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Culture Documents
Literary Periods
Literary Periods
Literature
Periods
Early
Periods
of
Literature
These
periods
are
spans
of
time
in
which
literature
shared
intellectual,
linguistic,
religious,
and
artistic
influences.
In
the
Western
tradition,
the
early
periods
of
literary
history
are
roughly
as
follows
below:
A.
THE
CLASSICAL
PERIOD
(1200
BCE
-
455
CE)
1. HOMERIC or HEROIC PERIOD (1200-800 BCE) Greek legends are passed along orally, including Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. This is a chaotic period of warrior-prince wandering sea-traders, and fierce pirates. 2. CLASSICAL GREEK PERIOD (800-200 BCE) Greek writers and philosophers such as Gorgias, Aesop. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Euripides, and Sophocles. The fifth century (499-400 BCE) in particular is renowned as The Golden Age of Greece. This is the sophisticated period of the polis, or individual City-State, and early democracy. Some of the world's finest art, poetry, drama, architecture, and philosophy originate in Athens. 3. CLASSICAL ROMAN PERIOD (200 BCE-455 CE) Greece's culture gives way to Roman power when Rome conquers Greece in 146 CE. The Roman Republic was traditionally founded in 509 BCE, but it is limited in size until later. Playwrights of this time include Plautus and Terence. After nearly 500 years as a Republic, Rome slides into dictatorship under Julius Caesar and finally into a monarchial empire under Caesar Augustus in 27 CE. This later period is known as the Roman Imperial period. Roman writers include Ovid, Horace, and Virgil. Roman philosophers include Marcus Aurelius and Lucretius. Roman rhetoricians include Cicero and Quintilian. 4. PATRISTIC PERIOD (c. 70 CE-455 CE) Early Christian writings appear such as Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Saint Cyprian, Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome. This is the period in which Saint Jerome first compiles the Bible, when Christianity spread across Europe, and the Roman Empire suffered its dying convulsions. In this period, barbarians attack Rome in 410 CE and the city finally falls to them completely in 455 CE.
1. THE OLD ENGLISH (ANGLO-SAXON) PERIOD (428-1066) The so-called "Dark Ages" (455 CE - 799 CE) occur when Rome falls and barbarian tribes move into Europe. Franks, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and Goths settle in the ruins of Europe and the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes migrate to Britain, displacing native Celts into Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Early Old English poems such as Beowulf, The Wanderer, and The Seafarer originate sometime late in the Anglo- Saxon period. The Carolingian Renaissance (800- 850 CE) emerges in Europe. In central Europe, texts include early medieval grammars, encyclopedias, etc. In northern Europe, this time period marks the setting of Viking sagas. 2. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (c. 1066-1450 CE) In 1066, Norman French armies invade and conquer England under William I. This marks the end of the Anglo- Saxon hierarchy and the emergence of the Twelfth Century Renaissance (c. 1100-1200 CE). French chivalric romances--such as works by Chretien de Troyes--and French fables--such as the works of Marie de France and Jeun de Meun--spread in popularity. Abelard and other humanists produce great scholastic and theological works.
LATE OR "HIGH" MEDIEVAL PERIOD (c. 1200-1485 CE): This often tumultuous period is marked by the Middle English writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, the "Gawain" or "Pearl" Poet, the Wakefield Master, and William Langland. Other writers include Italian and French authors like Boccaccio, Petrarch, Dante, and Christine de Pisan.
C. THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (c. 1485-1660 CE) The Renaissance takes place in the late 15th, 16th, and early 17th century in Britain, but somewhat earlier in Italy and the southern Europe, somewhat later in northern Europe.
