Historical Cultural and Author Works Themes Motifs Symbols Main Point of Literary

Period Literary Characters view/Style Genre

context
Renaissanc William 154 Sonnets 1.The flight of time 1. Art versus 1. flowers The
e Renaissance Shakespeare 1593-1594 2. the immortality of time/art’s and trees speaker Shakespere Poetry
1485-1649 Baroque 1564-1616 (published in art struggle to 2. Stars (voice of an sonnet
1509) 3. Love: different overcome 3. Weather the is different Figures
types of love time and sonnets) from the of
Sonnets 18 4. The dangers of 2. Stopping seasons The Young Petrarchan speech:
dedicated to a lust and love the march Man (s 1- sonnet; similes,
young man 5. The responsibility towards 126) It is made metap
(love/immortality of being beautiful death/childr The Dark up of 3 hors,
of art) 6. Real beauty versus en as an Lady (127- quatrains personi
Sonnet 130 to a clichéd beauty antidote to 150) and a fication
woman (love, death rhymed (pathe
parody, mocks 3. the couplet. tic
the Petrarchan significance –uses the fallacy)
sonnet) of sight Iambic
pentameter
(five pairs
of
unstressed/
stressed
syllables)

37 plays 1.Love (different 1. Light and 1.Poison Romeo Traged

Romeo and Juliet types of love)/The darkness 2.Queen Juliet y
1595 forcefulness of love 2. Opposite Maab Mercutio
2. Love as a cause of points of Friar
violence view Lawrence
3. The individual 3. Nighttime The Nurse
versus society
4. Identity
5. Fate
6. Sex
7. Violence
8. Youth
9. Meaning of
Gender
10. Value and
 doubleness

1.Love’s difficulty 1. Contrast 1. Theseus Theseus Comed

Midsummer 2. Magic and Puck y
Night’s Dream 3. Dreams Hypollita Titania
1600 2. The Love Oberon
Potion Hermia
3.The Helena
Craftsmen’ Demetrius
s Play Bottom
Actors

Hamlet 1.The impossibility of 1. Incest and 1. Yorrick’s Hamlet Reveng

1603 certainty incestuous skull stands Claudius e
2. The complexity of desire for death’s Gertrude Traged
action 2. Misoginy inevitability Ophelia y
3. The mystery of 3. Ears and and the
death hearing disintegrati
4. The nation as a on of the
diseased body body
5. Performance
6. Madness
7. Doubt
Macbeth 1.The corrupting 1.Hallucinati 1.Blood – Macbeth Traged
1608 power of unchecked ons stands for Lady y in the
ambition 2. Violence the guilt Macbeth Greek
2. The relationship 3. Prophecy 2. The Banquo style
between cruelty and weather – Macduff
masculinity chaos The Three
3. The difference brought by Witches
between kingship murder
and tyranny 3. The
4. Order/Chaos three
5. Guilt witches-
6. Children stand for
evil

The Enlightenment Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe 1.The ambivalence 1.Counting 1. The Robinson C 1st person Novel
Puritan /Neoclassicism 1719 of mastery and footprint Friday narrative
Restoratio 2.The necessity of measuring 2. The The
n and repentance 2. Eating cross Portuguese
Augustan 3. The importance of 3. Ordeals at 3. Crusoe’s Captain
Age self-awareness sea Bower
1650-1800
Jonathan Gulliver’s Travels 1.Might versus right 1. Excrement 1.Lilliputian Lemuel 1st person Novel
Swift 1726 2.The individual 2. Foreign s Gulliver narrative-
versus society Languages 2.Brobding unreliable
3.The limits of 3.Clothing nagians narrator
human 3.Laputans
understanding 4.Houyhnh
nms
5. England
The Romanticism John Keats 1.Ode on a 1. The conflict 1. Beauty 1.The Poetry:
Romantic 1795-1821 Grecian Urn between the real 2.Death Grecian urn 1&2
Age 1818 world of suffering, 3. Nature – perfect Ode
1776-1837 2.Ode to a death and decay and never 3.
Nightingale the ideal world of changing Sonnet
3.When I have beauty, imagination world of 5.
fear and youth. art Ballad.
4.To Autumn 2.love 2. The
5. La Belle Dame 3.nature and seasons night sky –
sans Merci 1819 symbol of
artistic
inspiration
3. autumn
–maturity
and
plenitude
Jane Austen Pride and 1.Love 1. Courtship 1. 1.Elizabeth Third Novel
1775-1817 Prejudice 2.Reputation 2. Journeys Pemberley Bennet person of
1813 3.Class 2. omniscient manne
Fitzwilliam rs
Darcy
3. Jane B.
and Charles
Bingley
4. Mr
Bennet
 5. Mrs
Bennet

North Romanticism Edgar Allan The Tell-tale 1. Love and hate 1. The Evil 1.Unamed First person Short
American Gothic Poe (1809- heart 2. Madness Eye narrator Narrative story
History 1849) 1843 2. Animals 2. Old man Detecti
3. Hearing ve and
(the old horror
The Post man’s heart story
Revolution beating)
Period

