Contextualize the text from a historical and cultural point of view.

15 – 20 lines

1.The Renaissance (1485 – 1649)

Shakespeare lived and wrote during a remarkable period of English history, a time of relative
political stability and great development, 1485 – 1649= the Renaissance .
The Renaissance in England coincided with the reign of Elizabeth I, who was Queen of England and
Ireland from 1558 until 1603, so it is often referred to as the Elizabethan period. Elizabeth I was a
powerful, resolute monarch who returned England to Protestantism, quelled a great deal of internal
turmoil, and unified the nation.
A number of important historical events contributed to making England a powerful nation during
this period (for example, science made it possible to navigate, explorers set out to find a new
world).Historical developments which shaped the direction of Elizabethan Literature include: the
invention of the printing press to England, the growth of a wealthy middle class of people who had the
time to write and read, and the opening up of education to the laity, rather than being an exclusive
domain of the clergy.
The ideas of the Renaissance are strongly influenced by the concept of humanism. The aim was
to restore human values from antiquity by reintroducing the philosophies, language and literature of the
ancient Greece and Rome.
The arts flourished under Elizabeth I. Her personal love for poetry, music, and drama helped to
establish a climate in which it was fashionable for the wealthy members of the court to support the arts.
Theatres such as the Globe and the Rose were built and writers such as Ben Jonson, Christopher
Marlowe, Thomas Kyd and William Shakespeare wrote comic and tragic plays. Edmund Spenser’s, “The
Faerie Queene” was created to flatter the Queen. Another innovative writer of the period was Sir Phillip
Sydney. The new literary style borrowed heavily from classical Greek writing.
During this period poetry was an important literary genre. A form of sonnet called either the
Shakespearian sonnet or the Elizabethan sonnet became fashionable.
Also, one of the major developments in English literature at this time is in drama. Some of
Shakespeare’s plays reflect historical and political tensions, others deal with common life experiences
which are described in comedy as well as tragedy.

2. Enlightenment (1660 – 1798)

1. Swift
In England, Neoclassicism or Rationalism (a literary movement during the Enlightenment era)
flourished roughly between 1660, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, until the publication of Lyrical
Ballads, (1798) that marked the full emergence of Romanticism. The
Stuart dynasty ended with the death of Queen Anne (in 1714), and the Hanover dynasty began with king
George I (a German and protestant king).
The Glorious Revolution had limited the power of the monarch in favor of the Parliament. The
power of Parliament and the prime minister continued to grow. The 1st prime minister was Robert Walpole
that based his policy on mercantile expansion.
During this time, there were 2 important political parts: the Whigs and the Tories that
consolidated their position and alternated in government. Also, the Industrial and Agricultural
Revolutions made the economy booming and the British trade with the rest of the world grew
enormously. Consequently, urbanization grew.

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 The neoclassical period can be divided into 3 subsets: The Restoration, The Augustan Age and the
Age of Sensibility.
The Augustan Age (1700-1745), derives its name from the literary period of Vergil and Ovid under
the Roman Emperor Augustus.
The period was characterized by the spirit of Enlightenment, a time of scientific awakening and of
unprecedented optimism in the potential of knowledge and reason to understand and change the world.
It was believed that the use of reason and science could improve the human condition. This period saw
the rise of the political pamphlet and essay but the leading genre of the Enlightenment became the novel.
The hero of the novel was the average man, the middle-class man, with a pragmatic common
sense. Literature became very instructive. Writers aimed to educate readers through their stories,
criticizing the flaws of society and individuals. Most of the writers of this time wrote political pamphlets,
but the best came from the pens of Defoe and Swift. The novel writing was influenced by travel literature,
biographies, memoirs and diaries. Also, other important literary figures of the period were Samuel
Richardson, Henry Fielding and Laurence Sterne.

