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What is English literature?
In simple words, literature is an imitation of life. What we experience in life can be seen in different forms of literature, like drama, poetry, novels, etc.
We will take the example of drama, as there are many characters in drama that are there in our real lives as well.
Some people are tolerant, and some are not. In the same way, we can see in drama people who are tolerant and good, and some are intolerant and unkind.
So, we can say that what we see in our lives. Literature imitates or follows it. When we look at English literature, it is divided into periods with specific names. Each has its own characteristics; broadly speaking, there are eight periods of English literature. These are the periods marked according to society and the people living during each age.
As literature is an imitation of life, people present at each age create the literature of that age. Obviously, society is made up of people, and what people do,how people live, and all their actions make up society. Society is just a time; actually, what people do makes societies, and in this way, what people do actually defines literary periods.
These are the major divisions of English literature periods.
1: Anglo-Saxon or Old English period
2: Anglo-Norman or Middle English period
3: Renaissance age or early modern period
4: Neo-classical age
5: Romantic age
6: Victorian age
7: Modern age
8: Postmodern age
These are the ages of English literature, and now we will briefly discuss the features of these periods. Era, age, and epoch are the words that can also be used instead of periods.
1:Anglo-Saxon or old English period:
The Celtic people were the first inhabitants of England. The Romans attacked England many times, but then the Romans had to leave the land for the safety of their own land.
The Romans were a strong military force, and a Germanic tribe attacked their land, so they had to leave England to save their place from the Germanic tribe.
Picts and Scots, the two tribes, attacked England,where Celts were dwelling. To help the Celtic people, two Germanic tribes, Angles and Saxon, defeated the Picts and Scots.
Normans were French people who were from the north of France. The Normans invaded England. The Battle of Hastings between Duke William of France and Harold of Anglo-Saxon took place and at the Battle of Hastings William defeated Harold and conquered England.
Old English literature:
During this time, people used to orally transfer the stories.
Major work of the time:
1: Beowulf
2: Widsith
3: Deor
4: The wanderer
5: The seafarer
Beowulf is one of the major works of the time, and in this poem, the deeds of a hero are described. The protagonist of the poem is shown defeating a monster, and for the second time, when he defeats the second monster, he has some wounds, and these two monsters symbolize the two countries, Africa and China, he wanted to conquer.
2:Anglo-Norman period:
With the invasion of England by Duke William, the Anglo-Saxon period came to an end and the Anglo-Norman period started.
During this age, the spoken languages were French and old English. When these two languages combined, they formed middle English.
This age started the writings of miracle and morality plays,the story of miracle plays were taken from the Bible, whereas morality plays were based on the concepts of good and bad.
Chaucer was the prominent author of the time; he was known as the father of the English language because he used it in his works during a time when Latin and French were the prevailing languages. He was a realist; he truly depicted his society in his works.
3:Renaissance age or early modern period:
The Renaissance age is also known as the Elizabethan age or the Shakespearean age.
Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare were the prominent writers of the time. So, the age got it’s name from them.
Drama reached its height during this era. Renaissance means revival or rebirth, what does it mean,revival or rebirth? It means the coming or copying of Greek and Latin literature, also known as classical literature.
Now the question arises: why were Greek and Latin literature copied during this era?
The answer to this question is that the old classical literature ,means the Greek and the Latin literature was considered to be a good kind of literature,which in the dark ages was a kind of suppressed,but then again in renaissance era, it was revived people were writing on the basis of Greek and Latin literature so therefore it is called the renaissance.
Reformation: Reformation is the movement against the Catholic church.There are two sects of Christianity, the Catholics and the Protestants they were in battle with each other. Protestants wanted to reform the Catholic church, therefore this movement took place and the dispute between them was settled during this era.
Humanism: Humanism is one of the features of this age, which states that human beings are the center of the universe.
4: Neo-classical age: Neo-classical age, also known as Augustine age, drew inspiration from Greek writers and followed strict rules, focusing on reason rather than emotion. Classical poetry presented town life and aristocracy in their poems. They used to have certain rules for writing, and the language was artificial because they followed certain rules regarding language.
There are two main things in poetry: one is poetic substance, and the other is poetic expression. Poetic substance is what is inside the poetry, the content of the poetry, and poetry expression is the language of the poetry.
Classical writers used to focus on both the poetic expression and the poetic substance, they used to have harmony between both of these things,but the neo-classical authors just focused on poetic expression.
5: Romantic Age: Romantic Age starts with the publication of the book called lyrical Ballads written by S.T. Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Romantic authors use simple language in their writings, they depict nature and focus on emotions. William Wordsworth,who was one of the prominent writers of the age, said about poetry that it is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
6: Victorian Age: The Victorian Age is named after Queen Victoria, who long reigned over the British Empire. The Victorian age is characterized by great changes like the industrial revolution and scientific discoveries. Due to urbanization, people get divided into classes. People from rural areas came to urban areas for work.
This massive migration of people from rural to urban areas created a scarcity of employment, and in this way, the class distinction started: the rich became richer and the poor became poorer. This gave a writing topic for the writers to write about.
We can see different topics related to urbanization hat are discussed in different writers’ works, like class distinction, child labor, etc.
Due to scientific discoveries, people’s religious beliefs were shattered. Thee Darwinian theory at that time stated that there is no god and the world is self-created; it came into existence on its own; no one has created it. This theory shattered the beliefs of people, and they even started doubting the Bible.
7: Modern age: The late 19th century is the start of the modern age. The modern age witnessed world war and faced its results. There was chaos in society; people were suffering from anxiety and frustration for many reasons. It was an age of machinery; there was competition among industries, and this competition made people move faster to win the race, which obviously resulted in anxiety. People lost their job due to the world war,and the situation was chaotic during this age. People also lost faith due to scientific discoveries. They became skeptical of religion.
8: Post-Modern age: The Post-Modern age starts after World War ll, and is characterized by deviations from conventional literature. New concepts are used in this literature. Britain weakened, its economic power by losing colonies, while America became the superpower.
Pastiche is combining different forms of literature to create a new style.
They embraced randomness and disorder; they didn’t follow any order in their writing.
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