Old English Literature (450-1066)

Old English Literature (c. 450–1066)

• Old English literature, also known as Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses works written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England.
• This period lasted from approximately 450 CE, after the Roman withdrawal, until shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1066.
• Surviving works include epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal texts, chronicles and riddles.
• Approximately 400 surviving manuscripts exist from this period.
• Beowulf, set in Scandinavia, is the most renowned work. Despite its Scandinavian setting, it became a national epic in England. The sole surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex, with debated dating close to the year 1000. Its composition is believed to have occurred between the 8th and early 11th centuries.
• Other notable works include Widsith (likely dating to the late 6th or early 7th century, listing kings) and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (9th century annals).

Middle English Literature (1066–1500)

• The Norman Conquest (1066) led to the decline of Old English as a written language, with French gaining prominence in court and society.
• The gradual transition from Old English to Middle English occurred up to the 12th century.
• Literature during this period was written in many dialects, reflecting the regionality of authors.
• Religious works continued to be popular, and hagiographies were adapted/translated (e.g., The Life of Saint Audrey).
• Key figures include Geoffrey Chaucer (author of The Canterbury Tales), who helped legitimize Middle English. Chaucer's work is in verse and prose tales told by pilgrims travelling to Canterbury Cathedral.
• The earliest surviving example by a woman is Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1393).
• Important works include Piers Plowman by William Langland (c. 1360–87), an allegorical narrative in unrhymed alliterative verse.
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a late 14th-century alliterative romance, is another significant work.

English Renaissance (1500–1660)

• The English Renaissance, part of a wider Northern Renaissance, was a cultural movement in England from the late 15th to the 17th centuries.
• It emerged later than the Italian Renaissance's beginnings in the 14th century.
• Major figures include William Shakespeare, widely considered the greatest writer in the English language and one of the world's greatest dramatists.
• His plays span various genres, including histories, tragedies, comedies, and late romances (tragicomedies).
• Shakespeare's works have been translated into numerous languages and performed more often than those of any other playwright.
• Other prominent figures include Edmund Spenser (with The Faerie Queene), Sir Philip Sidney, Thomas Wyatt, and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
• Thomas Campion's musical poetry also gained popularity.
• John Donne is also important in Elizabethan poetry, and his work influenced the succeeding Metaphysical poets.

Restoration Age (1660–1700)

• Paradise Lost, by John Milton, is notable for its religious epic theme, published in 1667.
• John Dryden, a major figure in Restoration literature, established and perfected the heroic couplet for English poetry.
• The Restoration saw the emergence of the novel and journalism. Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (1688) is notable for its influence and significance.
• John Locke's Two Treatises on Government became influential later.
• Restoration comedies, with focus on sexual intrigue and conquest in aristocrats, and more middle-class comedies later, emerged.
• Works by William Wycherley, George Etherege, and William Congreve were common.

18th Century

• 18th-century literature reflected the Age of Enlightenment, emphasizing reason and scientific approaches to issues.
• Key figures include Alexander Pope, known for satiric verses like The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad, and translations of Homer.
• Significant works also emerged in drama, including plays by John Vanbrugh and William Congreve.
• The emergence of the periodical essay, with notable writers like Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.
• The English novel began developing, with important figures like Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), and Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels).
• Samuel Johnson's *Dictionary of the English Language, also from this period, was highly influential.
• The Romantic movement emerged as a reaction against the Enlightenment's rationalism.

Romanticism (1798–1837)

• Romanticism emphasized emotion, individualism, and the beauty of nature, reacting against the Enlightenment's reason.
• Key figures include William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats.
• The Lake Poets are especially important.
• Lyrical Ballads, with contributions by Wordsworth and Coleridge, is seen as a manifesto for the movement.

Victorian Literature (1837–1901)

• The Victorian era saw the novel become the dominant genre.
• Key figures include Charles Dickens, known for social satire; and other significant writers, such as William Makepeace Thackeray, the Brontë sisters (Emily, Charlotte, and Anne), Elizabeth Gaskell, and Anthony Trollope.
• Writers of this period explored social and economic issues related to industrialization.
• Important sage-writers critiqued societal issues (e.g., Thomas Carlyle).
• Other notable writers, poets and commentators include John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold.
• Major poets of this era include Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
• The emergence of the dramatic monologue in poetry is prominent.

20th Century

• Modernism emerged as a reaction against Victorian values, drawing on new ideas/philosophies.
• Notable 20th-century modernists included Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and D.H. Lawrence, famous figures during this period often pushing against convention.

21st Century

• This period's literature is less fully explored in the provided text.