SlideShare uma empresa Scribd logo
1 de 34
Major Periods of English &
  American Literature

         AN OVERVIEW
What is meant by “period”?

A period is a dominant mode, style, or type of
 literature within a specific historical context.
A period is usually indicative of the controlling
 philosophical perspective of the time.
As such, periods are not generally confined to the
 literature of the time; rather, their characteristics can
 be seen in other art forms as well as non-literary
 texts.
Dates are approximations.
ENGLISH LITERATURE

literature produced in England, from the
 introduction of Old English by the Anglo-Saxons in
 the 5th century to the present. The works of those
 Irish and Scottish authors who are closely identified
 with English life and letters are also considered part
 of English literature.
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Literary works, fiction and nonfiction of the
 American colonies and the United States, written in
 the English language from about 1600 to the present.
This literature captures America’s quest to
 understand and define itself. From the beginning
 America was unique in the diversity of its
 inhabitants; over time they arrived from all parts of
 the world.
Although English quickly became the language of
 America, regional and ethnic dialects have enlivened
 and enriched the country’s literature almost from the
 start.
Old English or Anglo-Saxon Era (450-1066)
This period extends from about 450 to 1066, the year
 of the Norman-French conquest of England.
The Germanic tribes from Europe who overran
 England in the 5th century, after the Roman
 withdrawal, brought with them the Old English, or
 Anglo-Saxon, language, which is the basis of Modern
 English.
Few surviving texts with little in common.
Language closer to modern German than modern
 English.
Frequently reflect non-English influence.
Beowulf, “The Wanderer”
Old English or Anglo-Saxon Era (450-1066)

Much of Old English poetry was probably intended
 to be chanted, with harp accompaniment, by the
 Anglo-Saxon scop, or bard.
Prose in Old English is represented by a large
 number of religious works.
Middle English (1066-1500)

Extending from 1066 to 1485, this period is noted for
 the extensive influence of French literature on native
 English forms and theme
The Middle English literature of the 14th and 15th
 centuries is much more diversified than the previous
 Old English literature.
Works frequently of a religiously didactic content.
Written for performance at court or for festivals.
Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales)
 “The Cuckoo’s Song”, mystery plays
English Renaissance (1500-1660)

Influence of Aristotle, Ovid, and other Greco-Roman
 thinkers, as well as science and exploration.
Primarily texts for public performance (plays,
 masques) and some books of poetry.
William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben
 Jonson, Francis Bacon, John Fletcher, Francis
 Beaumont.
Neoclassical Period
          (Enlightenment/Age of Reason)

     England 1660-1785        America 1750-1800
Reaction to the expansiveness of the Renaissance in
 the direction of order and restraint.
Developed in France (Moliere, Rousseau, Voltaire).
Emphasized classical ideals of rationality and control
 (human nature is constant through time).
Art should reflect the universal commonality of
 human nature. (“All men are created equal.”)
Reason is emphasized as the highest faculty (Deism).
Neoclassical Period (cont.)

Writing should be well structured, emotion should be
 controlled, and emphasize qualities like wit.
England: John Locke, John Milton (Paradise Lost),
 Alexander Pope (Essay on Man), Jonathon Swift
 (Gulliver’s Travels), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones), Daniel
 Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), Jane Austen (Sense and
 Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice).
America: Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard’s Almanack,
 autobiography), Thomas Paine (“Common Sense”),
 Thomas Jefferson (“The Declaration of Independence”),
 James Madison (“The Constitution of the United
 States”).
Romantic Period

      England 1785-1830        America 1800-1860
Reaction against the scientific rationality of
 Neoclassicism and the Industrial Revolution.
Developed in Germany (Kant, Goethe).
“I felt before I thought.” -Rosseau
Emphasized individuality, intuition, imagination,
 idealism, nature (as opposed to society & social
 order).
Elevation of the common man (folklore, myth).
Mystery and the supernatural.
Romantic Period

      England 1785-1830        America 1800-1860
romantic literature everywhere developed,
 imagination was praised over reason, emotions over
 logic, and intuition over science—making way for a
 vast body of literature of great sensibility and
 passion.
This literature emphasized a new flexibility of form
 adapted to varying content, encouraged the
 development of complex and fast-moving plots, and
 allowed mixed genres (tragicomedy and the mingling
 of the grotesque and the sublime) and freer style.
Romantic Period

     England 1785-1830         America 1800-1860
No longer tolerated, for example, were the fixed
 classical conventions, such as the famous three
 unities (time, place, and action) of tragedy.
In English poetry, for example, blank verse largely
 superseded the rhymed couplet that dominated 18th-
 century poetry.
ROMANTIC THEMES