1. EARLY TUDOR PERIOD (1485-1558): The War of the Roses ends in England with Henry Tudor (Henry VII) claiming the throne. Martin Luther's split with Rome marks the emergence of Protestantism, followed by Henry VIII's Anglican schism, which creates the first Protestant church in England. Edmond Spencer is a sample poet. 2. ELIZABETHAN PERIOD (1558-1603): Queen Elizabeth saves England from both Spanish invasion and internal squabbles at home. Her reign is marked by the early works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kydd, and Sidney. 3. JACOBEAN PERIOD (1603-1625): Shakespeare's later work, Aemilia Lanyer, Ben Jonson, and John Donne. 4. CAROLINE AGE (1625-1649): John Milton, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, the "Sons of Ben" and others write during the reign of Charles I and his Cavaliers (The Cavalier Poets). 5. COMMONWEALTH PERIOD OR PURITAN INTERREGNUM (1649-1660): Under Cromwell's Puritan dictatorship, John Milton continues to write, but we also find writers like Andrew Marvell and Sir Thomas Browne.
E. ROMANTIC PERIOD (c. 1790-1830) Romantic poets write about nature, imagination, and individuality in England. Some Romantics include Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley in Britain and Johann von Goethe in Germany. In America, this period is called the Transcendental Period. Transcendentalists include Emerson and Thoreau. Gothic writings, (c. 1790-1890) overlap with the Romantic and Victorian periods. Writers of Gothic novels (the precursor to horror novels) include Mary Shelley, Radcliffe, Monk Lewis, and Victorians like Bram Stoker in Britain. In America, Gothic writers include Poe and Hawthorne. F. VICTORIAN PERIOD And The 19th Century (c. 1832-1901) Writing during the period of Queen Victoria's reign includes sentimental novels. British writers include Elizabeth Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, the Bront sisters, and Jane Austen. Pre- Raphaelites, like the Rossettis and William Morris, idealize and long for the morality of the medieval world. The end of the Victorian Period is marked by intellectual movements of Asceticism and "the Decadence" in the writings of Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. In America, Naturalist writers like Stephen Crane flourish, as do early free verse poets like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. G. MODERN PERIOD (c. 1914-1945) In Britain, modernist writers include W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, and Wilfred Owen. In America, the modernist period includes Robert Frost and Flannery O'Connor as well as the famous writers of The Lost Generation (also called the writers of The Jazz Age, 1914-1929) such as Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. "The Harlem Renaissance" marks the rise of black writers such as Baldwin and Ellison. Realism is the dominant fashion, but the disillusionment with the World Wars lead to new experimentation. H. POSTMODERN PERIOD (c. 1945 onward) T. S. Eliot, Morrison, Shaw, Beckett, Stoppard, Fowles, Calvino, Ginsberg, Pynchon, and other modern writers, poets, and playwrights experiment with metafiction and fragmented poetry. Multiculturalism leads to increasing canonization of non-Caucasian writers such as Langston Hughes, Sandra Cisneros, and Zora Neal Hurston. Magic Realists such as Gabriel Garca Mrquez, Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Gnter Grass, and Salman Rushdie flourish with surrealistic writings embroidered in the conventions of realism.
1. TRANSCENDENTALISM
(1840-1855):
Transcendentalism
is
an
American
literary
and
philosophical
movement
of
the
nineteenth
century.
The
Transcendentalists,
who
were
based
in
New
England,
believed
that
intuition
and
the
individual
conscience
transcend
experience
and
thus
are
better
guides
to
truth
than
are
the
senses
and
logical
reason.
Influenced
by
Romanticism,
the
Transcendentalists
respect
the
individual
spirit
and
the
natural
world,
believing
that
divinity
is
present
everywhere,
in
nature
and
in
each
person.
The
Transcendentalists
include
Ralph
Waldo
Emerson,
Henry
David
Thoreau,
Bronson
Alcott,
W.H.
Channing,
Margaret
Fuller,
and
Elizabeth
Peabody.
The
anti-Transcendentalist
(Hawthorne
and
Melville)
rebelled
against
the
philosophy
that
man
is
basically
good.
A
third
group,
the
Fireside
poets,
wrote
about
more
practical
aspects
of
life
such
as
dying
and
patriotism.
2. GOTHIC:
Writers
like
Poe
and
Hawthorne
responded
to
the
optimistic
vision
of
the
romantics
with
a
darker
vision.
The
industrial
revolution
brought
ideas
that
the
"old
ways"
of
doing
things
are
now
irrelevant
and
out
of
this
came
the
exploration
of
the
supernatural,
being
at
the
mercy
of
forces
beyond
human
control,
and
the
nature
of
good
and
evil.
