1.3 Brief survey of Literatures in English

The history of English Literature is divided into distinct phases termed as "Ages" or "periods" with their characteristic features. These are named after a major literary writer or the ruling monarch of that period such as Age of Shakespeare or Elizabethan Age.

The earliest of the phases of English literature is called Anglo Saxon period after the Germanic tribes who settled in the Celtic British Isles. This period produced Oral Literature with songs about battles, god's, heroes and legends. This period set the tone for English Poetry with the works of poets such as Caedmon and Cynewulf. The best known work in this period is the Old English poem Beowulf. The Norman (French) conquest of England in 1066 with the Battle of Hastings brought a new or Modern direction to the literature of the Middle English Period. The French influence in the culture, social life and literature of this period is immense. This period produced writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Malory, William Langland and John Gower. Notable works include The Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman and the Medieval Romances of King Arthur and Charlemagne.

The Elizabethan Age, named after Queen Elizabeth was the golden age of drama which emerged as the primary form of public entertainment and political patronage. The exponents of the form included Christopher Marlowe, the University Wits and William Shakespeare. The influence of European Renaissance (revival of Classical learning) was seen in Poetry with newer forms such as the sonnet, the lyric and pastoral. The prominent poets of the age were Edmund Spenser, Wyatt and Surrey, Philip Sydney. The Elizabethan Age was followed by the Jacobean Age ( under King James I) which saw the publication of the Authorised Version of the Bible and the Caroline Age (under King Charles I) which ended with the Civil War between the Catholics and the Protestants.

The Civil War ended with the regicide of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, ushering in the Puritan Age. The religious sentiment made the poetry more metaphysical, chiefly in the hands of John Donne and Cowley. The representative poet of the period was John Milton who produced the epic Paradise Lost. This period also saw the closing of theatres as drama was perceived by the Puritans as frivolous.

The Neoclassical Age is divided into three distinct phases: The Restoration, The Augustan Age and The Age of Sensibility.

 The first begins in 1660 with the Restoration of Monarchy. With Charles II on the throne, England gave up on the restraint and prudishness of the Puritan Age and revelled in licentiousness and frivolity (under the French influence). The Restoration Comedy of Manners by William Congreve and John Dryden's Heroic Couplet in poetry were the most notable literary genres. 

  The Augustan Age saw strict adherence to the Classical rules of literary writing and writers such as Dryden and Alexander Pope imitated the writings of Classical writers such as Virgil, Ovid and Longinus.      

    The Age of Sensibility also called Age of Johnson was shaped by the Enlightenment movement in Europe that called for a scientific approach to life, literature and science. This period saw the birth of the Novel form in the writings of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. The popularity of the genre of fiction produced many women writers including Aphra Behn, Fanny Burney and Jane Austen. 

The most fruitful and revolutionary period in English literature begins with the publication of The Lyrical Ballads in 1798 by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Influenced by the French Revolution in 1789, Romanticism gave primary importance to the individual( the author/ creator) and his feelings and emotions and believed that literature must be a reflection of the poet's sensibility, an expression of his true self. The Romantic spirit is explored in the writings of Keats, Shelly and Byron.

Named after Queen Victoria who ruled from 1832 to 1901, the Victorian Age saw England undergo immense upheaval in the social, religious, political and economic contexts- The Industrial Revolution and the British Empire led to the rise of the economically powerful Middle class, the Reform Bills awarded voting rights to the masses and changed the power dynamics in society and Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution shook the foundations of the English Church and developed a scientific spirit guided by reason and experimentation. The writings of this period explored both the light and darker aspects of the age in a realistic fashion as in the poetry of Matthew Arnold and novels of Charles Dickens such as Oliver Twist and Little Dorrit. Other exponents were Browning, Tennyson, Thackeray, Hardy, the Bronte sisters, John Ruskin and the Rosettis.

The 20th century witnessed the Modernist writers seeking to create a new grammar and vocabulary to express the reality of a world torn by the I World War and the humanitarian crises that followed. Many new isms were born in the period- Existentialism, Nihilism, Absurdism - to explain the meaning of human existence. The modern novelists such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf moved away from action or plot and used new techniques such as the Stream of Consciousness style to explore the inner workings or the psychological motivations of the characters. The poet's who explored free verse were W.B.Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Wilfred Owen and Dylan Thomas. Modern dramatists who experimented with different styles of theatre were Tom Stoppard, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. 

The end of World War II brought about a dissolution of the old order and unlike modernism that mourned the loss of order and culture, Postmodernism sought to revel in the chaos. Postmodern philosophers celebrate the lack of meaning in life and postmodernist writers seek to reveal the world's absurdities, paradoxes and ironies through their works. The breaking down of walls and boundaries plays out on the literary page as literary texts cross traditional generic markers to include other forms of expression. The postmodern writer likewise is a global citizen such as Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, Amitav Ghosh, Peter Carey who crosses geographical and cultural boundaries to redefine the meaning of English Literature to make it World Literature. 

Activity:

Write any Five characteristics of any Literary age or period of your choice.