LIBERTARIANISM-the desire to be free of
 convention and tyranny, and the new emphasis on
 the rights and dignity of the individual.
Political and social causes became dominant themes
 in romantic poetry and prose throughout the
 Western world, producing many vital human
 documents that are still pertinent.
NATURE-Basic to such sentiments was an interest
 central to the romantic movement: the concern with
 nature and natural surroundings.
ROMANTIC THEMES

NATURE
-Delight in unspoiled scenery and in the (presumably)
  innocent life of rural dwellers.
THE LURE OF THE EXOTIC
-In the spirit of their new freedom, romantic writers in
  all cultures expanded their imaginary horizons
  spatially and chronologically.
-They turned back to the Middle Ages (5th century to
  15th century) for themes and settings and to the
  Asian setting of Xanadu evoked by Coleridge in his
  unfinished lyric “Kubla Khan.
ROMANTIC THEMES

THE SUPERNATURAL
- The trend toward the irrational and the supernatural
  was an important component of English and German
  romantic literature.
- It was reinforced on the one hand by disillusion with 18th-century
  rationalism and on the other by the rediscovery of a body of older
  literature—folktales and ballads—collected by Percy and by German
  scholars Jacob and Wilhelm Karl Grimm and Danish writer Hans
  Christian Andersen. From such material comes, for example, the motif
  of the doppelgänger (German for “double”). Many romantic writers,
  especially in Germany, were fascinated with this concept, perhaps
  because of the general romantic concern with self-identity.
Romantic Period (cont.)

England: Robert Burns (“To a Mouse”), William Blake
 (Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience), William
 Wordsworth (Lyrical Ballads, “Tintern Abbey,”
 “Intimations of Immortality,” “I Wandered Lonely as
 a Cloud”), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (“The Rime of
 the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Kahn”), Lord Byron
 (“Don Juan”), Percy Bysshe Shelley (“Ozymandias”),
 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein), John
 Keats (“Ode on a Grecian Urn”), Sir Walter Scott
 (Ivanhoe).
Romantic Period (cont.)

America: Washington Irving (“Rip Van Winkle,” “The
 Legend of Sleepy Hollow”), Edgar Allan Poe (“The
 Raven,” Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, “The
 Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Philosophy of
 Composition”), James Fennimore Cooper (The Last of
 the Mohicans), Herman Melville (Moby-Dick, Billy
 Budd), Nathaniel Hawthorne (Twice-Told Tales, The
 Scarlet Letter), William Cullen Bryant (“To a
 Waterfowl”), Oliver Wendell Holmes (“The Chambered
 Nautilus”), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (“Paul
 Revere’s Ride”), James Russell Lowell (“The First
 Snowfall”).
Romantic Period (cont.)

American Transcendentalism (Romantic philosophy)
Named for the core belief that our spiritual nature
 transcends rationality and religious doctrine; thus, it
 is found in intuition.
Developed in New England, influenced by Eastern
 philosophy.
Pro-suffrage & abolitionist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature, “The American
 Scholar”), Henry David Thoreau (Walden, “Civil
 Disobedience”), Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass).
Romantic Period (cont.)

In New England, an intellectual movement known as
 transcendentalism developed as an American version
 of romanticism.
the transcendentalists celebrated the power of the
 human imagination to commune with the universe
 and transcend the limitations of the material world.
 The transcendentalists found their chief source of
 inspiration in nature.
Victorian Period (England 1832-1901)

Named for the reign of Queen Victoria, Britain’s
 longest reigning monarch.
Period of stability and prosperity for Britain.
British society extremely class conscious.
Literature seen as a bridge between Romanticism
 and Modernism.
Generally emphasized realistic portrayals of
 common people, sometimes to promote social
 change.
Some writers continue to explore gothic themes
 begun in Romantic Period.
Victorian Period (England 1832-1901)

The novel gradually became the dominant form in
 literature during the Victorian Age.
English literature throughout much of the century,
 the attention of many writers was directed,
 sometimes passionately, to such issues as the growth
 of English democracy, the education of the masses,
 the progress of industrial enterprise and the
 consequent rise of a materialistic philosophy, and
 the plight of the newly industrialized worker.
Victorian Period (cont.)

Charles Dickens (David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great
 Expectations), George Eliot (Middlemarch), Thomas
 Hardy (Tess of the D’Ubervilles), Robert Louis
 Stevenson (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
 Hyde), Rudyard Kipling (Jungle Book), Lewis Carroll
 (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Charlotte Brontë
 (Jane Eyre), Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights),
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson (In Memoriam), Elizabeth
 Barrett Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese),
 Robert Browning (“My Last Duchess”), Matthew
 Arnold (“Dover Beach”), Oscar Wilde (The Importance
 of Being Earnest).
Realistic Period (America 1860-1914)

Reaction against Romantic values (Civil War).
Developed in France (Balzac, Flaubert, Zola).
Emphasized the commonplace and ordinary (as
 opposed to the romanticized individual).
Sought to depict life as it was, not idealized.
Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn),
 Ambrose Bierce (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek
 Bridge”), William Dean Howells (A Modern
 Instance), Theodore Dreiser (Sister Carrie).
Realistic Period (America 1860-1914)

Realist literature is defined particularly as the fiction
 produced in Europe and the United States from
 about 1840 until the 1890s, when realism was
 superseded by naturalism. This form of realism
 began in France in the novels of Gustave Flaubert
 and the short stories of Guy de Maupassant.
an attempt to describe human behavior and
 surroundings or to represent figures and objects
 exactly as they act or appear in life.
Realistic Period (cont.)

