RIO C.

PORTO
LITERARY PERIODS

450-1066: Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) Period

This age started in the fifth century when the jutes, Angles and Saxon came to
England from Germany, defeated the English tribes and started their reign. It
ended in 1066 with the Norman Conquest. The historical events which the
Norman Conquest. The historical events which influenced the literature of this
period were:
 Christianity reach England and Christianization of the pagan English tribes
began. In the 7th century monasteries were established where a written
literature began. Earlier to this whatever existed as literature was oral.
Alfred the Great who reigned over England from 871 to 901 encouraged
education and supervised the compilation of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.
 Literary Works of this Period: Beowulf, the earliest epic of English literature,
was written in this period ”The Seafarer”, The Husband’s , The Wanderer”,
Message”, “ The Wife’s Lament” are among the remarkable poems of the
age. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written in this age is the earliest prose of
English literature.
 Literary Features of the Age: Most of the writers of this age are unknown
except Caedmon who is held to be the first known poet of English and
Bede, the first historian. Though Christianity is traceable, paganism
dominates the literary spirit of the time. Heroic deeds, love of sea
adventure, intense love of glory and savagery are the main features of the
literature of this period.
1066-1204 Decline of English

 French (Norman) invasion (1066), William, Duke of Normandy's conquest

and unification of England, crowned king of England as William I, the
Conqueror. 1066-1087); Normans were descendants of Danes living in
northern France and spoke a French influenced by Scandinavian; death of
many Anglo-Saxon nobles

 French became the dominant language in England, spoken by the upper

classes from 1066 until late in the 14th century. English language was
relegated to the lower classes and was heavily influenced by French in
matters of vocabulary, prosody, and spelling

 Frenchmen in all high offices; kings of England spoke French, took French
wives and lived mostly in France; French-speaking court; imposition of
feudal system, vassalage, peasants bound to the land

 Henry II (House of Plantagenet, Angevine) (r. 1154-1189), married to

Eleanor of Aquitaine; Henry II and Eleanor were the parents of Richard I,
the Lion heart (r. 1189-1199) and John Lackland

 lack of prestige of English; French was the language of the court; Latin
was the written language of the Church and secular documents;
Scandinavian still spoken in the Dane law;
Celtic languages prevailed in Wales and Scotland

 development of bilingualism among Norman officials, supervisors;

some marriages of French and English; some bilingual children

 examples of words of French origin: tax, estate, trouble, duty, pay, table,
boil, serve, roast, dine, religion, savior; pray, trinity
very little written English from this period; the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle continued to be written until 1154
 King John (John Lackland) (r. 1199-1216); loss of Normandy in 1204;
beginnings of the
political and cultural separation between England and France

 many Norman landholders chose to stay in England, spoke Anglo-French

dialect

 Henry III (r. 1216-1272), son of John; francophilia of Henry III, many
Frenchmen given official positions

 eventual decline of French cultural dominance in England

 rise in use of English, smoothing out of dialectal differences, beginning of

standard English based on London dialect; crusades and pilgrimages
contributed to increase in communication and formation of common
language.

 French remained official language of England until second half of 14th

c.; by mid to late 14th c. English was normal medium of instruction; in
1362 English became official language of legal proceedings; everyone
in England spoke English by end of 14th c., displacing French, Norse,
and Celtic languages

 increase in English writing, more common in legal documents than

French or Latin by 15th c.

 emergence of London/East Midland dialect as standard spoken and

written language; dominance of London as commercial center,
seaport, proximity to Westminster court

 Edward III (Windsor) (r. 1327-1377); his claim to French throne led to
Hundred Years' War (1337-1453); eventual French victory; England lost
 all of its continental holdings; English hostility to French language
and culture
 Black Death 1348-1351, death of one third of English population, social
chaos, labor shortages, emancipation of peasants, wage increases, rise
in prestige of English as language of working classes

 War of the Roses (1455-1485), House of York (white rose) vs. House of
Lancaster (red rose)

 printers' activity (William Caxton 1474), increased literacy

 Henry VII (House of Lancaster) (r. 1485-1509) marries

Elizabeth of York (daughter of Edward IV), fathers Henry
VIII, and begins Tudor dynasty

 1509 begins reign of Henry VIII; end of Middle English

Period, beginning of English Renaissance and Early
Modern English Period

The Renaissance Period: 1550–1660

In a tradition of literature remarkable for its exacting and brilliant achievements,

the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods have been said to represent the most
brilliant century of all. (The reign of Elizabeth Ibegan in 1558 and ended with her
death in 1603; she was succeeded by the Stuart king James VI of Scotland, who
took the title James I of England as well. English literature of his reign as James I,
from 1603 to 1625, is properly called Jacobean.) These years produced a gallery of
authors of genius, some of whom have never been surpassed, and conferred on
scores of lesser talents the enviable ability to write with fluency, imagination, and
verve. From one point of view, this sudden renaissance looks radiant, confident,
heroic—and belated, but all the more dazzling for its belatedness. Yet, from
another point of view, this was a time of unusually traumatic strain, in which
English society underwent massive disruptions that transformed it on every front
and decisively affected the life of every individual. In the brief, intense moment in
which England assimilated the European Renaissance, the circumstances that
made the assimilation possible were already disintegrating and calling into
question the newly won certainties, as well as the older truths that they were
dislodging. This doubleness, of new possibilities and new doubts simultaneously
apprehended, gives the literature its unrivaled intensity.

 Social conditions

In this period England’s population doubled; prices rocketed, rents followed, old
social loyalties dissolved, and new industrial, agricultural, and commercial veins
were first tapped. Real wages hit an all-time low in the 1620s, and social relations
were plunged into a state of fluidity from which the merchant and the ambitious
lesser gentleman profited at the expense of the aristocrat and the labourer, as
satires and comedies current from the 1590s complain. Behind the Elizabethan
vogue for pastoral poetry lies the fact of the prosperity of the enclosing sheep
farmer, who sought to increase pasture at the expense of the peasantry.
Tudor platitudes about order and degree could neither combat nor survive the
challenge posed to rank by these arrivistes. The position of the crown, politically
dominant yet financially insecure, had always been potentially unstable, and,
when Charles I lost the confidence of his greater subjects in the 1640s, his
authority crumbled. Meanwhile, the huge body of poor fell ever further behind
the rich; the pamphlets of Thomas Harman (1566) and Robert Greene (1591–92),
as well as Shakespeare’s King Lear (1605–06), provide glimpses of a horrific world
of vagabondage and crime, the Elizabethans’ biggest, unsolvable social problem

 Intellectual and religious revolution

The barely disguised social ferment was accompanied by an intellectual

revolution, as the medieval synthesis collapsed before the new science, new
religion, and new humanism. While modern mechanical technologies were
pressed into service by the Stuarts to create the scenic wonders of the
court masque, the discoveries of astronomers and explorers were redrawing the
cosmos in a way that was profoundly disturbing

