Literary periods

periods from ancient to post-modernism

Ancient/Classical: Time period date

2000 BC/BCE to 500 AD/CE

Ancient/Classical: Important literature

Iliad, Odyssey, Aesop’s fables, and the Torah/bible

Ancient/Classical: Important authors

Homer and Aesop

Ancient/Classical: Characterization

Characterized by epic poetry, mythology, and religious texts that were passed down orally and were often centered on royalty. The adoption of the hero’s journey began here.

Medieval: Time period date

Approximately 500 to 1500 CE/AD

Medieval: Important literature

Divine Comedy, Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, and Le Morte D’Arthur

Medieval: Important authors

Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Thomas Malory

Medieval: Characterization

Characterized by feudalism, chivalry code, and religious themes, reflecting the social and cultural values of the time and was primarily in Latin.

Renaissance: Time period date

1500-1650

Renaissance: Important literature

Shakespeare’s plays (R+J, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar), Don Quixote, and the implementation of metaphysical (the study of reality and existence) poetry

Renaissance: Important authors

Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes

Renaissance: Characterization

Classical period reborn, printing press, accessability to books, humanism, exploration of individualism, and a focus on art and science

Neo-classicism: Time period date

1650-1800

Neo-classicism: Important literature

Gulliver’s Travels

Neo-classicism: Important authors

Jonathan Swift

Neo-classicism: Characterization

Science helps understand nature, religious solace, restoration in England, “I think therefore I am”, age of enlightenment, order, accuracy, and structure

Romanticism: Time period date

1800-1850

Romanticism: Important literature

Pride and Prejudice, Keat’s poems, “the world is too much with us”, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Dracula, and Civil Disobedience

Romanticism: Important authors

Jane Austen, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Edgar Allen Poe, and David Thoreau

Romanticism: Characterization

imagination, mutability, imagination, beauty, personal experience, lyrical ballad, nature mysteries, search for the sublime, and developed into the gothic period

Victorian: Time period date

1850-1900

Victorian: Important literature

Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and The Importance of Being Earnest

Victorian: Important authors

Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde

Victorian: Characterization

Realism, here and now, respectability, industrialization, poor working class, facades, and the “story of a young, poor British boy”

Modernism: Time period date

1900-1945

Modernism: Important literature

The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and Of Mice and Men

Modernism: Important authors

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinback, and Franz Kafka

Modernism: Characterization

practical experimentation, empowering humans, bombing of Japan, introspection, finding new ways to examine the world, Includes portions of both world wars, rejection of past, and nihilism (belief that life has no meaning or purpose)

Post-modernism: Time period date

1945-1989

Post-modernism: Important literature

the lion the witch and the wardrobe, catcher in the rye, slaughterhouse five, the crucible, the death of a salesman

Post-modernism: Important authors

C.S. lewis, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, and Arther Miller

Post-modernism: Characterization

Disillusionment with meta-narrative, parody, post WWII, less examination of the world, the world does not offer answers, boundaries are crossed, making fun of things in the past, and no single truth

Post-post-Modernism: Time period date

1989-present

Post-post-modernism: Important literature

Fences……

Post-post-modernism: Important authors

August Wilson…..

Post-post-modernism: Characterization

increased nationalism, “where are we going next?”, increased pride and pushback, increased tension in politics, and increased fear and confusion after 9/11