Literary Periods, Movements, and History

Literature History

Henry Augustin Beers was a literature historian and professor at Yale who lived at the turn of the 19th century. He wrote intensely detailed histories of American and English literature, covering the periods up until what were his modern times. We have collected those works below.

English Literature History

• • From the Conquest to Chaucer 1066-1400
  • From Chaucer to Spenser 1400-1599
  • The Age of Shakespeare 1564-1616
  • The Age of Milton 1608-1674
  • From the Restoration to the Death of Pope 1660-1744
  • The Death of Pope to the French Revolution 1744-1789
  • The French Revolution to the Death of Scott 1789-1832
  • From the Death of Scott to the Present Time 1832-1893
  • Appendix

American Literature History

• • Preface
  • The Colonial Period 1607-1765
  • The Revolutionary Period 1765-1815
  • The Era of National Expansion 1815-1837
  • The Concord Writers 1837-1861
  • The Cambridge Scholars 1837-1861
  • Literature in the Cities 1837-1861
  • Literature Since 1861
  • Appendix

Literary Period Introductions

Tracing the evolution of literature through time scholars often group works from a certain timeframe together and label it as a period or movement. This section of The Literature Network aims to disect these movements for the better understanding of you, the reader. The movements or periods listed here where not mutually exclusive in their timeframes, they overlap, liberally. In some cases a single author can even be claimed by more than one movement. Classifing art, an art in itself, often ends up more fluid like this. Each introduction (listed below) includes a broad overview of the movement or period, examples of key works, and a list of major authors.

See also our Literary Periods Timeline for a visual reference of the evolution of literature.

• Literary Periods

  • Renaissance Literature
  • The Enlightenment
  • Romanticism
  • Transcendentalism
  • Victorian Literature
  • Realism
  • Naturalism
  • Modernism
  • Bloomsbury Group
  • Existentialism
  • Beat Generation