10/04/2023
Literature means written works like books or published writings and English Literature includes literature written in the English language.
English literature is rich and has a long history. So, in a concise form History of English Literature -
1. It starts from the 5th century with works like Beowulf the oldest surviving English poem and continues up to the middle of the twelfth century.
2. Then it comes to the age of Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) known as the Father of English literature. He is considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. It was during his time that the English language became standardized and took on a form that more closely resembles the modern form of the language.
3. Development of the Medieval theatre. The 16th century is most famous for theatre. The most famous writer from that time period was William Shakespeare. He was regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist, who penned over 38 plays and 154 sonnets (sonnet means a poem of fourteen lines). Other popular writers from this period include John Milton, Edmund Spenser and John Dryden.
There are two popular styles of theatre. Read this - Elizabethan era and Jacobean era.
4. 18th century saw the development of the modern novel and the start of fiction work like Robinson Crusoe in 1719 and Gulliver's Travels in 1726. Popular writers from this period include James Thomson (poet), Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Johnson.
5. Last few years of the 18th century and starting few decades of the 19th century consider a romantic age in English literature started by William Wordsworth with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads. It is the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature.
Other popular writers from this period include Robert Burns, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, and Robert Southey.
6. After the end of the Romantic period, Charles Dickens published his first novel, Pickwick Papers in 1836 and the Victorian literature era started. It was in the Victorian era that the novel became the leading literary genre in English. General genres in literature are Comedy, Drama, Epic, Erotic, Romance, Satire, and Tragedy. Victorian novels tend to social issues, science, discovery, Supernatural and fiction.
7. 20th century and Literary modernism in the early years - Modernism of literature work started with writers like Marcel Proust, Joseph Conrad and Franz Kafka.
20th Century: during the World Wars - (Read Postmodern literature)
20th Century-genre literature
8. In the Later decades of the 20th century and starting years of the 21st century - The genre of science fiction began.
