Easy way to learn English literature. Here you will find clear idea about different types of authors and their writings. Also you will get all important quotations. It will make you fully comfortable to discuss about English literature.
1. English Literature
http://www.englishact.com/index.php
A short history of English Literature
The epic poem Beowulf is the first landmark of old English Literature. In the Middle English
Period, Geoffrey Chaucer was a great poet. He wroteCanterbury Tales and The Legend of
Good Women and was the father of English poetry. In the Renaissance period, there were many
drama and poetry writers. John Milton was the great poet in the 17th century. He wrote the epic
poem Paradise Lost. Neo classical period was associated with satire. At the ending time of the
Neo classical period, Novels and Romantic poems were written.
Novel became the leading literary genre in Victorian period of English Literature.In the 20th
century, Irish writers were important. Some of the greates American writers are Ernest
Hemingway, Mark Twain, Emerson, Henry James, William Faulkner etc.
Periods of English Literature
SN. Range Name
1. 450 - 1066 The Old English Period or The Anglo-Saxon Period
2. 1066 - 1500
The Middle English Period
a. Anglo - Norman Period (1066 - 1340)
b. The Age of Chaucer (1340 - 1400)
c. Barren Age (1400 - 1485)
3. 1500 - 1660
The Renaissance Period
a. Elizabethan Age (1558 - 1603)
b. Jacobean Age (1603 - 1625)
c. Caroline Age (1625 - 1649)
d. Commonwealth period (1649 - 1660)
4. 1660 - 1798
The Neoclassical Period
a. The Restoration Period (1660 - 1700)
b. The Augustan Age or The Age of Pope (1700 - 1745)
c. The Age of Sensibility or The Age of Jonson (1745 - 1798)
5. 1798 - 1832 The Romantic Period
6. 1832 - 1901 The Victorian Period
a. The Pre-Raphaelites (1848 - 1860)
2. b. Aestheticism and Decadence (1880 - 1901)
7. 1901 - 1939
The Modern Period (till the world war II)
a. The Edwardian Period (1901 - 1910)
b. The Georgian Period (1910 - 1939)
8. 1939 - current The Postmodern Period
Some important Literary Terms
http://www.englishact.com/LiteraryTerms/index.php
Literary Terms
Act
: A major division of the action of a play.
Allegory
: An allegory is a story of double meanings. In it one story is told in the guise of
another story. John Dryden's'Absalom and Achitophel' is a political allegory in
verse that uses names of Biblical personages and events to mean the political
situation of his time.
Aside
3. : A dramatic technique of speaking alone with the presence of another characters on
the stage with a view to giving his/her own ideas, thoughts and feelings to the
audience.
Ballad
: A narrative poem that tells a grave story through dialogue and action.
Blank Verse
: Poetry without rhyme.
Canto
: A part of a long poem.
Climax
: In a play or story, it is the peak point at which the rise of action ends and the fall of
action begins.
Comic Relief
4. : The purpose of comic relief is to relieve the tension and heighten the tragic effect by
contrast.
Couplet
: Two lines of verse rhyming together.
Denouement
: The final scene of a drama or fiction in which all the problems are solved, all the
knots are untied and a satisfactory explanation of the dramatic situations is given.
Diction
: The selection of words or language in a writing or speech.
Dirge
: A funeral hymn; a song expressing grief.
Dramatic monologue
: A form of poetry in which a single speaker speaks to a silent listener/listeners.
5. Elegy
: A lyric poem mourning for the death of an individual or lamenting over a tragic
event.
Epic
: An extended narrative poem, exalted in style and heroic in theme.
Epilougue
: A poem or speech at the end of a play.
Epitaph
: Inscription on a tomb or a monument.
Fable
: Allegorical story of animal characters which teaches a moral for human beings.
Genre/Form
: A 'kind' or 'type' of literature such as tragedy, comedy, novel, essay etc.
6. Hamartia/Tragic Flaw
: An error or a flow for which the hero of a tragedy falls from the zenith of his success
to the nadir of his misery.
Heroic Couplet
: A pair of iambic pentameter verse lines which rhyme together.
Hymn
: Song in praise of God.
Hyperbole
: Exaggerated statement not to be taken literally such as 'O Hamlet, thou hast cleft
may heart in twain.'
Idyl
: A short poem describing simple, rural, pastoral scenes.
7. Irony
: It is a statement or a situation or an action which actually means the opposite of its
surface meaning.
Lyric
: A short poem expressing personal thoughts and fellings of a single speaker.
Metaphor
: It is an implicit comparison between two dissimilar objects such as - Diana is a
rose .
Novelette
: A short novel usually of thirty to forty thousand words. Example : Joseph
Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Ode
: A long lyric poem that is serious in sumbject and treatment, elevated in style, and
elaborate in its stanzaic structure.
8. Oxymoron
: A figure in which contradictory words are placed side by side for raising a striking
effect. Example: "I fear and hope, I burn and freeze in ice." (Wyatt)
Parable
: An allegorical story of human characters which teaches a religious moral.
Plot
: The logical arrangement of events designed to excite curiosity or suspense. It is the
structure of a literary work.
Satire
: A literary attack on the follies and vices of an individual or a society with a view to
correcting them through laughter and ridicule. Example: Pope's The Rape of the
Lock.
Simile
: An explicit comparison between two unlike objects usually using 'like' or 'as' such
as James is as brave as tiger.
9. Soliloquy
: A dramatic technique of speaking alone on the stage.
Sonnet
: A lyric poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines. Sonnet is of three types such as
Petrarchan, Shakespearean and Spenserian. The first eight lines of a Petrarchan
sonnet are called 'Octave' and the last six lines of it are called 'sestet'. Shakespearean
sonnet includes four stanzas and the last two lines (last stanza) of it are called
'couplet'.
Stanza
: A division of poem.
Writers and writings
http://www.englishact.com/WritersAndWorks/index.php
Important writers
http://www.englishact.com/DifferentLiterature/index.php
Origin & type of Authors
http://www.englishact.com/LiteraryPersons/index.php
important quotations