 The race for cultural development

The third complicating factor was the race to catch up with Continental
developments in arts and philosophy. The Tudors needed to create a class of
educated diplomats, statesmen, and officials and to dignify their court by making
it a fount of cultural as well as political patronage. The new learning,
widely disseminated through the Erasmian (after the humanist Desiderius
Erasmus) educational programs of such men as John Colet and Sir Thomas Elyot,
proposed to use a systematic schooling in Latin authors and some Greek to
encourage in the social elites a flexibility of mind and civilized serviceableness
that would allow enlightened princely government to walk hand in hand with
responsible scholarship. Humanism fostered an intimate familiarity with the
classics that was a powerful incentive for the creation of an English literature of
answerable dignity. It fostered as well a practical, secular piety that left its
impress everywhere on Elizabethan writing. Humanism’s effect, however, was
modified by the simultaneous impact of the flourishing Continental cultures,
particularly the Italian. Repeatedly, crucial innovations in English letters
developed resources originating from Italy—such as the sonnet of Petrarch,
the epic of Ludovico Ariosto, the pastoral of Jacopo Sannazzaro, the canzone, and
blank verse—and values imported with these forms were in competition with the
humanists’ ethical preoccupations. Social ideals of wit, many-sidedness,
and sprezzatura (accomplishment mixed with unaffectedness) were imbibed
from Baldassare Castiglione’s Il cortegiano, translated as The Courtyer by Sir
Thomas Hoby in 1561, and Elizabethan court poetry is steeped in Castiglione’s
aristocratic Neoplatonism, his notions of universal proportion, and the love of
beauty as the path to virtue. Equally significant was the welcome afforded
to Niccolò Machiavelli, whose lessons were vilified publicly and absorbed in
private. The Prince, written in 1513, was unavailable in English until 1640, but as
early as the 1580s Gabriel Harvey, a friend of the poet Edmund Spenser, can be
found enthusiastically hailing its author as the apostle of modern pragmatism.
“We are much beholden to Machiavel and others,” said Francis Bacon, “that write
what men do, and not what they ought to do.”
So the literary revival occurred in a society rife with tensions, uncertainties, and
competing versions of order and authority, religion and status, sex and the self.
The Elizabethan settlement was a compromise; the Tudor pretense that the
people of England were unified in belief disguised the actual fragmentation of the
old consensusunder the strain of change. The new scientific knowledge proved
both man’s littleness and his power to command nature; against the Calvinist idea
of man’s helplessness pulled the humanist faith in his dignity, especially
that conviction, derived from the reading of Seneca and so characteristic of the
period, of man’s constancy and fortitude, his heroic capacity for self-
determination. It was still possible for Elizabeth to hold these divergent
tendencies together in a single, heterogeneous culture, but under her successors
they would eventually fly apart. The philosophers speaking for the new century
would be Francis Bacon, who argued for the gradual advancement of science
through patient accumulation of experiments, and the skeptic Michel de
Montaigne (his Essays translated from the French by John Florio [1603]), who
denied that it was possible to formulate any general principles of knowledge.

Cutting across all of these was the persistence of popular habits of thought and
expression. Both humanism and Puritanism set themselves against vulgar
ignorance and folk tradition, but, fortunately, neither could remain aloof for long
from the robustness of popular taste. Sir Philip Sidney, in England’s first
Neoclassical literary treatise, The Defence of Poesie (written c. 1578–83, published
1595), candidly admitted that “the old song [i.e., ballad] of Percy and Douglas”
would move his heart “more than with a trumpet,” and his Arcadia (final version
published in 1593) is a representative instance of the fruitful cross-fertilization
of genres in this period—the contamination of aristocratic pastoral with popular
tale, the lyric with the ballad, comedy with romance, tragedy with satire, and
poetry with prose. The language, too, was undergoing a rapid expansion that all
classes contributed to and benefited from, sophisticated literature borrowing
without shame the idioms of colloquial speech. An allusion in
Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606–07) to heaven peeping “through the blanket of the
dark” would become a “problem” only later, when, for instance, Samuel
Johnson complained in 1751 that such words provoked laughter rather than awe.
Johnson’s was an age when tragic dignity implied politeness, when it was below
the dignity of tragedy to mention so lowly an object as a blanket. But the
Elizabethans’ ability to address themselves to several audiences simultaneously
and to bring into relation opposed experiences, emphases, and worldviews
invested their writing with complexity and power.
Elizabethan Period

The Elizabethan Period was the age of the Renaissance, of new ideas and new
thinking. The introduction of the printing press during the Renaissance, one of
the greatest tools in increasing knowledge and learning, was responsible for the
interest in the different sciences and inventions - and the supernatural

The new ideas, information and increased knowledge about science, technology
and astrology led to a renewed interest in the supernatural including witches,
witchcraft and ghosts which led to belief in superstitions and the supernatural.
Facts about all of these subjects are included in this Elizabethan Period section,
the content of each has been summarised on this page.
Witchcraft and Witches in the period
During the Renaissance period people blamed unexplainable events as the work
of witches. Women were those most often accused of being witches
The hysteria and paranoia regarding witches which was experienced in Europe did
not fully extend to England during this turbulent period. However, Queen
Elizabeth I passed a new and harsher witchcraft Law in 1562 leading to witch
hunts and the prosecution of witches. Facts, Witchcraft Timeline and information
about Witchcraft and Witches in the Renaissance Period.
Superstitions in the Elizabethan Period
Fear of the supernatural and forces of nature or God resulted in the belief of
superstitions during the Elizabethan period.
Renaissance Superstitions included those related to Witches Sneezing, Eclipse and
the 7th son, of a seventh son, Peacock Feathers, Shoes, Spilling Salt and Pepper,
Touching wood, Ladders and Black cats. Find out about the strange superstitions
of the period, and compare them to the beliefs we have in the modern age. Facts
and information about Superstitions during the Elizabethan Period.

 Astrology in the Renaissance Period

Astrology - the study of the positions and aspects of celestial bodies in the belief
that they have an influence on the course of natural earthly occurrences and
human affairs and events. The greatest Astrologers including John Dee. Astrology
in the period had culminated in the Renaissance fusion of Christianity, Hermetic
Philosophy and its associated 'sciences' of magic, astrology and alchemy. Facts
and information about Astrology during the Elizabethan Period
Science and Technology in the Elizabethan Period
Interesting Facts and information about Renaissance Science and Scientists, the
Scientific Renaissance, Copernicus and the Copernican Theory, Galileo, Kepler,
Versalius and Harvey. The Scientific Method. Facts and information about Science
and Technology during the Elizabethan Period.
 Elizabethan Period Money and Currency

Interesting facts and information about the Money and Currency used during the
Elizabethan period. Money and Currency in the Period. Elizabethan Money and
Currency 1558 - 1603. History of Coinage - Fineness. The History of the Penny.
Units of Currency & Value of Money. Elizabethan Money and Currency - Wages
Elizabethan Money and Currency Equivalent to modern day money.
Inventions in the Elizabethan Period
Renaissance & Elizabethan Inventions and Inventors Timeline. Inventions and
Inventors of the Renaissance period. Telescope, Pocket Watch, Bottle Beer. Flush
Toilet. Thermometer and even the Frozen Chicken. Leonardo da Vinci ,Galileo and
Sir John Harrington. Facts and information about Inventions in the Elizabethan
Period.
 Elizabethan Ghosts in the Elizabethan Period

Interesting Facts and information about Elizabethan Ghosts and hauntings during
the Elizabethan Period. Ghosts encountered by Elizabethans. The sories about
different ghosts including those of Sir Walter Raleigh and the tragic Lady Jane
Grey. Famous haunted English and Welsh Castles. Descriptions of Ghosts. Facts
and information about ghosts and their hauntings during the Elizabethan Period.

Jacobean Era
The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that
coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland (1567–1625), who also inherited
the crown of England in 1603 as James I.[1] The Jacobean era succeeds
the Elizabethan era and precedes the Caroline era, and is often used for the
distinctive styles of Jacobean architecture, visual arts, decorative arts,
and literature which characterized that period.

 James as king of England

The practical if not formal unification of England and Scotland under one ruler
was an important shift of order for both nations, and would shape their existence
to the present day. Another development of crucial significance was the
foundation of the first British colonies on the North American continent,
at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, in Newfoundland in 1610, and at Plymouth
Colony in Massachusetts in 1620, which laid the foundation for future British
settlement and the eventual formation of both Canada and the United States of
America. In 1609 the Parliament of Scotland began the Plantation of Ulster.
A notable event of James' reign occurred on 5 November 1605. On that date, a
group of English Catholics (including Guy Fawkes) attempted to assassinate the
King and destroy Parliament in the Palace of Westminster. However,
the Gunpowder Plot was exposed and prevented, and the convicted plotters
were hanged, drawn, and quartered.
Historians have long debated the curious characteristics of the king's ruling style.
Croft says:
The pragmatism of 'little by little' was coming to characterise his style of
governance. At the same time, the curious combination of ability and
complacency, idleness and shrewd judgement, warm emotions and lack of
discretion so well described by Fontenay remained typical of James
throughout his life

 High Culture

Literature
In literature, some of Shakespeare's most prominent plays, including King
Lear (1605), Macbeth (1606), and The Tempest (1610), were written during the
reign of James I. Patronage came not just from James, but from James' wife Anne
of Denmark. Also during this period were powerful works by John
Webster, Thomas Middleton, John Ford and Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson also
contributed to some of the era's best poetry, together with the Cavalier
poets and John Donne. In prose, the most representative works are found in
those of Francis Bacon and the King James Bible.
In 1617 George Chapman completed his monumental translation
of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into English verse, which were the first ever
complete translations of either poem, both central to the Western Canon, into
the English language. The wildly popular tale of the Trojan War had until then
been available to readers of English only in Medieval epic retellings such
as Caxton's Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.
Jonson was also an important innovator in the specialised literary subgenre of
the masque, which went through an intense development in the Jacobean era. His
name is linked with that of Inigo Jones as co-developers of the literary and
visual/technical aspects of this hybrid art. (For Jonson's masques, see: The
Masque of Blackness, The Masque of Queens,etc.) The high costs of these
spectacles, however, positioned the Stuarts far from the relative frugality of
Elizabeth's reign, and alienated the middle classes and the Puritans with a
prospect of waste and self-indulgent excess

 Science

Francis Bacon had a strong influence in the evolution of modern science, which
was entering a key phase in this era, as the work of Johannes Kepler in Germany
and Galileo Galileiin Italy brought the Copernican revolution to a new level of
development. Bacon laid a foundation, and was a powerful and persuasive
advocate, for objective inquiry about the natural world in place of
the Medieval scholastic authoritarianism that still influenced the culture of British
society in his lifetime. On practical rather than general levels, much work was
being done in the areas of navigation, cartography, and surveying—John
Widdowes' A Description of the World (1621) being one significant volume in this
area—as well as in continuing William Gilbert's work on magnetism from the
previous reign. Scholarship and the sciences, or "natural philosophy", had
important royal patrons in this era—not so much in the King but in his son, Henry
Frederick, Prince of Wales, and even his wife, Anne of Denmark (the Danish Court,
from which she derived, had a strong patronage tradition in intellectual matters).
Caroline Era
The Caroline or Carolean era refers to the era in English and Scottish history
during the Stuart period (1603–1714) that coincided with the reign of Charles
I (1625–1642), Carolus being Latin for Charles.[1] The Caroline era followed
the Jacobean era, the reign of Charles's father James I (1603–1625); it was
followed by the English Civil War (1642–1651) and the English
Interregnum (1651–1660).

 Highlights in this Era

The Caroline era was dominated by the growing religious, political, and social
conflict between the King and his supporters, termed the Royalist party, and
the Puritan opposition that evolved in response to particular aspects of Charles's
rule. Aside from the bloody conflict of the Thirty Years' War then raging in
continental Europe, the Caroline period in Britain was one of an uneasy peace,
growing darker as the civil conflict between King and Puritans worsened toward
the latter part of Charles's reign.
This conflict between King and Parliament dominated society to such a degree
that other developments have seemed mere continuations of previous
innovations. Some of those continuations, however, were of major significance
for the future. English efforts at the colonization of North America continued
throughout Charles's reign, with the foundation of new colonies
in Carolina (1629), Maryland (1634), Connecticut (1635), and Rhode Island (1636)
standing as important steps in the process. Development of previously-
established colonies in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Newfoundland also
continued. (In Massachusetts, the Pequot War of 1637 was the first major armed
conflict between New England settlers and a Native American people.)

 Literature

In literature, and especially in drama, the Caroline period has often been regarded
as a diminished continuation of the trends of the previous two reigns. Caroline
theatre unquestionably saw a falling-off after the peak achievements of William
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, though some of their successors, especially Philip
Massinger, James Shirley, and John Ford, carried on to create interesting, even
compelling theatre. In recent years the comedies of Richard Brome have gained in
critical appreciation.
In poetry, however, the Caroline period saw the flourishing of the Cavalier
poets (including Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling) and
the Metaphysical poets (George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Katherine Philips and
others), movements that produced powerful figures like John Donne, as well as
lyrically satisfying artists like Robert Herrick. If the Elizabethan era was the golden
age of English drama, the Caroline age was nearly as rich in the realm of non-
dramatic poetry, bringing as it did the beginnings of the career of John Milton, in
addition to the poets of the movements already mentioned.
(In the specialized domain of literary criticism and theory, Henry
Reynolds's Mythomystes was published in 1632, in which the author attempts a
systematic application of Neoplatonism to poetry. The result has been
characterized as "a tropical forest of strange fancies" and "perversities of
taste.")[2]

Commonwealth of England

The Commonwealth was the period from 1649 to 1660 when England and Wales,
later along with Ireland and Scotland,[1] were ruled as a republic following the end
of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I. The
republic's existence was declared through "An Act declaring England to be a
Commonwealth",[2] adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. Power in
the early Commonwealth was vested primarily in the Parliament and a Council of
State. During the period, fighting continued, particularly in Ireland and Scotland,
between the parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, as part of what is
now referred to as the Third English Civil War.
In 1653, after the forcible dissolution of the Rump Parliament, the Army
Council adopted the Instrument of Government which made Oliver Cromwell Lord
Protector of a united "Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland",
inaugurating the period now usually known as the Protectorate. After Cromwell's
death, and following a brief period of rule under his son, Richard Cromwell,
the Protectorate Parliament was dissolved in 1659 and the Rump Parliament
recalled, the start of a process that led to the restoration of the monarchy in
1660. The term Commonwealth is sometimes used for the whole of 1649 to 1660
– a period referred to by monarchists as the Interregnum – although for other
historians, the use of the term is limited to the years prior to Cromwell's formal
assumption of power in 1653.

 Rump Parliament

The Rump was created by Pride's Purge of those members of the Long
Parliament who did not support the political position of the Grandees in the New
Model Army. Just before and after the execution of King Charles I on 30 January
1649, the Rump passed a number of acts of Parliament creating the legal basis for
the republic. With the abolition of the monarchy, Privy Council and the House of
Lords, it had unchecked executive and legislative power. The English Council of
State, which replaced the Privy Council, took over many of the executive functions
of the monarchy. It was selected by the Rump, and most of its members were
MPs. However, the Rump depended on the support of the Army with which it had
a very uneasy relationship. After the execution of Charles I, the House of
Commons abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords. It declared the people
of England "and of all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging" to be
henceforth under the governance of a "Commonwealth",[3] effectively a republic.

Barebone's Parliament, July–December 1653

A gold Unite from 1653

The dissolution of the Rump was followed by a short period in which Cromwell and
the Army ruled alone. Nobody had the constitutional authority to call an election,
but Cromwell did not want to impose a military dictatorship. Instead, he ruled
through a 'nominated assembly' which he believed would be easy for the Army to
control since Army officers did the nominating.
Barebone's Parliament was opposed by former Rumpers and ridiculed by many
gentries as being an assembly of 'inferior' people. However, over 110 of its 140
members were lesser gentry or of higher social status. (An exception was Praise-
God Barebone, a Baptist merchant after whom the Assembly got its derogatory
nickname.) Many were well educated.
The assembly reflected the range of views of the officers who nominated it. The
Radicals (approximately 40) included a hard core of Fifth Monarchists who wanted
to be rid of Common Law and any state control of religion. The Moderates
(approximately 60) wanted some improvements within the existing system and
might move to either the radical or conservative side depending on the issue. The
Conservatives (approximately 40) wanted to keep the status quo (since Common
Law protected the interests of the gentry, and tithes and advowsons were valuable
property).
Cromwell saw Barebone's Parliament as a temporary legislative body which he
hoped would produce reforms and develop a constitution for the Commonwealth.
However, members were divided over key issues, only 25 had previous
parliamentary experience, and although many had some legal training, there were
no qualified lawyers.
Cromwell seems to have expected this group of 'amateurs' to produce reform
without management or direction. When the radicals mustered enough support to
defeat a bill which would have preserved the status quo in religion, the
conservatives, together with many moderates, surrendered their authority back to
Cromwell who sent soldiers to clear the rest of the Assembly. Barebone's
Parliament was over.

Neoclassical Period (1660 - 1785)

The neoclassical period was an institution of poets where the light of

knowledge acquisition with discipline and respect was given an
overwhelming importance. With neoclassic poetry, the subjects had the
elements nature as its background. The restoration period marked an influx
of theater where William Wycherley and George Etherege developed a
genre of Comedy of manners. The Country Wife, William Wycherley's play
centered around the nuances of bawdy language and semi-aristocratic flavor
that delivered the eccentricities of characters with their names suggesting
their counter characters, thus the play is allegorical with a completeness of
its own. The Augustus age novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe and Lady
Mary Wortley wrote poems of wit, candor and conviction.

 Neoclassical Era
Understanding the Neoclassical era helps us better understand its literature. This
was a time of comfortableness in England. People would meet at coffee houses to
chat about politics, among other topics, and sometimes drink a new, warm
beverage made of chocolate! It was also the beginning of the British tradition of
drinking afternoon tea. And it was the starting point of the middle class, and
because of that, more people were literate.
People were very interested in appearances, but not necessarily in being genuine.
Men and women commonly wore wigs, and being clever and witty was in vogue.
Having good manners and doing the right thing, particularly in public, was
essential. It was a time, too, of British political upheaval as eight monarchs took
the throne.

 Characteristics of Neoclassical Literature

Neoclassical literature is characterized by order, accuracy, and structure. In direct

opposition to Renaissance attitudes, where man was seen as basically good, the
Neoclassical writers portrayed man as inherently flawed. They emphasized
restraint, self-control, and common sense. This was a time
when conservatism flourished in both politics and literature.
Some popular types of literature included: parody; essays; satire; letters;
melodrama;

The Restoration Period (1660-1700)

After the Restoration in 1660, when Charles II came to the throne, there was a
complete repudiation of the Puritan ideals and way of living. In English literature
the period from 1660 to 1700 is called the period of Restoration, because
monarchy was restored in England, and Charles II, the son of Charles I who had
been defeated and beheaded, came back to England from his exile in France and
became the King.
It is called the Age of Dryden, because Dryden was the dominating and most
representative literary figure of the Age. As the Puritans who were previously
controlling the country, and were supervising her literary and moral and social
standards, were finally defeated, a reaction was launched against whatever they
held sacred. All restraints and discipline were thrown to the winds, and a wave of
licentiousness and frivolity swept the country. Charles II and his followers who
had enjoyed a gay life in France during their exile, did their best to introduce that
type of foppery and looseness in England also. They renounced old ideals and
demanded that English poetry and drama should follow the style to which they
had become accustomed in the gaiety of Paris. Instead of having Shakespeare and
the Elizabethans as their models, the poets and dramatists of the Restoration
period began to imitate French writers and especially their vices.