Naturalism – hyper-realism
Named for the belief that man is simply a higher
 order animal, and thus under the same natural
 constraints and limitations as other animals.
Naturalism (literature), in literature, the theory that
 literary composition should be based on an objective,
 empirical presentation of human being.
Controlled by heredity and environment.
Stephen Crane (Maggie: A Girl of the Street, The
 Red Badge of Courage), Jack London (“To Build a
 Fire”), Upton Sinclair (The Jungle).
Edwardian Period (England 1901-1914)

Named for King Edward.
Some see as a continuation of Victorian Period;
 however, the status quo is increasingly threatened.
Distinction between literature and popular fiction.
Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness), H.G.
 Wells (War of the Worlds), E.M. Forster (A Room
 with a View, A Passage to India), George Bernard
 Shaw (Major Barbara), A.C. Bradley
 (Shakespearean Tragedy).
Modern Period (1914-1945)

Reaction against the values which led to WWI.
Influenced by Schopenhauer (“negation of the will”),
 Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil), Kierkegaard (Fear
 and Trembling), as well as Darwin and Marx.
If previous values are invalid, art is a tool to establish
 new values (Pound: “Make it new”).
Writers experiment with form.
Form and content reflect the confusion and
 vicissitudes of modern life.
Expositions and resolutions are omitted; themes are
 implied rather than stated.
Modern Period (1914-1945)
During the 20th century a communications
 revolution that introduced motion pictures, radio,
 and television brought the world into view—and
 eventually into the living room. The new forms of
 communication competed with books as sources of
 amusement and enlightenment. New forms of
 communication and new modes of transportation
 made American society increasingly mobile and
 familiar with many more regions of the country.
 Literary voices from even the remotest corners could
 reach a national audience. At the same time,
 American writers—particularly writers of fiction—
 began to influence world literature.
Modern Period (cont.)

Poetry:
Ezra Pound (The Fourth Canto), T.S. Eliot (Prufrock
 and other Observations, The Waste Land, “The
 Hollow Men”), W.B. Yeats (The Wanderings of Oisin
 and Other Poems, The Swans at Coole), H.D. (“Pear
 Tree”), Wallace Stevens (Harmonium), William
 Carlos Williams (“The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This Is
 Just to Say”), Robert Frost (Mending Wall, The
 Road Not Taken).
Modern Period (cont.)

Fiction:
James Joyce (Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a
  Young Man), Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis, The
  Trial, The Castle), Ernest Hemingway (In Our Time,
  The Sun Also Rises), William Faulkner (As I Lay
  Dying, The Sound and the Fury), F. Scott Fitzgerald
  (The Great Gatsby), John Steinbeck (The Grapes of
  Wrath), Thornton Wilder (Our Town, The Bridge at
  San Luis Rey), D.H. Lawrence (The Rainbow),
  Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse).
Post-Modern Period (1945-?)

Critical dispute over whether an actual period or a
 renewal and continuation Modernism post-WWII.
Influenced by Freud, Sartre, Camus, Derrida, and
 Foucault.
Deconstruction: Text has no inherent meaning;
 meaning derives from the tension between the text’s
 ambiguities and contradictions revealed upon close
 reading.
Some believe it leads directly to the counter-cultural
 revolution of the 1960s.
Post-Modern Period (cont.)

Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Gabriel Garcia
  Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), William
  Burroughs (Naked Lunch), J.D. Salinger (A Catcher in
  the Rye), Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five), Thomas
  Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow), John Updike (Rabbit
  Run), Phillip Roth (Portnoy’s Complaint, American
  Pastoral), J.M. Coetzee (Life & Times of Michael K),
  Joyce Carol Oates (“Where Are Going, Where Have You
  Been?”), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaiden’s Tale),
  Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian), Allen Ginsberg
  (Howl and Other Poems), Charles Bukowski (The Last
  Night of the Earth Poems).
Thank you…

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Old English Literature
Old English LiteratureOld English Literature
Old English LiteratureRoj Eusala
 
History of American Literature
History of American LiteratureHistory of American Literature
History of American LiteratureKhim Dela Cruz
 
Literature
LiteratureLiterature
Literatureglenda75
 
Contemporary literature features
Contemporary literature featuresContemporary literature features
Contemporary literature featurestotaaalupiii
 
Twentieth century introduction
Twentieth century introductionTwentieth century introduction
Twentieth century introductionmaahwash
 
History of English Literature
History of English LiteratureHistory of English Literature
History of English Literaturetomyyou
 
The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)
The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)
The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)LitNotes
 
American literature slides
American literature slidesAmerican literature slides
American literature slidespvlmt
 
American Literature: Introduction to the Modern Period
American Literature: Introduction to the Modern PeriodAmerican Literature: Introduction to the Modern Period
American Literature: Introduction to the Modern Periodjhazle
 
Renaissance Period Literature
Renaissance Period LiteratureRenaissance Period Literature
Renaissance Period LiteratureHazel Anne Quirao
 
History of 20th english literature
History of 20th english literatureHistory of 20th english literature
History of 20th english literatureSunwoo Hwang
 
History of english literature sajid
History of english literature sajidHistory of english literature sajid
History of english literature sajidDr. Cupid Lucid
 
Old English Literature with exercises
Old English Literature with exercises Old English Literature with exercises
Old English Literature with exercises maliterature
 
Victorian literature ‫‬
Victorian literature ‫‬Victorian literature ‫‬
Victorian literature ‫‬Mohammed Raiyah
 
Literary trends of victorian period
Literary trends of victorian periodLiterary trends of victorian period
Literary trends of victorian periodNilanjonaKarmakar
 
American literary periods
American literary periodsAmerican literary periods
American literary periodsMarjorie Rice
 

Mais procurados (20)

American literature
American literatureAmerican literature
American literature
 
Old English Literature
Old English LiteratureOld English Literature
Old English Literature
 
History of American Literature
History of American LiteratureHistory of American Literature
History of American Literature
 
The Restoration And The 18th Century
The Restoration And The 18th CenturyThe Restoration And The 18th Century
The Restoration And The 18th Century
 
Literature
LiteratureLiterature
Literature
 
Contemporary literature features
Contemporary literature featuresContemporary literature features
Contemporary literature features
 
Twentieth century introduction
Twentieth century introductionTwentieth century introduction
Twentieth century introduction
 
Neoclassical Literature
Neoclassical LiteratureNeoclassical Literature
Neoclassical Literature
 
History of English Literature
History of English LiteratureHistory of English Literature
History of English Literature
 
The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)
The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)
The Restoration & 18th Century (British Literature)
 
American literature slides
American literature slidesAmerican literature slides
American literature slides
 
American Literature: Introduction to the Modern Period
American Literature: Introduction to the Modern PeriodAmerican Literature: Introduction to the Modern Period
American Literature: Introduction to the Modern Period
 
Renaissance Period Literature
Renaissance Period LiteratureRenaissance Period Literature
Renaissance Period Literature
 
History of 20th english literature
History of 20th english literatureHistory of 20th english literature
History of 20th english literature
 
History of english literature sajid
History of english literature sajidHistory of english literature sajid
History of english literature sajid
 
Old English Literature with exercises
Old English Literature with exercises Old English Literature with exercises
Old English Literature with exercises
 
Victorian literature ‫‬
Victorian literature ‫‬Victorian literature ‫‬
Victorian literature ‫‬
 
Literary trends of victorian period
Literary trends of victorian periodLiterary trends of victorian period
Literary trends of victorian period
 
American literary periods
American literary periodsAmerican literary periods
American literary periods
 
Eras In American Literature
Eras In American LiteratureEras In American Literature
Eras In American Literature
 

Semelhante a Major Periods in English and American Literature

Literary periods of_british_and_american_literature
Literary periods of_british_and_american_literatureLiterary periods of_british_and_american_literature
Literary periods of_british_and_american_literatureAly Sandy
 
A short history of english literature
A short history of english literatureA short history of english literature
A short history of english literatureSt:Mary's College
 
Great Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdf
Great Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdfGreat Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdf
Great Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdfashirovaalmaz
 
UNIT NO 2, 6471 English IV B.Ed
UNIT NO 2,  6471 English IV B.EdUNIT NO 2,  6471 English IV B.Ed
UNIT NO 2, 6471 English IV B.EdZahid Mehmood
 
History of English Literature
History of English LiteratureHistory of English Literature
History of English LiteratureMuskan Solanki
 
literary_periods.pptx
literary_periods.pptxliterary_periods.pptx
literary_periods.pptxezgiheda
 
English literature
English literatureEnglish literature
English literatureMahaa Z
 
Literature in Renaissance England
Literature in Renaissance EnglandLiterature in Renaissance England
Literature in Renaissance EnglandPatz_Ibarra
 
