Development of

English & American

Literature
 Hello!

I am Jane Doe
I am here because I love to design presentations. You can contact
me at @username
 1.
Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
Period
450-1066
 Old English
Few surviving texts with little in common.
Language closer to modern German than
modern English.
Frequently reflect non-English influence.
 Example : Beowulf
 2.
Middle English
1066-1500
 Middle English
Works frequently of a religiously didactic
content.
Written for performance at court or for
festivals.
 Example: Geoffrey Chaucer ‘s
(The Canterbury Tales)
 3.
English Renaissance
1500-1660
 English Renaissance
Influence of Aristotle, Ovid, and other Greco-Roman
thinkers, as well as science and exploration.

Primarily texts for public performance (plays, masques) and

some books of poetry.

 William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon

 4.
Neoclassical Period
1660-1785
 Neoclassical Period
Age of Enlightenment (England 1660-1785 )
 Age of Reason (America 1750-1800 )
 reaction to the expansiveness of the
Renaissance in the direction of order and
restraint.
 Neoclassical Period
Emphasized classical ideals of rationality and
control (human nature is constant through time).

Art should reflect the universal commonality of

human nature. (“All men are created equal.”)

Reason is emphasized as the highest faculty

 Neoclassical Period

Writing should be well structured, emotion should

be controlled, and emphasize qualities like wit.
 Neoclassical Period
England: John Milton (Paradise Lost), Jonathon
Swift (Gulliver’s Travels), Daniel Defoe (Robinson
Crusoe), Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility,, Pride
and Prejudice).
 Neoclassical Period
America: Thomas Jefferson (“The Declaration of
Independence”), James Madison (“The Constitution
of the United States”).
 5.
Romantic Period
England 1785-1830
America 1800-1860
 Romantic Period
Reaction against the scientific rationality of
Neoclassicism and the Industrial Revolution.

Emphasized individuality, intuition, imagination,

idealism, nature (as opposed to society & social
order).
 Romantic Period

Elevation of the common man

(folklore, myth).

Mystery and the supernatural.

 Romantic Period
England: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
(Frankenstein), John Keats (“Ode on a Grecian
Urn”), William Wordsworth “I Wandered Lonely as a
Cloud”),
 Romantic Period
America: Washington Irving (“Rip Van Winkle,”
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”), Edgar Allan Poe
(“The Raven,” Tales of the Grotesque and
Arabesque, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,”
Nathaniel Hawthorne (Twice-Told Tales, The Scarlet
Letter)
 6.
Victorian Period
1832-1901
 Victorian Period
Named for the reign of Queen Victoria

Period of stability and prosperity for Britain.

British society extremely class conscious.

Literature seen as a bridge between Romanticism and

Modernism.
 Victorian Period
Generally emphasized realistic portrayals of
common people, sometimes to promote social
change.

Some writers continue to explore gothic themes

begun in Romantic Period.
 Victorian Period
Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist), Robert Louis
Stevenson (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde), Rudyard Kipling (Jungle Book), Lewis
Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland),
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre), Emily Brontë
(Wuthering Heights)
 7.
Realistic Period (America)
1860-1914
 Realistic Period (America)
Reaction against Romantic values (Civil War).

Emphasized the commonplace and ordinary (as

opposed to the romanticized individual).

Sought to depict life as it was, not idealized.

 Realistic Period (America)
Naturalism – hyper-realism

Named for the belief that man is simply a higher

order animal, and thus under the same natural
constraints and limitations as other animals.

Controlled by heredity and environment.

 7.
Edwardian Period (England)
1901-1914
Edwardian Period (England)
Named after King Edward.
Some see as a continuation of Victorian Period;
With the advent of a new monarch and a new
century, Edwardian writers created protagonists who
looked introspectively, and thought critically about
the moralism and technological advances of the
previous era.
Edwardian Period (England)
Edwardian era writers also examined the fears and
social anxiety surrounding technological advances.
As mass imports, exports and travel became easier,
fears arose that consumerism and the sudden leap
forward in technology would change society for the
worse.
Edwardian Period (England)
While some novels published in the Edwardian era
encouraged the xenophobia-fuelled fears embedded in
Victorian era thinking, a great deal of books aimed to find
spiritual freedom, which manifested itself in liberating
oneself from society’s rules, and liberating oneself from the
shame and embarrassment inherent in rejecting community
values.
 8.
Modern Period
1914- 1945
 Modern Period
Reaction against the values which led to WWI. •
Writers experiment with form.
Form and content reflect the confusion and changes
of modern life.
Expositions and resolutions are omitted;
Themes are implied rather than stated.
 9.
Postmodern Period
1945-present
 Postmodern Period
‘Postmodern’: literature of the last half of the 20th
century.
Postmodern philosophy emphasises the elusiveness
of meaning and knowledge, often expressed in
postmodern art as a concern with representation and
an ironic self-awareness.
 Postmodern Period
Postmodernism give voice to the insecurities,
disorientation and fragmentation of the 20th century
western world.
“
END