The History Of English Literature Timeline

 

 English Literature's history is divided into periods like

I. The Old English Period (450–1066)

Features: Heroic poetry, Christian influence, oral tradition

Major Work: Beowulf

II. The Middle English Period (1066–1340)

Features: Influence of Norman French, development of allegory and religious writing

Writers: William Langland, the Pearl poet

III. The Age of Chaucer (1340–1400)

Key Figure: Geoffrey Chaucer

Major Work: The Canterbury Tales

Features: Vernacular literature, realism, social satire

IV. From Chaucer to Spenser (1400–1558)

Features: Transitional period; decline of medieval forms, early Renaissance spirit

Writers: John Skelton, Sir Thomas More, Wyatt and Surrey (sonneteers)

V. The Age of Elizabeth (1558–1603)

Key Figures: William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser

Features: Drama flourishes, poetry (sonnet) reaches new heights

VI. The Age of Milton (1603–1660)

Key Figure: John Milton

Features: Religious themes, epic poetry, political prose

Context: Civil War and Puritan influence

VII. The Age of Dryden (1660–1700)

Key Figure: John Dryden

Features: Restoration drama, satire, neoclassicism

VIII. The Age of Pope (1700–1745)

Key Figure: Alexander Pope

Features: Heroic couplets, wit, satire, polished style

IX. The Age of Transition (1745–1798)

Also Called: The Age of Johnson or Pre-Romantic Age

Features: Movement towards emotion and nature

Writers: Samuel Johnson, Thomas Gray, James Thomson

X. The Return to Nature (The Romantic Age) (1798–1837)

Key Figures: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Byron

Features: Emotion, nature, imagination, reaction against neoclassicism

XI. The Victorian Age (1837–1901)

Key Figures: Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, Hardy

Features: Morality, realism, industrial society, conflict between faith and science

XII. The Birth of Modern Literature (1901–1914)

Also Called: Edwardian/Georgian Age

Features: Shift from Victorian ideals, early experimentation

Writers: H.G. Wells, E.M. Forster, Thomas Hardy (late)

XIII. The Inter-War Years (1914–1945)

Features: Modernism, disillusionment, fragmentation

Writers: T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, W.H. Auden

XIV. The Mid-Twentieth Century (1945–1990s)

Features: Postmodernism, absurdism, multicultural voices

Writers: Samuel Beckett, George Orwell, Salman Rushdie

SYLLABUS FOR PSC ASSISTANT MASTER/MISTRESS IN ENGLISH 

(WEST BENGAL PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION)

1. HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE (1340-2000)

2. DETAILED STUDY 

   a) MACBETH, AS YOU LIKE IT BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

   b) PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BY JANE AUSTEN 

   c) PARADISE LOST (BOOK 1) BY JOHN MILTON

   d) THE RAPE OF THE LOCK BY ALEXANDER POPE 

   e) THE GUIDE BY R.K. NARAYAN 

   f) THE SHADOW LINE BY AMITABH GHOSH 

   g) ODE TO THE WEST WIND BY P.B. SHELLY 

   h) ODE TO THE NIGHTINGALE BY JOHN KEATS 

   i) ULYSSES MY ALFRED TENNYSON 

   j) MY LAST DUCHESS BY ROBERT BROWNING 

   k) PRELUDES BY T.S. ELIOT

3. GRAMMAR

4. VOCABULARY 

   ANTONYM, SYNONYMS, 

   IDIOMATIC USAGE OF LANGUAGE, 

   FIGURES OF SPEECH etc.

5. TEST OF COMPREHENSION

   UNSEEN PASSAGE