2.Defoe

In England, Neoclassicism or Rationalism (a literary movement during the Enlightenment era)

flourished roughly between 1660, when the Stuarts returned to the throne, until the publication of Lyrical
Ballads, (1798) that marked the full emergence of Romanticism.
The Stuart dynasty ended with the death of Queen Anne (in 1714), and the Hanover dynasty
began with king George I (a German and protestant king).
The Glorious Revolution had limited the power of the monarch in favor of the Parliament. The
power of Parliament and the prime minister continued to grow. The 1st prime minister was Robert Walpole
that based his policy on mercantile expansion.
During this time, there were 2 important political parts that consolidated their position and
alternated in the government (the Whigs and the Tories).
Another historical event of the century was the colonial expansion . After the 7 years of war
Britain won control of Quebec, Canada and India.
Also, the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions made the economy booming and the British
trade with the rest of the world grew enormously. Consequently, urbanization grew.
The neoclassical period can be divided into 3 subsets: The Restoration, The Augustan Age and the
Age of Sensibility.
The Augustan Age (1700-1745), derives its name from the literary period of Vergil and Ovid under
the Roman Emperor Augustus.
The period was characterized by the spirit of Enlightenment, a time of scientific awakening and of
unprecedented optimism in the potential of knowledge and reason to understand and change the world.
It was believed that the use of reason and science could improve the human condition. This period saw
the rise of the political pamphlet and essay but the leading genre of the Enlightenment became the novel.
The hero of the novel was the average man, the middle-class man, with a pragmatic common
sense. Literature became very instructive. Writers aimed to educate readers through their stories,
criticizing the flaws of society and individuals. Most of the writers of this time wrote political pamphlets,
but the best came from the pens of Defoe and Swift. The novel writing was influenced by travel literature,
biographies, memoirs and diaries. Also, other important literary figures of the period were Samuel
Richardson, Henry Fielding and Laurence Sterne.

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 3. Romanticism (1789-1832)

(S. Coleridge , J. Austen, J. Keats, W. Whitman, Hawthorne, Dickinson, Melville)

A. Austen, Coleridge, Keats.

The author belongs to British Romanticism, the literary period between 1789 – 1832,
approximately. It was an age greatly marked by the industrial development with serious consequences
on people’s lives, and the French Revolution of 1789, the focus of which was to create political and social
freedom, equality, brotherhood and democracy. As a result, Romantics were enthusiastic about nature
and especially appreciated areas in nature which had not been touched by human intervention. Simple
rural life, which had not been influenced or ruined by the Industrial Revolution and in which man still
lived in harmony with nature, was seen as ideal.
Romanticism saw a shift from faith in reason to faith in senses, feelings, imagination.
There was a turn towards pantheism and the concept of “the sublime” was introduced.
Poetry and novels are the most common genres. For the romantics, poetry was believed to be the
highest form of literature, while novels were the lower form, often as sensationalistic. This period saw the
flowering of some of the greatest poets in the English language: the first generation of William Blake, S.T
Coleridge, W. Wordsworth, followed by Byron, Shelley and Keats.
Most novels of the time were written by women and were therefore widely regarded as a threat
to serious, intellectual culture. Despite this, some of the most famous British novelists wrote during this
period, including Jane Austen.
Unlike the other Romantic-era writers (e.g.Wordsworth and Coleridge), Austen’s works are very
little impacted by the French Revolution and revolutionary rhetoric. On the other hand, a preoccupation
of her novels is English Regency Society, a time that’s often described as being very focused on civility and
good manners between people.

B.Melville, Whitman, Hawthorne, Dickinson.

The author belongs to American Romanticism, the period that dominated the literary scene from
around 1830 to 1865 that marks the end of the Civil War and the rise of Realism.
American Romanticism developed later than British Romanticism and it was an age of great
westward expansion, of the increasing gravity of the slavery question, of an intensification of the spirit of
embattled sectionalism in the South, and of a powerful impulse to reform in the North. Its culminating act
was the trial by arms of the opposing views in a civil war, whose conclusion certified the fact of a united
nation dedicated to the concepts of industry and capitalism and philosophically committed to
egalitarianism.
In literature it was America's first great creative period. Emerging as new writers of strength and
creative power were the novelists Hawthorne, Simms and Melville; the poets Poe, Holmes, Longfellow,
Dickinson and Whitman.
Because of the historical events during the romanticism period the literary themes were: imagination,
emotional intensity, escapism, individuality, common man as hero, nature as a source of spirituality and
looking to the past for wisdom.
Whitman, beginning with the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, was the ultimate expression of a
poetry organic in form and romantic in spirit, united to a concept of democracy that was pervasively
egalitarian.

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 At the end of the Civil War a new nation had been born, and it was to demand and receive a new
literature less idealistic and more practical, less exalted and more earthy, less consciously artistic and
more honest than that produced in the age when the American dream had glowed with greatest intensity
and American writers had made a great literary period by capturing on their pages the enthusiasm and
the optimism of that dream.

