Handout 101

Outline of Western Literary Periods

bullet

The most significant authors are presented in bold type [e.g., Homer].

bullet

Authors in brackets pre or post-date slightly the movement they are listed under, but are usually associated with that movement

bullet

Longer lists are divided into genres by slashes (/).

bullet

Authors are "keyed" to the genre they are MOST associated with, as follows:
bullet

  (p): poetry, incl. epic & lyric ~

bullet

  (d): drama, incl. tragedy & comedy

bullet

  (f): fiction, incl. the novel & short story

bullet

  (hb): history or (auto)biography

bullet

  (pp): philosophy or political propaganda

bullet

  (r): religious polemics

bullet

  (s): science or social science

bullet

  (pr): miscellaneous prose (general essays, criticism, etc.)

I. CLASSICAL PERIOD [Greece & Rome]  (ca. 850 B.C.-A.D. 450)

--GREECE: Homer(p), Hesiod(p), Sappho(p), Pythagoras(pp), Pindar(p)

bulletAttic & Alexandrian Ages ... Plutarch(hb), Epictetus(pp), Lucian(f), Plotinus(pp)
bulletAttic Age (ca. 500-323 B.C.):  d: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes / hb: Herodotus,   Thucydides, Xenophon / pp: Plato, Aristotle
bulletAlexandrian Age (ca. 323-146 B.C.): Theophrastus(pr), Menander(d),Epicurus(pp), Theocritus(p)

--ROME: Plautus(d), Terence(d) ...

bulletGolden & Silver Ages:  Marcus Aurelius(pp), Apuleius(f)
bulletGolden Age (ca. 70 B.C.-A.D. 17):
bulletCiceronian Age (ca. 70-44 B.C.): Cicero(pr), Caesar(hb), Lucretius(pp), Catullus(p)
bulletAugustan Age (ca. 44 B.C.-A.D. 17): Virgil (p), Horace(p), Livy(hb), Ovid(p)
bulletSilver Age (ca. A.D. 17-130): Seneca(d), Petronius(f), Martial(p), Tacitus(hb), Juvenal(p), Suetonius(hb)

II. MEDIEVAL PERIOD [Middle Ages]  (ca. A.D. 450-1450)

bulletROME//LATIN: [Augustine(hb),] Boethius(pp) // Aquinas(pp), Duns Scotus(pp)
bulletSCANDINAVIA//GERMANY: _The Elder Edda (p) // The Nibelungenlied (p), Walther von der Vogelweide(p)
bulletFRANCE: La Chanson de Roland (p),  Aucassin et Nicolete (p), Le Roman de la Rose (p), Villon(p)
bulletSPAIN: The Poem of the Cid (p)
bulletITALY: Dante(p)

III. RENAISSANCE (ca. 1450-1600)

bulletITALY (ca. 1350-): Petrarch(p), Boccaccio (f), Machiavelli(pp), Ariosto(p), Cellini(hb), Tasso(p)
bulletFRANCE: Rabelais (f), Du Bellay(p), Ronsard(p), Montaigne(pr)
bulletSPAIN//PORTUGAL:  La Celestina (d) // Camoens(p)
bulletHOLLAND//GERMANY: Erasmus(pp) // Luther(r)

IV. AGE OF REASON (ca. 1600-1700)

bulletSPAIN: {**Golden Age--ca. 1580-1681}: Cervantes(f), Lope de Vega(d), Tirso(d), Alarco'n(d), Caldero'n(d)
bulletFRANCE: pp: Descartes, Pascal / d: Corneille, Molie`re, Racine / pr: La Rochefoucauld, Boileau /  p: La Fontaine
bulletGERMANY//HOLLAND: Boehme(pp), Leibniz(pp) // Spinoza(pp)

V. ENLIGHTENMENT (The ~) (ca. 1700-1800)

bulletFRANCE: Montesquieu(pp), Voltaire(f), Pre'vost(f), Diderot(pr)
bulletGERMANY: Klopstock(p), Lessing(d) "Sturm und Drang" (fl. 1770's): Herder(pr), Goethe (d),
bulletSchiller(d)
bulletITALY: Alfieri(d)

VI. ROMANTIC PERIOD (ca. 1800-1850)

   GERMANY: pp: [Kant,] Hegel, Schelling,  Schopenhauer / pr: Schlegel(s) / p: Ho"lderlin, Novalis, Heine / d: Grillparzer[Austr.]