Up to 1823
The
Monroe
Doctrine

North Dark Nathaniel The Scarlet Letter 1.Sin, knowledge and 1. Civilization 1. The 1.Hester Omniscient Roman
American Romanticism Hawthorne 1850 the human condition versus the Scarlet Prynne narraror ce
History 1804-1864 2.The nature of evil wilderness letter 2. Arthur 3rd person Historic
3.Identity and 2. Night 2. The Dimmesdal al
1823-1900 society versus day Meteor e novel
Civil War 3.Evocative 3. Pearl 3. Pearl
names 4.
Chillingwor
th
Herman Moby Dick 1.The limits of 1.Whiteness 1.The 1. Ishmael 1st person Epic
Melville 1851 knowledge 2.Surfaces Pequod 2. Captain narrator Advent
1819-1891 2. The deceptiveness and depths 2. Moby Ahab Ishmael ure
of fate Dick 3. story
3.The exploitative 3.Queeque Queequeg Quest
nature of whaling g’s coffin 4. The tale
three Allegor
mates y
5. Fedallah Traged
6. y
Tashtego/
Dagoo
Transcedentali Walt Leaves of Grass 1.Democracy as a 1. Lists 1. Plants Whitman- Poetry
sm Whitman 1855 way of life (catalogues) 2. The self Song of Free verse
1819-1892 2.The cycle of 2.The human myself Repetition,
Father of growth and death body Alliteration
American 3. The beauty of the 3. Rhythm Assonance
Poetry individual and Lists
incantation

Emily 1.The Individual’s 1. The 1. Feet ED style is Poetry

Dickinson Poetry struggle with God Speaker’s 2.Stone startling Almost
1830-1866 (Around 1800 2. The Assertion of unique 3. Birds original : 2000
poems) the Self poetic voice dramatic poems
First edition 3.The Power of 2.The opening,
published words and Poetry Connection striking
posthumously in 4. Nature as a between visual
1890 ‘haunted house’ Sight and images,
Self widespread
personifica
tion, dense
metaphors
and a great
economy of
language

REALISM Mark Twain The Adventures 1.Racism and slavery 1. Childhood 1. The 1. Huck First person Picares
of Huckleberry 2.Intellectual and 2.Lies and Mississippi Finn narrator- que
Finn moral education Cons River, 2. Jim Huck Bildung
1884 3.The hypocrisy of 3.Superstitio floods, 3. Tom sroman
‘civilized’ society ns and Folk shipwrecks Sawyer
beliefs
4. Parody of
popular
romance
novels
David 1.The Plight of the 1.Mothers 1.The sea 1.David First person Novel
REALISM Charles Copperfield weak and mothers 2. Flowers Copperfield narrative Bildung
THE NATURALISM Dickens Serial publication 2. Equality in figures 3. Mr Dick’s 2. Uriah sroman
VICTORIAN AESTHETICISM 18 May 1849-Nov marriage 2.Accented kite Heep David C
AGE 1850 3. Wealth and class speech 3. James
1837-1901 3. Physical Steerforth
beauty 4. Mr &
Mrs
Micawber
5. Clara
Pegotty
6.The
Murdstone
s
The Great 1.Ambition and the 1.Doubles 1.The 1. Pip First person Novel
Expectations desire for self- 2. stopped 2.Estella Narrative Bildung
Published serially improvement Comparison clock at 3.Miss Pip sroman
between 1860- 2. Social class of characters Satis house Havisham social
1861 3. Guilt, criminality, to inanimate 2.The Mists 4.Abel criticis
and innocence; objects of the Magwitch m,
4. Sophistication 3. Marshes (the autobi
5. Education Disappointed 3. Bentley convict) ographi
expectations Drummle 5. Joe cal
4. The Gargery fiction
connection
between
weather and
dramatic
events
Lewis Carroll Alice’s 1.The Tragic and 1.Dream 1.The 1.Alice Third Nonsen
1832-1898 Adventures in inevitable loss of 2.Subversion Garden 2.The person se
Wonderland childhood innocence 3.Language 2. The Cheshire narrator literatu
1865 2. Life as a 4. Curious, Caterpillar’ Cat re
meaningless puzzle nonsense s 3.The Childre
3. Death as a and mushroom Queen of n ‘s
constant and confusion Hearts fiction
underlying menace 4. The Satire
White Allegor
Rabbit y
Story
of 19th
century
 Oxford-
key
novel
Thomas Tess of the 1.The injustice of 1.Birds 1.Prince 1.Tess Omniscient Region
Hardy d’Urberville existence 2.The Book 2.The Durbeyfield third al
1840-1928 1891 2.Changing ideas of of Genesis d’Urberville 2. Alec person novel/
social class in 3.Variant family vault d’Urberville Novel
Late Victorian Victorian England names 3. Brazil 3. Angel of
3. Men dominating Clare charact
women er and
environ
ment /
Victoria
n
tragic/

Henry James The Portrait of a 1.American versus 1.Isabel Third Novel/

1843-1916 Lady European character 2.Gilbert person Realis
Serial publication 2.Social and Osmond narrator/M m
1880/1908 emotional 3.Ralph ultiple
American revised edition maturation Touchett point of
naturalized views
British technique

Modernism
Postmoder
nism