CHARACTERISTICS OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE
English literature

• Distinctly written in the ENGLISH language

• Includes literature composed in ENGLISH by
writers not necessarily from England nor primarily
English-speaking nations
Characteristics:

• Flexibility of English vocabulary

William Shakespeare

 English poet, dramatist, and actor often

called the English national poet and
considered by many to be the greatest
dramatist of all time.
Characteristics:

• Most commonly used themes are:

overcoming the monster
rags to riches
the quest
voyage and return
boy meets girl
Characteristics:

• Utopianism • Idealism
• Perfection
History of English Literature

• Old English Literature: 5th – 14th Century

• Medieval English Literature: 14th to 15th Century
• Elizabethan Age or The Golden Age of English Literature: 16th C
entury to Early 17th Century
• Restoration Age (17th-18th Century)
• The 18th Century English Literature
• The Romantic Period: From 19th Century
• 20th Century Literature
Old English (Anglo-Saxon Period)
5th – 14th Century
• Beowulf
earliest and most popular work in
Old English Literature
Middle English Period
14th to 15th Century
• comprises of a diverse range of works as the
population of England during this time was
literate and a considerable portion was also
bilingual and trilingual

• Geoffrey Chaucer 
“Canterbury Tales” 
Elizabethan Age or The Golden Age of English
Literature: 16th Century to Early 17th Centur
y
• brilliant century of all the periods
• brought a gallery of authors of genius and
literary masterpieces. 
• a dynamic age filled with intellectual and
religious revolutions and upheavals 

• Sir Thomas Wyatt • William Shakespeare

• Henry Howard • Christopher Marlowe
• John Milton
• John Donne • Sir Francis Bacon • Ben Jonson
Metaphysical intellectual and Poetry
Poetry analytical essays Stage comedy
“Hamlet”
“King Lear”
“Othello” 
 ”Julius Ceasar”
“A Midsummer Night’s
Dream”
“As You Like It”
“Romeo and Juliet”
Restoration Age (17th-18th Century)
•  political conflict 

Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained 
The 18th Century English Literature
• publication of political literature as well as the
advent of novels. 

• Robert Harley
• Daniel Defoe
• Jonathan Swift 

“Robinson Crusoe”
The Romantic Period: From 19th Century

• earlier forms of poetry ( individual thought

and personal feeling)
• interesting genres of prose fiction
20th Century Literature

John Galsworthy