Period of English Literature. After The Caroline Period, came The Commonwealth Period or also known as the Puritan Interregnum (1649-1660). This period produced the political writings of John Milton, Thomas Hobbes' political treatise Leviathan, and the prose of Andrew Marvell.

Next period is The Neoclassical Period (1660-1785). The Neoclassical Period can be divided into three subsets, they are the Restoration (1660-1700), the Augustan Age (1700-1745), and the Age of Sensibility (1745-1785). During the Restoration, John Milton published Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Other writers of the period are John Dryden, John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester, and John Locke, whereas well-known writers of the Augustan Age are Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Daniel Defoe. Moreover, in Age of Sensibility, the writers are Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. This period produced some of the greatest novels of the English language, including Clarissa by Richardson (1748) and Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749).

After The Neoclassical Period, came The Romantic Period of English literature (1785-1830). The writers of The Romantic Period are Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Jane Austen, and Lord Byron. Next is The Victorian Period (1832-1901). The writers of The Victorian Period are Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her husband Robert, Matthew Arnold, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. Then, continued by The Edwardian Period (1901-1914). The writers of The Edwardian Period are H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, and E.M. Forster. After that, came The Georgian Period (1910-1936). Many writers of the Edwardian Period continued to write during the Georgian Period. One of writers of this period is Edward Marsh. He published Georgian Poetry.

The next period is The Modern Period (1914-1945). The poets of the period are Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and Seamus Heaney, and novelists are James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf. Dramatists include Noel Coward and Samuel Beckett.
Moreover, Following World War II, the Postmodern Period of English Literature (1945-present) was developed. Some of writers of the period are Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing, John Fowles, Don DeLillo, A.S. Byatt.



References:
Klarer, Mario.1998.An Introducing to Literary Studies.London:Routledge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_literature
http://englisharticles.info/free-reading-articles/literature/literary-periods-of-english-liter.html
http://home.comcast.net/~stephen.gottlieb/romantic/periods.html