4.Victorian Age (1837-1901)

(Dickens, L. Carroll, Hardy)

The author belongs to Victorian age, a period starting when the reign of Queen Victoria began.
Because it spans over 6 decades, the year 1870 is often used to divide the era into “early Victorian” and
“late Victorian”. The early Victorian era marked the emergence of a large middle-class society for the first
time in the history of the Western world. Along with it, came a spread of so-called “family values” and an
elaborate code of manners to distinguish one class from another.
The Victorian period was characterized by changes in the political life, expansion of the British
Empire, continuation of the industrialization. Religious ideas were challenged by Darwin’s theory of
evolutionism. It was a time of great energy and the poets and novelists of the period were very productive
as they sought to chronicle their exciting age and provide it with a high moral tone and a refined taste in
literature and arts.
It was the period when the novel began its rise in popularity. The availability of cheap paper made
mass publication possible.
Socialized novels and magazines were popular with the mases. Contrived plot twists such as strained
coincidences and romantic triangles were often utilized.
This time also was a heightened conflict between the rich and the poor. In poetry, elegies were extremely
popular.

5.Realism (1861 – 1914 , 60 – 90 pt Am.)

(H. James 1881 – father of British modernism ; M. Twain)

Born at the end of the Civil war, the literary period in which …………… wrote, aimed to recreate
reality in literature. The years following the war symbolized a time of healing and rebuilding. In literature
this was a time of upheaval. As the United States grew rapidly after the Civil War, the increasing rates of
democracy and literacy, the rapid growth in industrialism and urbanization, an expanding population base
due to immigration, and a relative rise in middle-class affluence provided a fertile literary environment
for readers interested in understanding these rapid shifts in culture.
Realists are concerned with the effect of the work on their reader and the reader's life, a
pragmatic view. Pragmatism requires the reading of a work to have some verifiable outcome for the
reader that will lead to a better life for the reader. This lends an ethical tendency to realism while focusing
on common actions and minor catastrophes of middle class society.

Modernism (1914 – 1950)

(J. Conrad, J. Joyce, G.B. Shaw, V. Woolf, F.S. Fitzgerald am, E. Hemingway am, E. O’Neill am, W.
Faulkner am, T.S. Elliot am)

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 Modernism was a literary movement that lasted approximately from 1914-1950. Modernism
began the breaking of traditional writing styles that we know today. During this period, artists began to
develop their own individual styles
New technology and the horrifying events of both World Wars (but specifically World War I) made
many people question the future of humanity: What was becoming of the world? Writers reacted to this
question by turning toward Modernist sentiments. Gone was the Romantic period that focused on nature
and being. Modernist fiction spoke of the inner self and consciousness. Instead of progress, the Modernist
writer saw a decline of civilization. Instead of new technology, the Modernist writer saw cold machinery
and increased capitalism, which alienated the individual and led to loneliness. To achieve the emotions
described above, most Modernist fiction was cast in first person. Whereas earlier, most literature had a
clear beginning, middle, and end (or introduction, conflict, and resolution), the Modernist story was often
more of a stream of consciousness, creating the feeling that the story is going nowhere. Irony, satire, and
comparisons were often employed to point out society's ills.

Post modernism (1950 - )

(Golding 1954)

The text belongs to postmodernism, a postwar cultural movement, started around 1950, that
reacted against tendencies in modernism, and was typically marked by revival of historical elements and
techniques. Postmodernist society is characterized by changes to institutions and creations and with social
and political results and innovations, globally but especially in the West.
Postmodern authors tend to depict the world as having already undergone countless disasters
and being beyond redemption or understanding. Postmodern literature reflects late modern society by
showing the individual’s inability to establish a personal identity based on a historical or social
background, let alone family and work. Postmodern literature is, to a great extent, a play on words which
reflects the meaninglessness of the late modern world, which is seen as fragmented, disoriented, chaotic,
but this leads neither to despair nor to any wish to re-establish order. The binary contrasts of good/evil,
true/false, real/unreal and order/chaos have been abolished. The world is pure surface, it is what it
appears to be. Hence each individual creates his or her own world and identity through the pictures which
he or she sees in literature and other art forms or in the so-called world. The Great Narratives, which
began to be questioned in Modernism, are rejected in Postmodernism. There is no acknowledgment of a
universal truth.