I.

The Classical Period (1200 BCE - 455 CE)

I. HOMERIC or HEROIC PERIOD (1200-800 BCE)
Greek legends were passed along orally, including Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. This is a chaotic
period of warrior-princes, wandering sea-traders, and fierce pirates.
II. CLASSICAL GREEK PERIOD (800-200 BCE)
Greek writers, playwrights, and philosophers
include Gorgias, Aesop, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Euripides, and Sophocles. The fifth century (499-400
BCE) in particular is renowned as The Golden Age of Greece. This was the sophisticated era of the polis,
or individual City-State, and early democracy. Some of the world's finest art, poetry, drama, architecture,
and philosophy originated in Athens.
III. CLASSICAL ROMAN PERIOD (200 BCE-455 CE)
Greece's culture gave way to Roman power when Rome conquered Greece in 146 CE. The Roman
Republic was traditionally founded in 509 BCE, but it was limited in size until later. Playwrights of this
time include Plautus and Terence. After nearly 500 years as a Republic, Rome slid into a dictatorship
under Julius Caesar and finally into a monarchial empire under Caesar Augustus in 27 CE. This later
period is known as the Roman Imperial period. Roman writers include Ovid, Horace, and Virgil.
Roman philosophers include Marcus Aurelius and Lucretius. Roman rhetoricians
include Cicero and Quintilian.
IV. PATRISTIC PERIOD (c. 70 CE-455 CE)
Early Christian writers include Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Saint Cyprian, Saint Ambrose and Saint
Jerome. This is the period when Saint Jerome first compiled the Bible, Christianity spread across Europe,
and the Roman Empire suffered its dying convulsions. In this period, barbarians attacked Rome in 410
CE, and the city finally fell to them completely in 455 CE.
II. The Medieval Period (455 CE-1485 CE)
I. THE OLD ENGLISH (ANGLO-SAXON) PERIOD (428-1066 CE)
The so-called "Dark Ages" (455 CE -799 CE) occured after Rome fell and barbarian tribes moved into
Europe. Franks, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and Goths settled in the ruins of Europe, and the Angles, Saxons,
and Jutes migrated to Britain displacing native Celts into Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Early Old English
poems such as Beowulf, The Wanderer, and The Seafarer originated sometime late in the Anglo-
Saxon period. The Carolingian Renaissance (800- 850 CE) emerged in Europe. In central Europe, texts
include early medieval grammars, encyclopedias, etc. In northern Europe, this time period marks the
setting of Viking sagas.
II. THE MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (c. 1066-1450 CE)
In 1066, Norman French armies invaded and conquered England under William I. This marks the end of
the Anglo-Saxon hierarchy and the emergence of the Twelfth Century Renaissance (c. 1100-1200 CE).
French chivalric romances--such as works by Chretien de Troyes--and French fables--such as the works
of Marie de France and Jeun de Meun--spread in popularity. Abelard and other humanists produced great
scholastic and theological works.
Late or "High" Medieval Period
(c. 1200-1485 CE)
This often tumultuous period is marked by the Middle English writings of Geoffrey Chaucer,
the "Gawain" or "Pearl" Poet, the Wakefield Master, and William Langland. Other writers include Italian
and French authors like Boccaccio, Petrarch, Dante, and Christine de Pisan.
III. The Renaissance and Reformation (1485-1660 CE)
(The Renaissance took place in the late 15th, 16th, and early 17th century in Britain, but somewhat earlier
in Italy and southern Europe and somewhat later in northern Europe.)
I. Early Tudor Period (1485-1558)
The War of the Roses ended in England with Henry Tudor (Henry VII) claiming the throne. Martin
Luther's split with Rome marks the emergence of Protestantism, followed by Henry VIII's Anglican
schism, which created the first Protestant church in England. Edmund Spenser is a sample poet.

II. Elizabethan Period (1558-1603)

Queen Elizabeth saved England from both Spanish invasion and internal squabbles at home. Her reign is
marked by the early works of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, and Sidney.
III. Jacobean Period (1603-1625)
Shakespeare's later work include Aemilia Lanyer, Ben Jonson, and John Donne.
IV. Caroline Age (1625-1649)
John Milton, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, the "Sons of Ben" and others wrote during the reign
of Charles I and his Cavaliers.
V. Commonwealth Period/Puritan Interregnum (1649-1660)
Under Cromwell's Puritan dictatorship, John Milton continued to write, but we also find writers
like Andrew Marvell and Sir Thomas Browne.
IV. The Enlightenment (Neoclassical) Period (1660-1790 CE)
"Neoclassical" refers to the increased influence of Classical literature upon these centuries. The
Neoclassical Period is also called the "Enlightenment" due to the increased reverence for logic and
disdain for superstition. The period is marked by the rise of Deism, intellectual backlash against earlier
Puritanism, and America's revolution against England.
I. Restoration Period (1660-1700)
This period marks the British king's restoration to the throne after a long period of Puritan domination in
England. Its symptoms include the dominance of French and Classical influences on poetry and drama.
Sample writers include John Dryden, John Locke, Sir William Temple, and Samuel Pepys, and Aphra
Behn in England. Abroad, representative authors include Jean Racine and Molière.