bulletFRANCE: [Rousseau(pp),] Chateaubriand(f), Lamartine(p), Vigny(p),Hugo(p), Musset(p), Gautier(f)
bulletITALY: Manzoni(f), Leopardi(p)
bulletRUSSIA: Pushkin(p), Lermontov(p)

VII. REALISTIC PERIOD (ca. 1850-1914)

bulletFRANCE (fl. 1830-1870): Stendhal(f), Comte(s), Balzac(f), Flaubert(f), Daudet(f), France(f) Naturalism (fl. 1870-1890): Zola(f), Maupassant(f) Symbolism  (fl.1870-1900): [Nerval(p), Baudelaire(p),] Mallarme'(p), Verlaine(p), Lautre'amont(f), Rimbaud(p), Laforgue(p), Maeterlinck(d)[Belg.]
bulletRUSSIA {Golden Age--ca. 1842-1883}: Gogol(f), Turgenev(f), Dostoevsky(f), Tolstoy(f) ... Chekhov(d)
bulletGERMANY//SCANDINAVIA: Marx(pp), Nietzsche(pp), Hauptmann(d) Kierkegaard(pp)[Denm.], Ibsen(d)[Norw.], Strindberg(d)[Swed.]
bulletPOLAND: Sienkiewicz(f)
bulletITALY: Carducci(p), D'Annunzio(p)

VIII. MODERN(IST) PERIOD (ca. 1914-1945)

bulletFRANCE: pp: Bergson / f: Rolland, Gide, Proust, Martin du Gard, Mauriac, Romains, Ce'line, Malraux / d: Claudel, Cocteau / p: Vale'ry, Apollinaire Dadaism (ca. 1916-1924): Tzara(p) Surrealism (ca. 20's&30's): Supervielle(p), Reverdy(p), E'luard(p), Breton(f), Aragon(p), Michaux(p)[Belg.], Pre'vert(p), Char(p)
bulletGERMANY//CZECHOSLOVAKIA[~]: Freud(s)[Austr.], Hoffmannsthal(p)[Austr.], Jung(s)[Swiss], Mann(f), Rilke(p)[Austr.], Hesse(f)[Swiss], Heidegger(pp), Wittgenstein(pp) Expressionism (ca. 1910's&20's):  d: Wedekind, Capek[~], Toller, Brecht / f: Wassermann, Kafka[Austr.], Werfel / p: Benn, Trakl[Austr.]
bulletSCANDINAVIA: Undset(f)[Norw.], Dinesen(f)[Denm.]
bulletRUSSIA: Gorky(f), Blok(p), Pasternak(p), Mayakovsky(p), Babel(f), Sholokov(f) Acmeism (ca. 1912-22): p: Akhmatova, Mandalstam
bulletGREECE: Cava'fis(p), Kazantza'kis(p), Sefe'ris(p)
bulletITALY: Croce(pp), Pirandello(d), Saba(p), Ungaretti(p), Quasimodo(p), Montale(p), Pavese(f) Futurism (ca. 1910's&20's): Marinetti(p)
bulletSPAIN//LATIN AMERICA: Unamuno(pp), Baroja(f), Machado(p), Jime'nez(p), Ortega y Gasset(pp), Garcia Lorca(p) // Dario(p)[Nicar.], Vallejo(p)[Peru], Huidobro(p)[Chile], Neruda(p)[Chile]

IX. POST-MODERN(IST) PERIOD (1945-->)

bulletFRANCE: Derrida(pp) Existentialism (fl. 40's&50's): Sartre(pp), Camus(f) Theatre of the Absurd (fl. 50's&60's):  d: Beckett, Genet, Ionesco Anti-Novelists (fl. 50's-...):  f: Sarraute, Simon, Robbe-Grillet, Butor
bulletGERMANY: Celan(p), Grass(f)
bulletRUSSIA: Solzhenitsyn(f), Voznesensky(p), Yevtushenko(p)
bulletYIDDISH: Singer(f)[Pol.-Amer.]
bulletLATIN AMERICA:Borges(f)[Argent.], Paz(p)[Mex.],  Garci'a Ma'rquez(f)[Columbia]

Back to Top                    Back to Contents List