The result was that the old Elizabethan spirit with its patriotism, its love of
adventure and romance, its creative vigour, and the Puritan spirit with its moral
discipline and love of liberty, became things of the past. For a time in poetry,
drama and prose nothing was produced which could compare satisfactorily with
the great achievements of the Elizabethans, of Milton, and even of minor writers
of the Puritan age. But then the writers of the period began to evolve something
that was characteristic of the times and they made two important contributions
to English literature in the form of realism and a tendency to preciseness.
In the beginning realism took an ugly shape, because the writers painted the
real pictures of the corrupt society and court. They were more concerned with
vices rather than with virtues. The result was a coarse and inferior type of
literature. Later this tendency to realism became more wholesome, and the
writers tried to portray realistically human life as they found it—its good as well
as bad side, its internal as well as external shape.
The tendency to preciseness which ultimately became the chief characteristic
of the Restoration period, made a lasting contribution to English literature. It
emphasised directness and simplicity of expression, and counteracted the
tendency of exaggeration and extravagance which was encouraged during the
Elizabethan and the Puritan ages. Instead of using grandiloquent phrases,
involved sentences full of Latin quotations and classical allusions, the Restoration
writers, under the influence of French writers, gave emphasis to reasoning rather
than romantic fancy, and evolved an exact, precise way of writing, consisting of
short, clear-cut sentences without any unnecessary word. The Royal Society,
which was established during this period enjoined on all its members to use ‘a
close, naked, natural way of speaking and writing, as near the mathematical
plainness as they can”. Dryden accepted this rule for his prose, and for his poetry
adopted the easiest type of verse-form—the heroic couplet. Under his guidance,
the English writers evolved a style—precise, formal and elegant—which is called
the classical style, and which dominated English literature for more than a
century.
(a) Restoration Poetry
John Dryden (1631-1700). The Restoration poetry was mostly satirical,
realistic and written in the heroic couplet, of which Dryden was the supreme
master. He was the dominating figure of the Restoration period, and he made his
mark in the fields of poetry, drama and prose. In the field of poetry he was, in
fact, the only poet worth mentioning. In his youth he came under the influence of
Cowley, and his early poetry has the characteristic conceits and exaggerations of
the metaphysical school. But in his later years he emancipated himself from the
false taste and artificial style of the metaphysical writers, and wrote in a clear and
forceful style which laid the foundation of the classical school of poetry
in England.
The poetry of Dryden can be conveniently divided under three heads—
Political Satires, Doctrinal Poems and The Fables. Of his political satires, Absolem
and Achitophel and The Medal are well-known. In Absolem and Achitophel, which
is one of the greatest political satires in the English language, Dryden defended
the King against the Earl of Shaftesbury who is represented as Achitophel. It
contains powerful character studies of Shaftesbury and of the Duke of
Buckingham who is represented as Zimri. The Medal is another satirical poem full
of invective against Shaftesbury and MacFlecknoe. It also contains a scathing
personal attack on Thomas Shadwell who was once a friend of Dryden.
The two great doctrinal poems of Dryden are Religio Laici and The Hind and
the Panther. These poems are neither religious nor devotional, but theological
and controversial. The first was written when Dryden was a Protestant, and it
defends the Anglican Church. The second written when Dryden had become a
Catholic, vehemently defends Catholicism. They, therefore, show Dryden’s power
and skill of defending any position he took up, and his mastery in presenting an
argument in verse.
The Fables, which were written during the last years of Dryden’s life, show no
decrease in his poetic power. Written in the form of a narrative, they entitle
Dryden to rank among the best story-tellers in verse in England. The Palamon and
Arcite,which is based on Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, gives us an opportunity of
comparing the method and art of a fourteenth century poet with one belonging
to the seventeenth century. Of the many miscellaneous poems of Dryden, Annus
Mirabilis is a fine example of his sustained narrative power. His Alexander’s
Feast is one of the best odes in the English language.
The poetry of Dryden possess all the characteristics of the Restoration period
and is therefore thoroughly representative of that age. It does not have the poetic
glow, the spiritual fervour, the moral loftiness and philosophical depth which
were sadly lacking in the Restoration period. But it has the formalism, the
intellectual precision, the argumentative skill and realism which were the main
characteristics of that age. Though Dryden does not reach great poetic heights,
yet here and there he gives us passages of wonderful strength and eloquence. His
reputation lies in his being great as a satirist and reasoner in verse. In fact in these
two capacities he is still the greatest master in English literature. Dryden’s
greatest contribution to English poetry was his skilful use of the heroic couplet,
which became the accepted measure of serious English poetry for many years.
(b) Restoration Drama
In 1642 the theatres were closed by the authority of the parliament which
was dominated by Puritans and so no good plays were written from 1642 till the
Restoration (coming back of monarchy in England with the accession of Charles II
to the throne) in 1660 when the theatres were re-opened. The drama
in Englandafter 1660, called the Restoration drama, showed entirely new trends
on account of the long break with the past. Moreover, it was greatly affected by
the spirit of the new age which was deficient in poetic feeling, imagination and
emotional approach to life, but laid emphasis on prose as the medium of
expression, and intellectual, realistic and critical approach to life and its problems.
As the common people still under the influence of Puritanism had no love for the
theatres, the dramatists had to cater to the taste of the aristocratic class which
was highly fashionable, frivolous, cynical and sophisticated. The result was that
unlike the Elizabethan drama which had a mass appeal, had its roots in the life of
the common people and could be legitimately called the national drama, the
Restoration drama had none of these characteristics. Its appeal was confined to
the upper strata of society whose taste was aristocratic, and among which the
prevailing fashions and etiquettes were foreign and extravagant.
As imagination and poetic feelings were regarded as ‘vulgar enthusiasm’ by
the dictators of the social life. But as ‘actual life’ meant the life of the aristocratic
class only, the plays of this period do not give us a picture of the whole nation.
The most popular form of drama was the Comedy of Manners which portrayed
the sophisticated life of the dominant class of society—its gaiety, foppery,
insolence and intrigue. Thus the basis of the Restoration drama was very narrow.
The general tone of this drama was most aptly described by Shelley:
Comedy loses its ideal universality: wit succeeds humour; we laugh from self-
complacency and triumph; instead of pleasure, malignity, sarcasm and contempt,
succeed to sympathetic merriment; we hardly laugh, but we smile. Obscenity,
which is ever blasphemy against the divine beauty of life, becomes, from the very
veil which it assumes, more active if less disgusting; it is a monster for which the
corruption of society for ever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret.
These new trends in comedy are seen in Dryden’s Wild Gallant (1663),
Etheredge’s (1635-1691) The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub (1664),
Wycherley’sThe Country Wife and The Plain Dealer, and the plays of Vanbrugh
and Farquhar. But the most gifted among all the Restoration dramatist was
William Congreve (1670-1720) who wrote all his best plays he was thirty years of
age. He well-known comedies are Love for Love (1695) and The Way of the
World (1700).
It is mainly on account of his remarkable style that Congreve is put at the head
of the Restoration drama. No English dramatist has even written such fine prose
for the stage as Congreve did. He balances, polishes and sharpens his sentences
until they shine like chiselled instruments for an electrical experiment, through
which passes the current in the shape of his incisive and scintillating wit. As the
plays of Congreve reflect the fashions and foibles of the upper classes whose
moral standards had become lax, they do not have a universal appeal, but as
social documents their value is very great. Moreover, though these comedies
were subjected to a very severe criticism by the Romantics like Shelley and Lamb,
they are now again in great demand and there is a revival of interest in
Restoration comedy.
In tragedy, the Restoration period specialised in Heroic Tragedy, which dealt
with themes of epic magnitude. The heroes and heroines possessed superhuman
qualities. The purpose of this tragedy was didactic—to inculcate virtues in the
shape of bravery and conjugal love. It was written in the ‘heroic couplet’ in
accordance with the heroic convention derived from France that ‘heroic metre’
should be used in such plays. In it declamation took the place of natural dialogue.
Moreover, it was characterised by bombast, exaggeration and sensational effects
wherever possible. As it was not based on the observations of life, there was no
realistic characterisation, and it inevitably ended happily, and virtue was always
rewarded.
 The chief protagonist and writer of heroic tragedy was Dryden. Under his
leadership the heroic tragedy dominated the stage from 1660 to 1678. His first
experiment in this type of drama was his play Tyrannic love, and in The Conquest
of Granada he brought it to its culminating point. But then a severe
condemnation of this grand manner of writing tragedy was started by certain
critics and playwrights, of which Dryden was the main target. It has its effect on
Dryden who in his next playAurangzeb exercised greater restraint and decorum,
and in the Prologue to this play he admitted the superiority of Shakespeare’s
method, and his own weariness of using the heroic couplet which is unfit to
describe human passions adequately: He confesses that he:
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress Rhyme,
Passions too fierce to be in fetters bound,
And Nature flies him like enchanted ground;
What verse can do, he has performed in this
Which he presumes the most correct of his;
But spite of all his pride, a secret shame
Invades his breast at Shakespeare’s sacred name.
Dryden’s altered attitude is seen more clearly in his next play All for
Love(1678). Thus he writes in the preface: “In my style I have professed to imitate
Shakespeare; which that I might perform more freely, I have disencumbered
myself from rhyme.” He shifts his ground from the typical heroic tragedy in this
play, drops rhyme and questions the validity of the unities of time, place and
action in the conditions of the English stage. He also gives up the literary rules
observed by French dramatists and follows the laws of drama formulated by the
great dramatists of England. Another important way in which Dryden turns
himself away from the conventions of the heroic tragedy, is that he does not give
a happy ending to this play.
(c) Restoration Prose
The Restoration period was deficient in poetry and drama, but in prose it
holds its head much higher. Of course, it cannot be said that the Restoration
prose enjoys absolute supremacy in English literature, because on account of the
fall of poetic power, lack of inspiration, preference of the merely practical and
prosaic subjects and approach to life, it could not reach those heights which it
attained in the preceding period in the hands of Milton and Browne, or in the
succeeding ages in the hands of Lamb, Hazlitt, Ruskin and Carlyle. But it has to be
admitted that it was during the Restoration period that English prose was
developed as a medium for expressing clearly and precisely average ideas and
feelings about miscellaneous matters for which prose is really meant. For the first
time a prose style was evolved which could be used for plain narrative,
argumentative exposition of intricate subjects, and the handling of practical
business. The elaborate Elizabethan prose was unsuited to telling a plain story.
The epigrammatic style of Bacon, the grandiloquent prose of Milton and the
dreamy harmonies of Browne could not be adapted to scientific, historical,
political and philosophical writings, and, above all, to novel-writing. Thus with the
change in the temper of the people, a new type of prose, as was developed in the
Restoration period, was essential.
As in the fields of poetry and drama, Dryden was the chief leader and
practitioner of the new prose. In his greatest critical work Essay of Dramatic
Poesy,Dryden presented a model of the new prose, which was completely
different from the prose of Bacon, Milton and Browne. He wrote in a plain, simple
and exact style, free from all exaggerations. His Fables and the Preface to them
are fine examples of the prose style which Dryden was introducing. This style is, in
fact, the most admirably suited to strictly prosaic purposes—correct but not
tame, easy but not slipshod, forcible but not unnatural, eloquent but not
declamatory, graceful but not lacking in vigour. Of course, it does not have charm
and an atmosphere which we associate with imaginative writing, but Dryden
never professed to provide that also. On the whole, for general purposes, for
which prose medium is required, the style of Dryden is the most suitable.
Other writers, of the period, who came under the influence of Dryden, and
wrote in a plain, simple but precise style, were Sir William Temple, John Tillotson
and George Saville better known as Viscount Halifax. Another famous writer of
the period was Thomas Sprat who is better known for the distinctness with which
he put the demand for new prose than for his own writings. Being a man of
science himself he published his History of the Royal Society (1667) in which he
expressed the public demand for a popularised style free from “this vicious
abundance of phrase, this trick of metaphors, this volubility of tongue.” The
Society expected from all its members “a close, natural way of speaking—positive
expressions, clear senses, a native easiness bringing all things as near the
mathematical plainness as they can, and preferring the language of artisans,
country men and merchants before that of wits and scholars.”
Though these writers wrote under the influence of Dryden, they also, to a
certain extent, helped in the evolution of the new prose style by their own
individual approach. That is why the prose of the Restoration period is free from
monotony.
John Bunyan (1628-1688). Next to Dryden, Bunyan was the greatest prose-
writer of the period. Like Milton, he was imbued with the spirit of Puritanism, and
in fact, if Milton is the greatest poet of Puritanism, Bunyan is its greatest story-
teller. To him also goes the credit of being the precursor of the English novel. His
greatest work is The Pilgrim’s Progress. Just as Milton wrote his Paradise Lost “to
justify the ways to God to men”, Bunyan’s aim in The Pilgrim’s Progress was” “to
lead men and women into God’s way, the way of salvation, through a simple
parable with homely characters and exciting events”. Like Milton, Bunyan was
endowed with a highly developed imaginative faculty and artistic instinct. Both
were deeply religious, and both, though they distrusted fiction, were the masters
of fiction.Paradise Lost and The Pilgrim’s Progress have still survived among
thousands of equally fervent religious works of the seventeenth century because
both of them are masterpieces of literary art, which instruct as well please even
those who have no faith in those instructions.
In The Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan has described the pilgrimage of the Christian
to the Heavenly City, the trials, tribulations and temptations which he meets in
the way in the form of events and characters, who abstract and help him, and his
ultimately reaching the goal. It is written in the form of allegory. The style is terse,
simple and vivid, and it appeals to the cultured as well as to the unlettered. As Dr.
Johnson remarked: “This is the great merit of the book, that the most cultivated
man cannot find anything to praise more highly, and the child knows nothing
more amusing.” The Pilgrim’s Progress has all the basic requirements of the
traditional type of English novel. It has a good story; the characters are interesting
and possess individuality and freshness; the conversation is arresting; the
descriptions are vivid; the narrative continuously moves towards a definite end,
above all, it has a literary style through which the writer’s personality clearly
emanates. The Pilgrim’s Progress is a work of superb literary genius, and it is
unsurpassed as an example of plain English.

