English Literature Through the Era

English Literature Eras

English Literature Eras

Era Date Range Themes Writing Formula Most Popular Work Most Genuine Work
Classical Ancient times - 5th century CE Heroism, Fate Epic poetry, Rhetorical prose Homer's Iliad Aristotle's Poetics
Old English 450-1066 CE Heroism, Christianity Alliterative verse, Kennings Beowulf The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Middle English 1150-1500 CE Chivalry, Morality Alliterative revival, Rhyme royal Canterbury Tales Piers Plowman
Elizabethan 1558-1603 CE Love, Power Blank verse, Sonnets Shakespeare's plays Spenser's The Faerie Queene
Jacobean 1603-1625 CE Corruption, Revenge Revenge tragedy, City comedy Macbeth The Duchess of Malfi
Late Renaissance 1625-1660 CE Metaphysical, Political Conceits, Satire Paradise Lost George Herbert's poems
Age of Enlightenment 1660-1798 CE Reason, Satire Heroic couplet, Essay Gulliver's Travels Samuel Johnson's Dictionary
Sturm und Drang 1760s-1780s Emotion, Individualism Emotional intensity, Nature imagery Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther Schiller's The Robbers
Gothic 1764-1820s Horror, Romance Atmospheric description, Supernatural elements Frankenstein The Castle of Otranto
Victorian 1837-1901 CE Social issues, Morality Realism, Serial publication Charles Dickens' novels George Eliot's Middlemarch
Transcendentalism 1820s-1860s Nature, Individualism Essays, Poetry Walden Emerson's Nature
Caroline Age 1625-1649 CE Royalism, Metaphysical Cavalier poetry, Masques Milton's Lycidas George Herbert's The Temple
Commonwealth Period 1649-1660 CE Politics, Religion Pamphlets, Allegory Milton's Paradise Lost Andrew Marvell's poems
Neoclassical Period 1660-1798 CE Order, Reason Heroic couplet, Satire Pope's The Rape of the Lock Swift's A Modest Proposal
Restoration 1660-1710 CE Wit, Libertinism Comedy of manners, Heroic drama Dryden's All for Love Pepys' Diary
Augustan Age 1700-1750 CE Satire, Morality Mock-heroic, Essay Pope's Essay on Man Swift's Gulliver's Travels
Age of Sensibility 1750-1798 CE Emotion, Nature Sentimental novel, Graveyard poetry Gray's Elegy Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield
Romantic Period 1798-1837 CE Nature, Imagination Lyrical ballads, Odes Wordsworth's poems Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience
Pre-Raphaelites 1848-1900 CE Medieval revival, Nature Vivid imagery, Symbolism Rossetti's poems Morris' The Earthly Paradise
Aestheticism and Decadence 1870s-1890s Art for art's sake, Hedonism Ornate style, Epigrams Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance
Edwardian Period 1901-1910 CE Social change, Nostalgia Realism, Children's literature Forster's Howards End Wells' Tono-Bungay
Georgian Period 1910-1936 CE Nature, Simplicity Pastoral poetry, War poetry Brooke's poems Edward Thomas' poems
Literature of Absurd 1950s-1960s Meaninglessness, Existentialism Non-sequiturs, Circular plots Beckett's Waiting for Godot Ionesco's The Bald Soprano
Realism 1830s-1900s Social issues, Everyday life Detailed description, Psychological insight Flaubert's Madame Bovary George Eliot's Middlemarch
Lost Generation 1920s Disillusionment, Expatriation Sparse prose, Stream of consciousness Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Post Colonialism 1950s-present Identity, Cultural hybridity Magical realism, Multilingualism Rushdie's Midnight's Children Achebe's Things Fall Apart
Harlem Renaissance 1920s-1930s African American culture, Identity Jazz poetry, Dialect Hughes' poems Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God
Surrealism 1920s-1950s Subconscious, Dreams Automatic writing, Juxtaposition Breton's Nadja Dalí's Hidden Faces
Beat Generation 1950s-1960s Non-conformity, Spirituality Stream of consciousness, Jazz rhythms Ginsberg's Howl Kerouac's On the Road
Magic Realism 1960s-present Fantasy, Reality Blend of real and supernatural García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude Allende's The House of the Spirits
Modernist 1890s-1940s Fragmentation, Alienation Stream of consciousness, Fragmented narrative Joyce's Ulysses Woolf's To the Lighthouse
Post Modernist 1960s-present Metafiction, Irony Pastiche, Unreliable narrator Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler

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