II. The Augustan Age (1700-1750)

This period is marked by the imitation of Virgil and Horace's literature in English letters. The principal
English writers include Addison, Steele, Swift, and Alexander Pope. Abroad, Voltaire was the dominant
French writer.

III. The Age of Johnson

(1750-1790)
This period marks the transition toward the upcoming Romanticism though the period is still largely
Neoclassical. Major writers include Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, and Edward Gibbon who represent the
Neoclassical tendencies, while writers like Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, Cowper, and Crabbe show
movement away from the Neoclassical ideal. In America, this period is called the Colonial Period. It
includes colonial and revolutionary writers like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine.
V. The Romantic Period (1790-1830 CE)
Romantic poets wrote about nature, imagination, and individuality in England.
Some Romantics include Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley in Britain and Johann von Goethe in
Germany. Jane Austen also wrote at this time, though she is typically not categorized with the male
Romantic poets. In America, this period is mirrored in the Transcendental Period from about 1830-
1850. Transcendentalists include Emerson and Thoreau.

Gothic writings (c. 1790-1890) overlap with the Romantic and Victorian periods. Writers of Gothic
novels (the precursor to horror novels) include Radcliffe, "Monk" Lewis, and Victorians like Bram
Stoker in Britain. In America, Gothic writers include Poe and Hawthorne.
VI. The Victorian Period and the 19th Century (1832-1901 CE)
Writings from the period of Queen Victoria's reign include sentimental novels. British writers
include Elizabeth Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Charles
Dickens, and the Brontë sisters. Pre-Raphaelites, like the Rossetti siblings and William Morris, idealize
and long for the morality of the medieval world.
The end of the Victorian Period is marked by the intellectual movements of Aestheticism and
"the Decadence" in the writings of Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. In America, Naturalist
writers like Stephen Crane flourished, as did early free verse poets like Walt Whitman and Emily
Dickinson.

VII. The Modern Period (1914-1945 CE)

In Britain, modernist writers include W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, W. H.
Auden, Virginia Woolf, and Wilfred Owen. In America, the modernist period includes Robert
Frost and Flannery O'Connor as well as the famous writers of The Lost Generation (also called the
writers of The Jazz Age, 1914-1929) such as Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner.
The Harlem Renaissance marks the rise of black writers such as Baldwin and Ellison. Realism is the
dominant fashion, but the disillusionment with the World Wars lead to new experimentation.
VIII. The Postmodern Period (1945 - onward)
T. S. Eliot, Morrison, Shaw, Beckett, Stoppard, Fowles, Calvino, Ginsberg, Pynchon, and other modern
writers, poets, and playwrights experimented with metafiction and fragmented
poetry. Multiculturalism led to an increasing canonization of non-Caucasian writers such as Langston
Hughes, Sandra Cisneros, and Zora Neal Hurston.
Magic Realists such as Gabriel García Márquez, Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Günter Grass,
and Salman Rushdie flourished with surrealistic writings embroidered in the conventions of realism.
Overview of Literary Movements - a way to divide literature into categories of similar
philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period.

