WORLD LITERATURE LITERACY

ENGL 308
Professor: Doc Anne Carillo

Coursework 1
Review and discuss the History of World Literature. Write a summary paper.
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Name : RONSABLE, LEONIEL LAIS

Submission Date: January 15, 2022(Saturday: 5:40 P.M.)

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A Summary on History of World Literature

German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the first to use the word “world
literature” a translation of the German word Weltliteratur. He used this term to suggest the capacity of
literature to transcend national and linguistic boundaries.

World literature has eight major periods. Each period has significant events that shaped the
contemporary world today.

The fist period is the Classical Period running from roughly 1200 BCE to 455 CE. This era was
the was a golden age for literature and the arts. The big writers from this period include all those Greek and
Roman guys who wrote epics, like Homer of the Iliad and Odyssey fame, and the Roman poet Virgil who
wrote the Aeneid. The Greek philosophers Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle called this period home, as did
Greek dramatists like Euripides and Aristophanes. As for poets, Horace and Ovid were two of the most
influential. Writers in the classical period deeply engaged themselves on classicism claiming literature is
distinctive for its balance, order, and reasonableness.

The second period is the medieval period(455 CE- 1485CE) existed after the fall of the Roman
empire. Literature during this period consists of sermons, prayers, lives of saints, and homilies.

Tthe epic "Beowulf," which dates back to approximately the eighth century existed during this
period.. We also see works like "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (c.1350–1400) and "The Pearl"
(c.1370), both written by anonymous authors. Geoffrey Chaucer's work falls into this period as well: "The
Book of the Duchess" (1369), "The Parliament of Fowls" (1377–1382), "The House of Fame" (1379–
1384), "Troilus and Criseyde" (1382–1385), the very famous "Canterbury Tales" (1387–1400), "The
Legend of Good Women" (1384–1386), and "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Empty Purse" (1399).

Another common theme in medieval literature is courtly love popularized by writer Gaston Paris
to describe the Medieval love stories.

The third period is the Renaissance and Reformation (1485-1660 CE). English literature in the
Renaissance Period is usually regarded as the highlight in this history of English literature. The greatest
and most distinctive achievement of Elizabethan literature is the drama.

The Enlightenment (Neoclassical) Period (C. 1660-1790) is the next period. "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.

The next period is the Romantic Period (c. 1790-1830). Romantic poets write about nature,
imagination, and individuality in England. Some Romantics include Coleridge, Blake, Keats, and Shelley
 WORLD LITERATURE LITERACY
ENGL 308
Professor: Doc Anne Carillo

in Britain and Johann von Goethe in Germany. In America, this period is called the Transcendental Period.
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 Mary
Shelley, Radcliffe, Monk Lewis, and Victorians like Bram Stoker in Britain. In America, Gothic writers
include Poe and Hawthorne.

The sixth period is Victorian Period and the 19th Century (c.1832-1901). Writing during the
period of Queen Victoria's reign includes sentimental novels. British writers include Elizabeth Browning,
Alfred Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, and Jane
Austen. Pre-‐ Raphaelites, like the Rossettis and William Morris, idealize and long for the morality of the
medieval world.
Modern Period(c. 1914-1945) is the next era. 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, Steinbeck,
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.

The last era is the Postmodern Period(c. 1945 onward). T. S. Eliot, Morrison, Shaw, Beckett,
Stoppard, Fowles, Calvino, Ginsberg, Pynchon, and other modern writers, poets, and playwrights
experiment with metafiction and fragmented poetry. Multiculturalism leads to 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
flourish with surrealistic writings embroidered in the conventions of realism.

The history of world literature are spans of time in which literature shared intellectual, linguistic,
religious, and artistic influences.