Main periods/ Movement of Movement of British poetry Distinguished Poet from the

British poetry Main characteristic of the period and literary piece

period / moment
Spenserian Sonnet Spenserian stanza: nine lines Edmund Spenser
English sonnet - English sonnet is composed William Shakespeare
of three quatrains in alternate
rhyme followed by a closing
couplet. - Its rhythm-scheme:
ab/ab/cd/cd/gg -Lyrical poet. -
Formal possibilities of sonnet,
using it to treat almost any
subject
Metaphysical Poetry -Inelegant verse of John Donne
impenetrable meaning
-A fusion of thought and
senses.
- Use of consciousness
- Poet’s recourse to
metaphysical conceits: a
combination of dissimilar
images or discovery of occult
resemblances in things
apparently unlike.
Cavalier Poetry -They belonged to the most Robert Herrick
part to the king’s party.
-They were courtiers and
aristocrats, and very often
Catholics.
-Elegance, wit, and lightness.
Romantic Poetry -It represents themes of William Blake, William
solitude, glorification, and Wordsworth Jhon Keats. Lord
imagination. Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Victorian Poetry It uses sensory elements and William Wordsworth, Alfred
gives a role to science. Lord Tennyson, Robert
-Represents the struggle Browning
between religion and science.
-Themes of morality and
dichotomy in perspectives.
Modernist Poetry Diversity variety of themes William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot.
-Uses romantic elements
-It represents love and
pessimism