It
is
out
of
the
gothic
writers
that
the
contemporary
genre
of
horror
springs.
F.
REALISM
(1865-1915)
Realism
is
the
presentation
in
art
of
the
details
of
actual
life.
Realism
began
during
the
nineteenth
century
and
stressed
the
actual
as
opposed
to
the
imagined
or
the
fanciful.
The
Realists
tried
to
write
truthfully
and
objectively
about
ordinary
characters
in
ordinary
situations.
They
reacted
against
Romanticism,
rejecting
heroic,
adventurous,
unusual,
or
unfamiliar
subjects.
American
realism
grew
from
the
work
of
local-color
writers
such
as
Bret
Harte
and
Sarah
Orne
Jewett
and
is
evident
in
the
writings
of
major
figures
such
as
Mark
Twain
and
Henry
James.
1. NATURALISM:
An
outgrowth
of
Realism,
Naturalism
is
a
literary
movement
among
novelists
at
the
end
of
the
nineteenth
century
and
during
the
early
decades
of
the
twentieth
century.
The
Naturalists
tended
to
view
people
as
hapless
victims
of
immutable
natural
laws
and
the
effects
of
heredity
and
environment
on
people
helpless
to
change
their
situations.
Early
exponents
of
Naturalism
include
Stephen
Crane,
Jack
London,
and
Theodore
Dreiser.
2. REGIONALISM:
Another
outgrowth
of
Realism,
Regionalism
in
literature
is
the
tendency
among
certain
authors
to
write
about
specific
geographical
areas.
Regional
writers
like
Willa
Cather
and
William
Faulkner,
present
the
distinct
culture
of
an
area,
including
its
speech,
customs,
beliefs,
and
history.
Local-color
writing
may
be
considered
a
type
of
Regionalism,
but
Regionalists,
like
the
southern
writers
of
the
1920s,
usually
go
beyond
mere
presentation
of
cultural
idiosyncrasies
and
attempt,
instead,
a
sophisticated
sociological
or
anthropological
treatment
of
the
culture
of
a
region.
G.
MODERN
(1915-1946)
The
authors
during
this
period
raised
all
the
great
questions
of
life,
but
offered
no
answers.
Because
Modernism
came
about
during
an
age
of
disillusionment,
confusion,
and
major
societal
change,
this
period
reacted
to
two
world
wars,
the
Great
Depression,
and
African
Adapted
from
https://sites.google.com/site/zeebsenglisheducation/literaryperiods
and
http://staff.gps.edu/gaither/literary_movements.htm
American and Women suffrage. Writers often examined self-definition and new opportunity. In addition, because of the emancipation of slaves in the late 19th century and the adoption of the 14th and 15th amendments, race became a more pronounced aspect of literature: prejudice and stereotypes were often explored, even if only with a minor character. Also, because of the womens suffrage movement and the adoption of the 19th amendment, gender roles were often explored. Faulkner, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Frost are all examples. 1. IMAGISM (1912-1927) Imagism was a literary movement that flourished between 1912 and 1927. Led by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell, the Imagist poets rejected nineteenth-century poetic forms and language. Instead, they wrote short poems that used ordinary language and free verse to create sharp, exact, concentrated pictures. 2. HARLEM RENAISSANCE. Part of the Modern Age, The Harlem Renaissance, which occurred during the 1920s, was a time of African American artistic creativity centered in Harlem, in New York City. Writers of the Harlem Renaissance include Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, and Arna Bontemps. H. CONTEMPORARY (1946-present) No clear philosophy identifies the present span of literature, but like the Modernist movement, often explores personal experience and social change. Writers like J.D. Salinger, Beat Poet Jack Kerouac, John Updike, Flannery OConnor, Sylvia Plath, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. represent the span of contemporary styles and works. 1. POST-MODERNISM: Writers of post-modernism often utilize absurd plots, lyrical style, elaborate symbolism, and narrative digression or fragmentation. Notable Post- modern writers include Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy,