OVERVIEW OF

LITERATURE THROUGH
THE AGES
Meaning of World Literature

Literature, History and Culture

Introduction to World
Literature Period
 WORLD LITERATURE
-- Littera means Letter

Literature Knowledge of books--

-- refer to the sum total of the worlds

national literatures
LITERATURE, HISTORY
AND CULTURE

The relationship is reciprocal. Our culture

affects what we write and what we write is used
to interpret our history. However, our history
influences culture, which creates a beautiful
loop in which these three things work together to
define a group of people, a nation, etc.
- ANONYMOUS
Overview of Literature through Ages

Introduction to World
Literature Periods
EARLY PERIOD OF LITERATURE
The Classical Period
(1200 BCE 455 CE)
The Medieval Period
(455 CE 1485 CE)
The Renaissance Period
(1485-1660 CE)
The Classical Period
(1200 BCE 455 CE)

A golden age for

literature and
arts
 The Classical Period
(1200 BCE 455 CE)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:

The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer

Works and Days by Hesiod
Theogony by Hesiod
 The Classical Period
(1200 BCE 455 CE)
Greek writer and philosopher during
this period:

Gorgias Socrates
Aesop Aristotle
Plato Euripides
The Medieval Period
(455 CE 1485 CE)

Also known as
Anglo-Saxon Period
 The Medieval Period
(455 CE 1485 CE)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:
The Canterbury Tales
Beowulf
The Dark Ages and the Bards
The Dream of the Holy Rood
 The Medieval Period
(455 CE 1485 CE)
Famous Author during this period:

Geoffrey Chaucer
Thomas Aquinas
Martin Luther
Caedmon
 The Medieval Period
(455 CE 1485 CE)
Significant Literary Genres

Elegy
Religious Liturgy
Narrative Romance
The Renaissance Period
(1485-1660 CE)

It is considered to be
the division between
the Middle age and
Modern era.
 The Renaissance Period
(1485-1660 CE)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:
Romeo and Juliet
When I was Fair and Young
Utopia
The faerie Queen
 The Renaissance Period
(1485-1660 CE)
Famous Author during this period:

William Shakespeare
Sir Thomas More
Queen Elizabeth I
Edmund Spencer
LATER PERIOD OF LITERATURE

The Enlightenment Period (1660 BCE 1790)

The Romantic Period (1790 1830)

The Vitorian Period (1832 1901)

The Modern Period (1914 1945)

The Post Modern Period (1945 onward)

The Enlightenment Period
(1660 1790)

--Referred to as The
Age of Reason.
--Era of Logic
 The Enlightenment Period
(1660 1790)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:
All for love
The Rake of the Lock
Rights of Man
Elegy written in a Churchyard
 The Enlightenment Period
(1660 1790)
Famous Author during this period:

John Dryden
Alexander Pope
Thomas Paine
Thomas Gray
 The Enlightenment Period
(1660 1790)
Popular Types of literature during this
period:
Essay
Melodrama
Letters
Fables
The Romantic Period
(1790 1830)

--Great Age for the

Novel
--Emphasize on
Emotion, Imagination
and Individualism.
 The Romantic Period
(1790 1830)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:
I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud
Kubla Khan
Song of Innocence and of Experience
Mathilda
 The Romantic Period
(1790 1830)
Famous Author during this period:

William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Blake
Mary Shelley
The Victorian Period
(1832 1901)

--The Reign of Queen

Victoria.
-- The literature of this
Era expressed the fusion
of pure romance to gross
realism.
 The Victorian Period
(1832 1901)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:
The Pickwick Papers
How do I love Thee
Ulysses
 The Victorian Period
(1832 1901)
Famous Author during this period:

Charles Dicken
Elizabeth Browning
Alfred Lord Tennison
The Modern Period
(1914 1945)

Characterized by a self-
conscious break with
traditional ways of
writing, in both poetry
and prose fiction.
 The Modern Period
(1914 1945)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:
The Road Not Taken
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Insensibility
 The Modern Period
(1914 1945)
Famous Author during this period:

Robert Frost
Dylan Thomas
Wilfred Owen
The Postmodern Period
(1945 Onward)

Characterized by reliance
on narrative techniques
such as fragmentation,
paradox, and
the unreliable narrator
 The Postmodern Period
(1945 Onward)
Some Significant Literary work in this
period:
Infinite Jest
The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock
Waiting for Godot
 The Postmodern Period
(1945 Onward)
Famous Author during this period:

David Foster Wallace

T.S Eliot
Samuel Beckett
Questions !
1. It is the Golden Age of Literature and
Arts

a) The Classical Period

b) The Medieval Period
c) The Enlightenment Period
d) The Romantic Period
2. It referred to as The Age of Reason
and also known as neoclassical period

a) The Modern Period

b) The Medieval Period
c) The Enlightenment Period
d) The Romantic Period
3. It is the Great Age for Novels and it
emphasize on Emotion, Imagination
and Individualism

a) The Renaissance Period

b) The Victorian Period
c) The Enlightenment Period
d) The Romantic Period
4. In what period does the First printing
press was invented?

a) The Renaissance Period

b) The Victorian Period
c) The Enlightenment Period
d) The Romantic Period
5. Also known as Anglo-Saxon Period or
Old English Period.

a) The Classical Period

b) The Medieval Period
c) The Enlightenment Period
d) The Romantic Period