Stages of neo classical age
Stages of neo classical ageStages of neo classical age
Stages of neo classical ageChandrodayaJo
 
AMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptx
AMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptxAMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptx
AMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptxMay Rhea Lopez
 
A Short History Of English Literature
A Short History Of English LiteratureA Short History Of English Literature
A Short History Of English LiteratureLeslie Schulte
 
Week 2 intro to english literature
Week 2 intro to english literatureWeek 2 intro to english literature
Week 2 intro to english literatureDr. Russell Rodrigo
 
european-lit-201211190516.pptx
european-lit-201211190516.pptxeuropean-lit-201211190516.pptx
european-lit-201211190516.pptxcjoypingaron
 
The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...
The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...
The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...IshaAli11
 
Background reading of Romantic age
Background reading of Romantic ageBackground reading of Romantic age
Background reading of Romantic ageParmar Milan
 
Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409
Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409
Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409Faisal Ahmed
 

Semelhante a Major Periods in English and American Literature (20)

Literary periods of_british_and_american_literature
Literary periods of_british_and_american_literatureLiterary periods of_british_and_american_literature
Literary periods of_british_and_american_literature
 
A short history of english literature
A short history of english literatureA short history of english literature
A short history of english literature
 
Great Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdf
Great Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdfGreat Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdf
Great Britain’s literature detailed explanation.pdf
 
UNIT NO 2, 6471 English IV B.Ed
UNIT NO 2,  6471 English IV B.EdUNIT NO 2,  6471 English IV B.Ed
UNIT NO 2, 6471 English IV B.Ed
 
History of English Literature
History of English LiteratureHistory of English Literature
History of English Literature
 
literary_periods.pptx
literary_periods.pptxliterary_periods.pptx
literary_periods.pptx
 
Literary History.pptx
Literary History.pptxLiterary History.pptx
Literary History.pptx
 
English literature
English literatureEnglish literature
English literature
 
Literature in Renaissance England
Literature in Renaissance EnglandLiterature in Renaissance England
Literature in Renaissance England
 
Lit mov booklet part-4
Lit mov booklet part-4Lit mov booklet part-4
Lit mov booklet part-4
 
Stages of neo classical age
Stages of neo classical ageStages of neo classical age
Stages of neo classical age
 
AMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptx
AMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptxAMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptx
AMERICAN LITERATURE and AFRO ASIAN LIT.ppt.pptx
 
A Short History Of English Literature
A Short History Of English LiteratureA Short History Of English Literature
A Short History Of English Literature
 
Week 2 intro to english literature
Week 2 intro to english literatureWeek 2 intro to english literature
Week 2 intro to english literature
 
european-lit-201211190516.pptx
european-lit-201211190516.pptxeuropean-lit-201211190516.pptx
european-lit-201211190516.pptx
 
Renaissance
Renaissance Renaissance
Renaissance
 
The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...
The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...
The Anglo Saxon or old English period and Anglo-Norman period or Middle Engli...
 
English ppt
English pptEnglish ppt
English ppt
 
Background reading of Romantic age
Background reading of Romantic ageBackground reading of Romantic age
Background reading of Romantic age
 
Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409
Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409
Romanticism Lecture by Faisal Ahmed_WEEK 1_ENG 409
 

Mais de Jesullyna Manuel

Curriculum development lecture
Curriculum development lectureCurriculum development lecture
Curriculum development lectureJesullyna Manuel
 
Curriculum development in language teaching handdouts
Curriculum development in language teaching handdoutsCurriculum development in language teaching handdouts
Curriculum development in language teaching handdoutsJesullyna Manuel
 
Analysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempest
Analysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempestAnalysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempest
Analysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempestJesullyna Manuel
 
Special problems with pronouns
Special problems with pronounsSpecial problems with pronouns
Special problems with pronounsJesullyna Manuel
 
Chapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum development
Chapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum developmentChapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum development
Chapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum developmentJesullyna Manuel
 
love in the time of cholera
love in the time of choleralove in the time of cholera
love in the time of choleraJesullyna Manuel
 
The curriculum during the philippine republic
The curriculum during the philippine republicThe curriculum during the philippine republic
The curriculum during the philippine republicJesullyna Manuel
 
Making inferences and drawing conclusions
Making inferences and drawing conclusionsMaking inferences and drawing conclusions
Making inferences and drawing conclusionsJesullyna Manuel
 
The 7 biggest mistakes.pptx (final)
The 7 biggest   mistakes.pptx (final)The 7 biggest   mistakes.pptx (final)
The 7 biggest mistakes.pptx (final)Jesullyna Manuel
 
Standardized testing.pptx 2
Standardized testing.pptx 2Standardized testing.pptx 2
Standardized testing.pptx 2Jesullyna Manuel
 

Mais de Jesullyna Manuel (20)

