literary periods

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literary periods

17th century

18th century

19th century

MID 20TH century

EARLY 20TH century

The Victorian Period and the first American Authors

In Between Wars: British Catholic Writers & American Laureates

Modernist Literature: The Bloomsbury Group & The lost Generations

Neoclassicism and Romanticism

The Elizabeth period

ALEXIS OMAR VILLAVICENCIO RUIZ

Timeline Historia

19XX-20XX

mid 20th century

mid 20th century

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Rise of Social Movements: Second wave of feminism.

Postcolonial Writing: African, Caribbean, and Indian Writers

late 20th century

Postmodernism and the Challenge of Large Narratives

REFERENCES

In the 19th century, during the Victorian period and with the rise of the first American authors, literature was marked by morality, social realism, and criticism of the problems derived from industrialization, though Gothic and late Romantic elements also flourished. In England, Charles Dickens with Oliver Twist and Great Expectations and Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice became central figures, while in the United States authors like Edgar Allan Poe with The Raven and Herman Melville with Moby-Dick emerged. The socio-historical context was defined by industrialization, urbanization, social reforms, the American frontier, and debates about class and gender.

With Neoclassicism and Romanticism, literature reflected two opposite trends: at first, it was dominated by order, logic, and reason inspired by classical models, as seen in Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Towards the end of the century, Romanticism emerged, exalting emotion, imagination, and nature as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment ideals. Poets such as William Wordsworth with Lyrical Ballads and Samuel Taylor Coleridge with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner represented this transition, which was also influenced by the ideals of liberty and individualism sparked by the French Revolution.

During the Elizabethan period, English literature reached one of its brightest moments with the flourishing of drama and poetry, characterized by rich language filled with metaphors, allegories, and rhetorical devices that reflected Renaissance humanism and the moral tensions of the time. Authors such as William Shakespeare with Hamlet and Macbeth, Christopher Marlowe with Doctor Faustus, and Edmund Spenser with The Faerie Queene shaped the period. The historical background was defined by the reign of Elizabeth I, political stability, English maritime expansion, and ongoing religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants.

In the period between the wars, writers addressed themes of faith, morality, and the search for meaning in the face of global conflict and political upheaval. Figures like Graham Greene with The Power and the Glory, W.H. Auden with his poetry, and Robert Frost in the United States reflected these concerns. The historical framework was shaped by the Great Depression, the rise of totalitarian regimes, World War II, and a revival of spiritual and ethical questions.

With the rise of social movements and the second wave of feminism, literature began to question gender inequality, identity, and traditional roles. Works such as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye embodied the influence of feminist thought and the Civil Rights Movement, reflecting the profound cultural and economic changes of the postwar world.

The development of postcolonial literature gave voice to writers from Africa, the Caribbean, and India, who explored issues of identity, displacement, and the legacies of colonialism. Authors such as Chinua Achebe with Things Fall Apart, Salman Rushdie with Midnight’s Children, and Derek Walcott with Omeros represented the multiplicity of cultural experiences in the context of decolonization and the independence movements that followed World War II.

During the Modernist period, literature turned toward formal experimentation, fragmented narrative, and the exploration of subjectivity. Writers such as Virginia Woolf with Mrs. Dalloway, James Joyce with Ulysses, and T.S. Eliot with The Waste Land explored alienation and the crisis of the individual. This literary innovation was closely tied to the social trauma of World War I, the rise of psychoanalysis, avant-garde artistic movements, and the struggle for women’s suffrage.

In the second half and late 20th century, with Postmodernism, literature was defined by fragmentation, irony, metafiction, intertextuality, and skepticism toward grand narratives. Authors like Thomas Pynchon with Gravity’s Rainbow, Don DeLillo with White Noise, and Margaret Atwood with The Handmaid’s Tale captured the anxieties of the Cold War, the rise of mass media, and the impact of globalization, producing works that questioned not only reality but also the very act of storytelling.

-National Trust. (n.d.). What was the Bloomsbury Group? Retrieved from https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/people/what-was-the-bloomsbury-group

TORCH, University of Oxford. (n.d.). Introducing postcolonial literature. Retrieved from https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/introducing-postcolonial-literature