Periods of English literature
| Period | Time Frame | Key Features | Major Authors/Works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old English (Anglo-Saxon) | 450-1066 | Oral tradition, epic poetry, Christian & pagan themes | Beowulf, Caedmon, Cynewulf |
| Middle English | 1066-1500 | Vernacular English, chivalric & religious themes | Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales), William Langland (Piers Plowman) |
| Renaissance | 1500-1660 | Revival of classical themes, humanism, exploration of individual identity | William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson |
| – Elizabethan Era | 1558-1603 | Flourishing of drama and poetry | William Shakespeare (Hamlet), Marlowe |
| – Jacobean Era | 1603-1625 | Darker themes, satire | Ben Jonson, John Donne |
| Neoclassical | 1660-1785 | Emphasis on reason, order, classical ideals | John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift |
| – Restoration Age | 1660-1700 | Satire, comedy of manners | John Dryden |
| – Augustan Age | 1700-1750 | Poetic formality, mock-epic | Alexander Pope (The Rape of the Lock) |
| – Age of Sensibility | 1750-1785 | Focus on emotions, early romantic elements | Samuel Johnson, Thomas Gray |
| Romantic | 1785-1832 | Emotion, nature, imagination, individualism | William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron |
| Victorian | 1832-1901 | Realism, social issues, industrialization | Charles Dickens (Great Expectations), George Eliot (Middlemarch) |
| Modern | 1901-1945 | Experimental forms, stream of consciousness | James Joyce (Ulysses), Virginia Woolf |
| Postmodern | 1945-present | Fragmentation, metafiction, irony | Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Margaret Atwood |