Mahamaya
MahamayaMahamaya
Mahamaya
 
Curriculum development lecture
Curriculum development lectureCurriculum development lecture
Curriculum development lecture
 
Curriculum development in language teaching handdouts
Curriculum development in language teaching handdoutsCurriculum development in language teaching handdouts
Curriculum development in language teaching handdouts
 
Analysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempest
Analysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempestAnalysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempest
Analysis of the word pinch in shakespeare's the tempest
 
Special problems with pronouns
Special problems with pronounsSpecial problems with pronouns
Special problems with pronouns
 
Marxism lecture
Marxism lectureMarxism lecture
Marxism lecture
 
Introduction to feminism
Introduction to feminismIntroduction to feminism
Introduction to feminism
 
Designing language test
Designing language testDesigning language test
Designing language test
 
Chapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum development
Chapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum developmentChapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum development
Chapter 1 principles and theories in curriculum development
 
Assessing listening
Assessing listeningAssessing listening
Assessing listening
 
Greek gods new
Greek gods newGreek gods new
Greek gods new
 
The epic of ramayana
The epic of ramayana The epic of ramayana
The epic of ramayana
 
Like water for chocolates
Like water for chocolatesLike water for chocolates
Like water for chocolates
 
love in the time of cholera
love in the time of choleralove in the time of cholera
love in the time of cholera
 
Sq3 r
Sq3 rSq3 r
Sq3 r
 
The curriculum during the philippine republic
The curriculum during the philippine republicThe curriculum during the philippine republic
The curriculum during the philippine republic
 
Making inferences and drawing conclusions
Making inferences and drawing conclusionsMaking inferences and drawing conclusions
Making inferences and drawing conclusions
 
The 7 biggest mistakes.pptx (final)
The 7 biggest   mistakes.pptx (final)The 7 biggest   mistakes.pptx (final)
The 7 biggest mistakes.pptx (final)
 
Iliad final
Iliad finalIliad final
Iliad final
 
Standardized testing.pptx 2
Standardized testing.pptx 2Standardized testing.pptx 2
Standardized testing.pptx 2
 