Augustan literature

is a style of British literature produced during the reigns of Queen Anne, King
George I, and George II in the first half of the 18th century and ending in the
1740s, with the deaths of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, in 1744 and 1745,
respectively. It was a literary epoch that featured the rapid development of
the novel, an explosion in satire, the mutation of drama from political
satire into melodrama and an evolution toward poetry of personal exploration.
In philosophy, it was an age increasingly dominated by empiricism, while in the
writings of political economy, it marked the evolution of mercantilism as a formal
philosophy, the development of capitalism and the triumph of trade.
The chronological boundary points of the era are generally vague, largely since
the label's origin in contemporary 18th century criticism has made it a shorthand
designation for a somewhat nebulous age of satire. Samuel Johnson, whose
famous A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 is also "to
some extent" associated with the Augustan period.[1] The new Augustan period
exhibited exceptionally bold political writings in all genres, with the satires of the
age marked by an arch, ironic pose, full of nuance and a superficial air of dignified
calm that hid sharp criticisms beneath.
While the period is generally known for its adoption of highly regulated and
stylised literary forms, some of the concerns of writers of this period, with the
emotions, folk and a self-conscious model of authorship, foreshadowed the
preoccupations of the later Romantic era. In general, philosophy, politics and
literature underwent a turn away from older courtly concerns towards something
closer to a modern sensibility

