literary time periods

Elizabethan

A flourishing age of drama and poetry during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, including Shakespeare and Marlowe

Enlightenment

An intellectual movement emphasizing reason, progress, and liberty, often expressed in essays and treatises

gothic/romanticism 

Literature featuring mysterious settings, supernatural elements, and emotional intensity, celebrating imagination and nature

Realism

Literature aiming at honest, detailed portrayals of ordinary life, avoiding exaggeration and melodrama

Victorian era

A period marked by prolific literary activity, strict social conventions, and clashes between religion and science

Transcendentalism

A movement centered in New England that emphasized the primacy of individual conscience and spiritual communion with nature

Aestheticism

A movement devoted to “art for art’s sake,” rejecting the idea that art must have moral or political purpose

Harlem renaissance

A flowering of African American literature, art, and music during the 1920s in New York City

lost generation

Writers disillusioned after World War I who often explored themes of alienation and meaninglessness

Surrealism

An avant-garde movement seeking to merge the conscious and unconscious through irrational, dreamlike images

theater of the absurd

A dramatic movement portraying human life as illogical and purposeless, often lacking clear narrative or resolution

post modernism

A fragmented, experimental style reflecting the collapse of tradition, often mixing high and low culture in response to World War II

beat generation

A group of American writers who embraced counterculture, spontaneity, jazz, and spiritual exploration through Buddhism and travel