Major Periods in English and American Literature

  • 1. Major Periods of English & American Literature AN OVERVIEW
  • 2. What is meant by “period”? A period is a dominant mode, style, or type of literature within a specific historical context. A period is usually indicative of the controlling philosophical perspective of the time. As such, periods are not generally confined to the literature of the time; rather, their characteristics can be seen in other art forms as well as non-literary texts. Dates are approximations.
  • 3. ENGLISH LITERATURE literature produced in England, from the introduction of Old English by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century to the present. The works of those Irish and Scottish authors who are closely identified with English life and letters are also considered part of English literature.
  • 4. AMERICAN LITERATURE Literary works, fiction and nonfiction of the American colonies and the United States, written in the English language from about 1600 to the present. This literature captures America’s quest to understand and define itself. From the beginning America was unique in the diversity of its inhabitants; over time they arrived from all parts of the world. Although English quickly became the language of America, regional and ethnic dialects have enlivened and enriched the country’s literature almost from the start.
  • 5. Old English or Anglo-Saxon Era (450-1066) This period extends from about 450 to 1066, the year of the Norman-French conquest of England. The Germanic tribes from Europe who overran England in the 5th century, after the Roman withdrawal, brought with them the Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, language, which is the basis of Modern English. Few surviving texts with little in common. Language closer to modern German than modern English. Frequently reflect non-English influence. Beowulf, “The Wanderer”
  • 6. Old English or Anglo-Saxon Era (450-1066) Much of Old English poetry was probably intended to be chanted, with harp accompaniment, by the Anglo-Saxon scop, or bard. Prose in Old English is represented by a large number of religious works.
  • 7. Middle English (1066-1500) Extending from 1066 to 1485, this period is noted for the extensive influence of French literature on native English forms and theme The Middle English literature of the 14th and 15th centuries is much more diversified than the previous Old English literature. Works frequently of a religiously didactic content. Written for performance at court or for festivals. Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales) “The Cuckoo’s Song”, mystery plays
  • 8. English Renaissance (1500-1660) Influence of Aristotle, Ovid, and other Greco-Roman thinkers, as well as science and exploration. Primarily texts for public performance (plays, masques) and some books of poetry. William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, John Fletcher, Francis Beaumont.
  • 9. Neoclassical Period (Enlightenment/Age of Reason) England 1660-1785 America 1750-1800 Reaction to the expansiveness of the Renaissance in the direction of order and restraint. Developed in France (Moliere, Rousseau, Voltaire). Emphasized classical ideals of rationality and control (human nature is constant through time). Art should reflect the universal commonality of human nature. (“All men are created equal.”) Reason is emphasized as the highest faculty (Deism).
  • 10. Neoclassical Period (cont.) Writing should be well structured, emotion should be controlled, and emphasize qualities like wit. England: John Locke, John Milton (Paradise Lost), Alexander Pope (Essay on Man), Jonathon Swift (Gulliver’s Travels), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones), Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice). America: Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard’s Almanack, autobiography), Thomas Paine (“Common Sense”), Thomas Jefferson (“The Declaration of Independence”), James Madison (“The Constitution of the United States”).
  • 11. Romantic Period England 1785-1830 America 1800-1860 Reaction against the scientific rationality of Neoclassicism and the Industrial Revolution. Developed in Germany (Kant, Goethe). “I felt before I thought.” -Rosseau Emphasized individuality, intuition, imagination, idealism, nature (as opposed to society & social order). Elevation of the common man (folklore, myth). Mystery and the supernatural.
  • 12. Romantic Period England 1785-1830 America 1800-1860 romantic literature everywhere developed, imagination was praised over reason, emotions over logic, and intuition over science—making way for a vast body of literature of great sensibility and passion. This literature emphasized a new flexibility of form adapted to varying content, encouraged the development of complex and fast-moving plots, and allowed mixed genres (tragicomedy and the mingling of the grotesque and the sublime) and freer style.
  • 13. Romantic Period England 1785-1830 America 1800-1860 No longer tolerated, for example, were the fixed classical conventions, such as the famous three unities (time, place, and action) of tragedy. In English poetry, for example, blank verse largely superseded the rhymed couplet that dominated 18th- century poetry.
  • 14. ROMANTIC THEMES LIBERTARIANISM-the desire to be free of convention and tyranny, and the new emphasis on the rights and dignity of the individual. Political and social causes became dominant themes in romantic poetry and prose throughout the Western world, producing many vital human documents that are still pertinent. NATURE-Basic to such sentiments was an interest central to the romantic movement: the concern with nature and natural surroundings.
  • 15. ROMANTIC THEMES NATURE -Delight in unspoiled scenery and in the (presumably) innocent life of rural dwellers. THE LURE OF THE EXOTIC -In the spirit of their new freedom, romantic writers in all cultures expanded their imaginary horizons spatially and chronologically. -They turned back to the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century) for themes and settings and to the Asian setting of Xanadu evoked by Coleridge in his unfinished lyric “Kubla Khan.
  • 16. ROMANTIC THEMES THE SUPERNATURAL - The trend toward the irrational and the supernatural was an important component of English and German romantic literature. - It was reinforced on the one hand by disillusion with 18th-century rationalism and on the other by the rediscovery of a body of older literature—folktales and ballads—collected by Percy and by German scholars Jacob and Wilhelm Karl Grimm and Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. From such material comes, for example, the motif of the doppelgänger (German for “double”). Many romantic writers, especially in Germany, were fascinated with this concept, perhaps because of the general romantic concern with self-identity.
  • 17. Romantic Period (cont.) England: Robert Burns (“To a Mouse”), William Blake (Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience), William Wordsworth (Lyrical Ballads, “Tintern Abbey,” “Intimations of Immortality,” “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Kahn”), Lord Byron (“Don Juan”), Percy Bysshe Shelley (“Ozymandias”), Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein), John Keats (“Ode on a Grecian Urn”), Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe).