 Metaphysical
The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17 th-
century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater
emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse. Given the lack of coherence as a
movement, and the diversity of style among poets, it has been suggested that calling them Baroque poets
after their era might be more useful.
 Symbolists
The Symbolist Movement in Literature, first published in 1899, and with additional material in 1919, is a
work by Arthur Symons largely credited with bringing French Symbolism to the attention of Anglo-
American literary circles. Its first two editions were vital influences on W. B. Yeats and T. S.
Symbolists focused on dreams, imagination and spirituality. There was a premium placed on mysticism
and mythology in their works.
 Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance brought along a new creative energy for African American literature. This
literary cultural movement was to reject the traditional American standards of writing and discover and
utilize their own style of writing to signify their cultural identity. Writing luminaries of the Harlem
Renaissance include Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Zora
Neale Hurston, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, and Arna Bontemps.
 The Beats
The Beat movement was America’s first major Cold War literary movement. Originally a small circle of
unpublished friends, it later became one of the most significant sources of contemporary counterculture,
and the most successful free speech movement in American literature. Jack Kerouac is considered as
father of beats generation, one of his major work is “On The Road”(1957). The freewheeling, wild, and
spontaneous style was shocking and revolutionary to many critics in 1957, and opinion over the book was
sharply divided between praise and scorn. Today, Kerouac’s novel is considered a classic of American
fiction and the defining novel of the Beats.
 Confessional
Confessional Poetry was a literary movement born in the late 1950s that honestly and directly spoke
about the poet’s own life experiences, often remarking on the psychological battles they have faced.
Some prominent confessional poets include Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, and Anne Sexton. W.B
Snodgrass is also widely regarded as the ‘father’ of confessional poetry.
 New York School
The New York School refers to an American group of poets and artists, part of the post-modernism
literary movement, who lived in New York City and produced work during the 1950s and 1960s. Post-
modernism: a literary movement that arose in the mid-20th century as a reaction to the limitations of
modernist thought. New York School was focused on everyday events and topics, featuring references to
popular culture, conversational language, and humour. The central figure of the New York School poetry
movement is Frank O’Hara. Other notable poets include John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch,
and James Schuyler.
 Black Arts Movement
The Black Arts Movement started in 1965 when poet Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones] established the Black
Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem, New York, as a place for artistic expression. Artists associated with
this movement include Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, James Baldwin, Gil Scott-Heron, and Thelonious
Monk. The Black Arts Movement was politically militant; Baraka described its goal as “to create an art, a
literature that would fight for black people’s liberation with as much intensity as Malcolm X our ‘Fire
Prophet’ and the rest of the enraged masses who took to the streets.” Drawing on chants, slogans, and
rituals of calls and response.
Evaluation
Direction: Encircle the letter of the correct answer.
1. Which literary movement emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as a reaction against the
Industrial Revolution and emphasized emotion, nature, and individualism?
A) Romanticism B) Realism
C) Naturalism D) Classicism
2. Which literary period is characterized by its focus on reason, logic, and the principles of classical art
and literature?
A) Romanticism B) Realism
C) Enlightenment D) Gothic
3. Which literary movement, prominent in the 1920s and 1930s, reflected the disillusionment and loss of
faith in traditional values after World War I?
A) Modernism B) Postmodernism
C) Realism D) Romanticism
4. What is the significance of the term "classical" in classical literature?
a) It refers to works that are outdated and irrelevant.
b) It denotes works that adhere to traditional forms and values.
c) It signifies works that are experimental and avant-garde.
d) It represents works that are exclusively written in Latin.
5. The classical period in literature is often said to have begun with the works of:
a) Dante Alighieri b) Geoffrey Chaucer c) William Shakespeare d) Homer
6. Which ancient civilization's literature heavily influenced the classical period?
a) Mesopotamian b) Egyptian c) Greek d) Chinese
7. What language were many medieval literary works originally written in?
a) Latin b) French c) Old English d) All of the above
8. Which epic poem, written in Old English, is one of the most famous works of literature from the
medieval period?
a) Beowulf b) The Canterbury Tales
c) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight d) The Divine Comedy
9. The medieval period is also known as the:
a) Dark Ages b) Enlightenment
c) Renaissance d) Victorian Era
10. The Renaissance period saw the widespread use of which form of literature that combines prose and
poetry?
a) Epic b) Ballad
c) Romance d) Pastoral
11. The Reformation period in literature was heavily influenced by which major historical movement?
a) The Enlightenment b) The Renaissance
c) The Industrial Revolution d) The Counter-Reformation
12. The Reformation period saw the rise of which literary form, often used to convey religious teachings
and moral lessons to the masses?
a) Epic poetry b) Allegorical drama
c) Pastoral literature d) Satirical prose
13. The Enlightenment period witnessed a shift in literary patronage, with writers increasingly seeking
support from:
a) The church b) Monarchs and aristocrats
c) Universities d) The emerging middle class
14. Which poet is often considered one of the central figures of the Romantic movement, known for his
lyrical exploration of nature and the supernatural?
a) John Keats b) William Wordsworth
c) Lord Byron d) Percy Bysshe Shelley
15. The Victorian period in literature is named after which monarch's reign?
a) King George III b) Queen Victoria
c) King Edward VII d) Queen Elizabeth II

Application
Direction: Write a critical analysis paper of an author from a definite 8literary periods or movements.

Criteria:

Content - 20 points
Structure - 20 points
Writing/Language - 10 points
Total - 50 points