Periods of English Literature
43 AD……………...... Roman Conquest under King Claudius
450 …………………. Anglo-Saxon Conquest
597………………….. Conversion to Christianity
late 8th C. …………... Danish Invasion
1066 ……………........ Norman Conquest
(450-1066) …………...Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period
(1066- 1485)…………. Middle English Period
(1500-1660)………….. The Renaissance
1492………………….. The New World
1517……………………Reformation, Protestantism
(1558-1603)…………...Elizabethan Period
1588…………………...Armada
(1603-1625)…………...Jacobean Period (James I)
(1642-1649)……………Civil war, theatres closed (Charles I)
(1625-1649)…………...Caroline Period
(1649-1660)……………Common Wealth, Interregnum
(1660-1785)……………The Neoclassical Period
(1660-1700)……………Restoration (Charles II) / Death of Dryden
(1700-1745)……………Augustan Age, height of Neoclassicism/ Death of Pope & Swift
(1745-1785)……………Age of Sensibility, Age of Johnson / Publication of Cowper’s The Task
(1789-1830)……………The Romantic Period, The French Revolution/ Death of S.W. Scott
1798……………………publication of Lyrical Ballads/ Romantic literature
(1832-1901)……………Victorian Period
(1848-1860)……………The Pre-Raphaelites
(1880-1901)……………Aestheticism & Decadence
(1901-1910)……………Edwardian Period
(1911-1920s)……………Georgian Period
(1914-1918)……………World War I, Modernism
1930s…………………. Depression & unemployment
(1945- )……………….World War II, Post- Modernism