English Literature Overview

English Literature

Old English (c. 450-1100)

• Anglo-Saxon period
• Influenced by Germanic and Latin languages
• Epic poetry: Beowulf, The Wanderer, The Seafarer
• Caedmon's Hymn: earliest surviving English poem

Middle English (c. 1100-1500)

• Norman Conquest of 1066 introduced French influence
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Arthurian legend
• Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Father of English literature
• Development of alliterative verse and iambic pentameter

Renaissance (c. 1500-1660)

• Revival of classical Greek and Roman influences
• William Shakespeare: plays and sonnets
• Christopher Marlowe: plays and poetry
• John Donne: metaphysical poetry

18th and 19th Centuries

• Neoclassicism: revival of classical forms
• Romanticism: emphasis on emotion, nature, and imagination
• Major authors:
  • Jane Austen: novels of social satire
  • Mary Shelley: Gothic novel Frankenstein
  • William Wordsworth: poet of nature
  • John Keats: sensual and beautiful poetry

20th Century

• Modernism: experimentation with form and style
• Major authors:
  • Virginia Woolf: stream-of-consciousness novels
  • T.S. Eliot: modernist poetry
  • James Joyce: experimental novels
  • George Orwell: dystopian novels

Postcolonial Literature

• Response to colonialism and imperialism
• Major authors:
  • Salman Rushdie: magical realism
  • Toni Morrison: African American experience
  • J.M. Coetzee: South African literature
  • Zadie Smith: contemporary multicultural experience