The later half of the eighteenth century, which was dominated by Dr. Samuel
Johnson, is called the Age of Johnson. Johnson died in 1784, and from that time
the Classical spirit in English literature began to give place to the Romantic spirit,
though officially the Romantic Age started from the year 1798 when Wordsworth
and Coleridge published the famous Lyrical Ballads. Even during the Age of
Johnson, which was predominantly classical, cracks had begun to appear in the
solid wall of classicism and there were clear signs of revolt in favour of the
Romantic spirit. This was specially noticeable in the field of poetry. Most of the
poets belonging to the Age of Johnson may be termed as the precursors of the
Romantic Revival. That is why the Age of Johnson is also called the Age of
Transition in English literature.
(a) Poets of the Age of Johnson
 As has already been pointed out, the Age of Johnson in English poetry is an
age of transition and experiment which ultimately led to the Romantic Revival. Its
history is the history of the struggle between the old and the new, and of the
gradual triumph of the new. The greatest protagonist of classicism during this
period was Dr. Johnson himself, and he was supported by Goldsmith. In the midst
of change these two held fast to the classical ideals, and the creative work of both
of them in the field of poetry was imbued with the classical spirit. As Macaulay
said, “Dr. Johnson took it for granted that the kind of poetry which flourished in
his own time and which he had been accustomed to hear praised from his
childhood, was the best kind of poetry, and he not only upheld its claims by direct
advocacy of its canons, but also consistently opposed every experiment in which,
as in the ballad revival, he detected signs of revolt against it.” Johnson’s two chief
poems, London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, are classical on account of their
didacticism, their formal, rhetorical style, and their adherence to the closed
couplet.
Goldsmith was equally convinced that the classical standards of writing poetry
were the best and that they had attained perfection during the Augustan Age. All
that was required of the poets was to imitate those standards. According to him
“Pope was the limit of classical literature.” In his opposition to the blank verse,
Goldsmith showed himself fundamentally hostile to change. His two important
poems, The Traveller and The Deserted Village, which are versified pamphlets on
political economy, are classical in spirit and form. They are written in the closed
couplet, are didactic, and have pompous phraseology. These poems may be
described as the last great work of the outgoing, artificial eighteenth century
school, though even in them, if we study them minutely, we perceive the subtle
touches of the new age of Romanticism especially in their treatment of nature
and rural life.
Before we consider the poets of the Age of Johnson, who broke from the
classical tradition and followed the new Romantic trends, let us first examine
what Romanticism stood for. Romanticism was opposed to Classicism on all vital
points. For instance, the main characteristics of classical poetry were: (i) it was
mainly the product of intelligence and was especially deficient in emotion and
imagination; (ii) it was chiefly the town poetry; (iii) it had no love for the
mysterious, the supernatural, or what belonged to the dim past; (iv) its style was
formal and artificial; (v) it was written in the closed couplet; (vi) it was
fundamentally didactic; (vii) it insisted on the writer to follow the prescribed rules
and imitate the standard models of good writing. The new poetry which showed
romantic leanings was opposed to all these points. For instance, its chief
characteristics were: (i) it encouraged emotion, passion and imagination in place
of dry intellectuality; (ii) it was more interested in nature and rustic life rather
than in town life; (iii) it revived the romantic spirit—love of the mysterious, the
supernatural, the dim past; (iv) it opposed the artificial and formal style, and
insisted on simple and natural forms of expression; (v) it attacked the supremacy
of the closed couplet and encouraged all sorts of metrical experiments; (vi) its
object was not didactic but the expression of the writer’s experience for its own
sake; (vii) it believed in the liberty of the poet to choose the theme and the
manner of his writing.
The poets who showed romantic leanings, during the Age of Johnson, and
who may be described as the precursors or harbingers of the Romantic Revival
were James Thomson, Thomas Gray, William Collins, James Macpherson, William
Blake, Robert Burns, William Cowper and George Crabbe.
James Thomson (1700-1748) was the earliest eighteenth century poet who
showed romantic tendency in his work. The main romantic characteristic in his
poetry is his minute observation of nature. In The Seasons he gives fine
sympathetic descriptions of the fields, the woods, the streams, the shy and wild
creatures. Instead of the closed couplet, he follows the Miltonic tradition of using
the blank verse. In The Castle of Indolence, which is written in form of dream
allegory so popular in medieval literature, Thomson uses the Spenserian stanza.
Unlike the didactic poetry of the Augustans, this poem is full of dim suggestions.

The Romantic Period ( 1785 1830 )

 It was a turbulent period, during which England experienced the change
from a primarily agricultural society, to a modern industrial nation;
 This change occurred in a context of the American Revolution and then of
the much more radical French Revolution, of wars, of economic cycles of
inflation and depression;
 The early period of the French Revolution evoked enthusiastic support from
English liberals and radicals alike;
 Two influential books indicate the radical social thinking stimulated by the
Revolution: Rights of a Man ( Tom Paine / 1791 92 ) and Reflections on the
Revolution in France ( Edmund Burke 1790 );
 Later, the Revolution followed its increasingly grim and violent course: the
September Massacres of the imprisoned and helpless nobility in 1792,
followed by the execution of the royal family; the guillotining of thousands
in the Reign of Terror under Robespierre and the emergence of Napoleon
first as dictator and then as emperor of France;
 Napoleon had become a despot, and the founder of a new dynasty, with
the result that his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815 proved to be the
triumph of a reactionary despotisms throughout continental Europe;
 The Industrial Revolution had begun in the mid eighteenth century with
improvements in machines for processing textile;
 In rural communities the destruction of home industry was accompanied by
a rapid growth of the process lamented by Oliver Goldsmith in The Deserted
Village as early as 1770 of enclosing the old open field and communally
worked farms into privately owned agricultural holdings;
 The landscape of England began to take on its modern appearance the
hitherto open rural areas subdivided into a checkerboard of fields enclosed
by hedges and stone walls, with the factories of the industrial and trading
cities casting a pall of smoke over vast areas of jerry built houses and slum
tenements;
 Meanwhile, the population was becoming increasingly polarized into two
classes of capital and labor, the large owner or trader and the possession
less wageworker, the rich and the poor ;
 The government policy of noninterference was affecting directly the labor
class. They were working long hours under harsh discipline and sordid
conditions besides increased the number of women and children working ;
 In addition the introduction of new machines resulted in a technological
unemployment provoking lots of disturbs and the most notorious was The
 Petrol Massacre. Based on this event, Shelley wrote his great poems for the
working class, England 1819, Men of England and To Sidmouth Castlereagh
 The situation of women was also very uncorfotable almost no legal rights,
no facilities to study they were provided only limited schooling and almost
no access to higher education and living under her husbands wished ;
 On the other hand the industrial class was living great time and they were
almost untouched by international and national events. Best represented in
novels of Jane Austen

The Victorian Period 1832-1901

Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901, and her reign corresponds roughly to
what is called the Victorian Period. In cultural history this period follows after the
Romantic Period and it comes before the Edwardian Period. More precisely the
start of the period is considered to be 1832 when the Reform Bill was passed. The
Victorian Period was one of enormous changes. Britain became the leading
industrial nation and the banker of the world. The British middle class established
itself as the ruling class, not only of Britain but of an empire in which one quarter
of the population of the world lived.
In the first paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities Dickens describes the period
leading up to the French revolution, but the description he gives applies perhaps
even more to his own historical period:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it
was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it
was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in
short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest
authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative
degree of comparison only.

