BRITISH LITERATURE STUDYING

Old English Period

• (500-1066)

• Written in Old English

• Epic poetry

• Christianity

• Heroism

  • Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

• NO UNIQUE LITERARY MOVEMENTS

Middle English Period

• (1066-1550)

• Written in Middle English

• Christianity

• Journeys

• Romance and adventure

  • The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory

• NO UNIQUE LITERARY MOVEMENTS

English Renaissance

• (1550-1660)

• Drama

• Focus on human character and emotions

  • Hamlet (and the rest of Shakespeare's works), Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

• NO UNIQUE LITERARY MOVEMENTS

The Enlightenment (Neoclassical Period)

• (1660-1785)

• Classical

• Logic over superstition

• Questioning of authority and satire

  • Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

• NO UNIQUE LITERARY MOVEMENTS

British Romantic Period

• (1785-1837)

• Poetry

• Rejection of Neoclassical ideas

• Nature

• Imagination

• Individuality

  • Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats

• Romanticism: Reacting to the spread of industrialism, artists wrote in favor of nature, individualism, and emotional expression.

Victorian Period

• (1837-1901)

• Rise of novels

• Examination of class systems and daily life

• Moral and practical purpose

• Progressive Movement

  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novels of the Brontë sisters

• NO UNIQUE LITERARY MOVEMENTS