  • 18. Romantic Period (cont.) America: Washington Irving (“Rip Van Winkle,” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”), Edgar Allan Poe (“The Raven,” Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Philosophy of Composition”), James Fennimore Cooper (The Last of the Mohicans), Herman Melville (Moby-Dick, Billy Budd), Nathaniel Hawthorne (Twice-Told Tales, The Scarlet Letter), William Cullen Bryant (“To a Waterfowl”), Oliver Wendell Holmes (“The Chambered Nautilus”), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (“Paul Revere’s Ride”), James Russell Lowell (“The First Snowfall”).
  • 19. Romantic Period (cont.) American Transcendentalism (Romantic philosophy) Named for the core belief that our spiritual nature transcends rationality and religious doctrine; thus, it is found in intuition. Developed in New England, influenced by Eastern philosophy. Pro-suffrage & abolitionist. Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature, “The American Scholar”), Henry David Thoreau (Walden, “Civil Disobedience”), Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass).
  • 20. Romantic Period (cont.) In New England, an intellectual movement known as transcendentalism developed as an American version of romanticism. the transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human imagination to commune with the universe and transcend the limitations of the material world. The transcendentalists found their chief source of inspiration in nature.
  • 21. Victorian Period (England 1832-1901) Named for the reign of Queen Victoria, Britain’s longest reigning monarch. Period of stability and prosperity for Britain. British society extremely class conscious. Literature seen as a bridge between Romanticism and Modernism. Generally emphasized realistic portrayals of common people, sometimes to promote social change. Some writers continue to explore gothic themes begun in Romantic Period.
  • 22. Victorian Period (England 1832-1901) The novel gradually became the dominant form in literature during the Victorian Age. English literature throughout much of the century, the attention of many writers was directed, sometimes passionately, to such issues as the growth of English democracy, the education of the masses, the progress of industrial enterprise and the consequent rise of a materialistic philosophy, and the plight of the newly industrialized worker.
  • 23. Victorian Period (cont.) Charles Dickens (David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations), George Eliot (Middlemarch), Thomas Hardy (Tess of the D’Ubervilles), Robert Louis Stevenson (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Rudyard Kipling (Jungle Book), Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre), Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights), Alfred, Lord Tennyson (In Memoriam), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnets from the Portuguese), Robert Browning (“My Last Duchess”), Matthew Arnold (“Dover Beach”), Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest).
  • 24. Realistic Period (America 1860-1914) Reaction against Romantic values (Civil War). Developed in France (Balzac, Flaubert, Zola). Emphasized the commonplace and ordinary (as opposed to the romanticized individual). Sought to depict life as it was, not idealized. Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), Ambrose Bierce (“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”), William Dean Howells (A Modern Instance), Theodore Dreiser (Sister Carrie).
  • 25. Realistic Period (America 1860-1914) Realist literature is defined particularly as the fiction produced in Europe and the United States from about 1840 until the 1890s, when realism was superseded by naturalism. This form of realism began in France in the novels of Gustave Flaubert and the short stories of Guy de Maupassant. an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects exactly as they act or appear in life.
  • 26. Realistic Period (cont.) Naturalism – hyper-realism Named for the belief that man is simply a higher order animal, and thus under the same natural constraints and limitations as other animals. Naturalism (literature), in literature, the theory that literary composition should be based on an objective, empirical presentation of human being. Controlled by heredity and environment. Stephen Crane (Maggie: A Girl of the Street, The Red Badge of Courage), Jack London (“To Build a Fire”), Upton Sinclair (The Jungle).
  • 27. Edwardian Period (England 1901-1914) Named for King Edward. Some see as a continuation of Victorian Period; however, the status quo is increasingly threatened. Distinction between literature and popular fiction. Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness), H.G. Wells (War of the Worlds), E.M. Forster (A Room with a View, A Passage to India), George Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara), A.C. Bradley (Shakespearean Tragedy).
  • 28. Modern Period (1914-1945) Reaction against the values which led to WWI. Influenced by Schopenhauer (“negation of the will”), Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil), Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling), as well as Darwin and Marx. If previous values are invalid, art is a tool to establish new values (Pound: “Make it new”). Writers experiment with form. Form and content reflect the confusion and vicissitudes of modern life. Expositions and resolutions are omitted; themes are implied rather than stated.
  • 29. Modern Period (1914-1945) During the 20th century a communications revolution that introduced motion pictures, radio, and television brought the world into view—and eventually into the living room. The new forms of communication competed with books as sources of amusement and enlightenment. New forms of communication and new modes of transportation made American society increasingly mobile and familiar with many more regions of the country. Literary voices from even the remotest corners could reach a national audience. At the same time, American writers—particularly writers of fiction— began to influence world literature.
  • 30. Modern Period (cont.) Poetry: Ezra Pound (The Fourth Canto), T.S. Eliot (Prufrock and other Observations, The Waste Land, “The Hollow Men”), W.B. Yeats (The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, The Swans at Coole), H.D. (“Pear Tree”), Wallace Stevens (Harmonium), William Carlos Williams (“The Red Wheelbarrow,” “This Is Just to Say”), Robert Frost (Mending Wall, The Road Not Taken).
  • 31. Modern Period (cont.) Fiction: James Joyce (Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Castle), Ernest Hemingway (In Our Time, The Sun Also Rises), William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath), Thornton Wilder (Our Town, The Bridge at San Luis Rey), D.H. Lawrence (The Rainbow), Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse).
  • 32. Post-Modern Period (1945-?) Critical dispute over whether an actual period or a renewal and continuation Modernism post-WWII. Influenced by Freud, Sartre, Camus, Derrida, and Foucault. Deconstruction: Text has no inherent meaning; meaning derives from the tension between the text’s ambiguities and contradictions revealed upon close reading. Some believe it leads directly to the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s.
  • 33. Post-Modern Period (cont.) Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), William Burroughs (Naked Lunch), J.D. Salinger (A Catcher in the Rye), Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five), Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow), John Updike (Rabbit Run), Phillip Roth (Portnoy’s Complaint, American Pastoral), J.M. Coetzee (Life & Times of Michael K), Joyce Carol Oates (“Where Are Going, Where Have You Been?”), Margaret Atwood (The Handmaiden’s Tale), Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian), Allen Ginsberg (Howl and Other Poems), Charles Bukowski (The Last Night of the Earth Poems).