The Victorian Period was an age of contradictions. It was an age of prosperity with
an increase of wealth first of all for the middle classes, but also for the working
classes. Industry expanded so that Britain became the workshop of the world. And
yet, it also was an age of poverty. There were the slums of London and of the
industrial Midlands. There was laissez-faire capitalism, but also social legislation.
It was an age of religious faith, and yet it also was an age of doubt with the
gradual dissemination of evolutionary thinking as it was expressed by Darwin. Our
attitude to the Victorian Period is also contradictory. On the one hand there is the
heritage industry with its nostalgia for all things of the past, on the other hand
there is the reaction against everything Victorian that started with the
Bloomsbury Movement in the 1920s, in particular Lytton Strachey’s Eminent
Victorians published in 1918. Here ‘Victorian’ was synonymous with smugness,
hypocrisy, false respectability, sexual narrow-mindedness and materialism.

 The Early Victorian Period 1832-1848

The passing of the Reform Bill of 1832 was a large step for the middle classes on
its way to power. All property-owning men now had the right to vote. The
working classes and women were still without this right. In the early 1840s a
severe economic depression set in, and the conditions of the working classes
were so bad that riots broke out. In this period, known as ‘The Hungry Forties’,
the working classes organized politically in trade unions, and in particular the
Chartists became powerful. The People’s Charter of 1838 demanded universal
suffrage; but not one of the Chartists’ demands was ever met. With the repeal of
the Corn Laws in 1846 food became cheaper for the working classes. The middle
classes had won the running battle against the working classes.
Middle-class intellectuals debated the social issues of the Hungry Forties in the
so-called Question-of-England novels, Mrs. Gaskell in Mary Barton (1848) and
Benjamin Disraeli in The Two Nations (1845). The forties-frame-of-mind can still
be found in Dickens’ novels from the 1860s.

 The Mid-Victorian Period 1848-1870

The period following the Hungry Forties was one of success and prosperity.
Factory Acts by and by improved the conditions of the working classes so that
child labour was limited and working hours were shortened. Trade, industry and
farming prospered. Britain, which was industrialized by now, was able to make
enormous profits by selling machinery and technology to Europe and America for
their industrialization. The Mid-Victorian Period was peaceful. Britain managed to
keep out of the wars on the Continent, and political freedom was such in Britain
that political refugees from Europe, e.g., Karl Marx, found a safe haven here. The
monarchy became a model of middle-class life. The novels of Anthony Trollope
bear witness to the comfortable and commonsensical attitude full of optimism of
the period.

 The Late Victorian Period 1870-1901

The late Victorian Period, which followed after Dickens’ death in 1870, brought an
end to the progress and sense of stability of the previous 30 years. The middle
classes met with crisis and problems on four fronts: military problems, economical
problems, political problems, and sexual problems.
Bismarck’s Germany with its naval expansion meant a threat to Britain’s
supremacy. Europe and America were by now industrialized enough to be
competitors instead of markets, which resulted in an economic depression.
Internally the working classes organized in new militant trade unions and political
parties. Even unskilled workers formed unions at the end of the century, and they
won strikes. In 1889 the two great victories were The Match Girls’ Strike and the
Dockers’ Strike. The Empire also created problems. It was the largest empire in
history. It brought profits, but also brutal colonial wars, such as the Indian Mutiny
and the Boer Wars. Gender roles were changing, too. Middle-class culture had its
heart in the home with its patriarchal head, but during the 1870s laws improved
women’s position economically and also some kinds of higher education were
opened up to women. It was not, however, until 1928 that women got voting
equality with men in Parliamentary elections.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William
Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The three founders
were joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George
Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form the seven-member "brotherhood". Their
principles were shared by other artists, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur
Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman.
A later, medievalising strain inspired by Rossetti included Edward Burne-
Jones and extended into the twentieth century with artists such as John William
Waterhouse.
The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the
mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who
succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. Its members believed the Classical poses
and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence
on the academic teaching of art, hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite". In particular,
the group objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the
English Royal Academy of Arts, whom they called "Sir Sloshua". To the Pre-
Raphaelites, according to William Michael Rossetti, "sloshy" meant "anything lax
or scamped in the process of painting ... and hence ... any thing or person of a
commonplace or conventional kind".[1] The brotherhood sought a return to the
abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions
of Quattrocento Italian art. The group associated their work with John
Ruskin,[2] an English critic whose influences were driven by his religious
background.

The Edwardian Period (1901–1914)

This period is named for King Edward VII and covers the period between Victoria’s
death and the outbreak of World War I. Although a short period (and a short reign
for Edward VII), the era includes incredible classic novelists such as Joseph
Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, and Henry James (who
was born in America but who spent most of his writing career in England), notable
poets such as Alfred Noyes and William Butler Yeats, as well as dramatists such as
James Barrie, George Bernard Shaw, and John Galsworthy.

The Georgian Period (1910–1936)

The Georgian period usually refers to the reign of George V (1910–1936) but
sometimes also includes the reigns of the four successive Georges from 1714–
1830. Here, we refer to the former description as it applies chronologically and
covers, for example, the Georgian poets, such as Ralph Hodgson, John Masefield,
W.H. Davies, and Rupert Brooke. Georgian poetry today is typically considered to
be the works of minor poets anthologized by Edward Marsh. The themes and
subject matter tended to be rural or pastoral in nature, treated delicately and
traditionally rather than with passion (like was found in the previous periods) or
with experimentation (as would be seen in the upcoming modern period).

The Modern Period (1914–?)

The modern period traditionally applies to works written after the start of World
War I. Common features include bold experimentation with subject matter, style,
and form, encompassing narrative, verse, and drama. W.B. Yeats’ words, “Things
fall apart; the center cannot hold” are often referred to when describing the core
tenet or “feeling” of modernist concerns. Some of the most notable writers of this
period, among many, include the novelists James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Aldous
Huxley, D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Dorothy Richardson, Graham Greene, E.M.
Forster, and Doris Lessing; the poets W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Seamus
Heaney, Wilfred Owens, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Graves; and the dramatists
Tom Stoppard, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Frank McGuinness, Harold
Pinter, and Caryl Churchill. New Criticism also appeared at this time, led by the
likes of Woolf, Eliot, William Empson, and others, which reinvigorated literary
criticism in general. It is difficult to say whether modernism has ended, though we
know that postmodernism has developed after and from it; for now, the genre
remains ongoing.

The Postmodern Period (1945–?)

The postmodern period begins about the time that World War II ended. Many
believe it is a direct response to modernism. Some say the period ended about
1990, but it is likely too soon to declare this period closed. Poststructuralist
literary theory and criticism developed during this time. Some notable writers of
the period include Samuel Beckett, Joseph Heller, Anthony Burgess, John Fowles,
Penelope M. Lively, and Iain Banks. Many postmodern authors wrote during the
modern period as well.