Brief History of English Literature

The history of English literature is very closely related to the history of the English people. It began with the emergence of the English nation and kept on evolving along with the social development of the nation. In the history of this nation, there had been several religious and political changes. Scientific discoveries and inventions also changed the mode of life from time to time. All these historical changes brought about significant changes in literature. So, in the history of English literature, there were different phases of progress. Each of those phases, known as Age or Period, has been given a particular name, sometimes after the name of the king or queen, sometimes after the name of a great writer, and sometimes according to the spirit of the time. Some of the ages have got more than one name because different historians have given them different names. Similarly, the duration of a particular age also differs according to the choice of the historians. Apart from these, some of the pages are subdivided into smaller ages. Though the names and time-span of the English literature differ from historian to historian the following list derived from M. H. Abrams is dependable: