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LITERARY PERIODS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
Time frame?
Region of
origin?
What did the
period
emphasize?
Classical Period: Greece
2000 BC – 146 BC
Classical Period: Rome
753 BC to 476 AD
Greece
Rome
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early forms of
democracy (Athens)
individual freedoms
power of rational
thought
ideals of beauty and
justice
development of
alphabet
drama
festivals/competition
s
athletic
competitions
(Olympics)
trade by sea
citizenship and its
rights, protection
and duties
support of sculptors,
architects, and
potters (statues,
great buildings and
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Military strength and use
of the army for building
and expansion projects
Absolute rule by the
paterfamilias who decided
all for the family
Middle class developed
made up of plebians who
were civil servants and
merchants, tradesmen,
etc.
Joining the army for 25
years was a way to escape
poverty
Women could own
property, appear in
public, and control their
own money
Invented concrete and
perfected the arch
Construction of roads all
over the empire
Public entertainment in
Medieval Period
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Major historical
and/or social
influences?
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vases)
Support of writers
(supported by the 9
Muses – goddesses
of arts and sciences)
Trojan War
Independent city
states such as
Athens, Sparta
(major military
state), Thebes and
Corinth
Persian Wars (city
states vs. Persians)
Pericles rules
Athens during
Golden Age (461 429 BC)
Peloponnesian War
(between Sparta and
Athens who lost in
404 BC)
Alexander the Great
defeated Greek city
states (334 -323 BC)
Romans take over
Greek lands (146 –
30 BC)
the Circus Maximus and
the Colosseum
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Largest empire of
Western Civilization
Longest period of peace
(Pax Romana)
Influence of Latin in the
development of Italian,
French, and Spanish
Spread of Christianity
(official religion in 391
AD)
Roman law – right to
equal treatment under
the law, innocent until
proven guilty, burden of
proof rests with accuser
Punic Wars – gained
control of the
Mediterranean Sea
Conquests and rule (46 44 BC) by Julius Caesar
Caesar Augustus
(Octavius) first emperor
who ushered in a golden
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Major writers?
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Characteristics
of the
literature?
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Homer (Iliad and
Odyssey)
Aesop (fables)
Philosophers
(Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle)
Aeschylus (The
Persians)
Sophocles (Oedipus)
Euripides (The
Trojan Women)
Aristophanes (The
Frogs)
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mythology (stories
of gods/goddesses)
poetry – epic
(Homer) and lyric
(Sappho)
drama (tragedy and
comedy)
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age of art, architecture,
and literature
Art forms (frescoes, basrelief and mosaic)
Fall of Rome mainly from
being overrun by
Germanic tribes from the
north
Virgil (Aeneid)
Ovid (Metamorphoses)
Plautus (playwright)
Terence (playwright)
Horace (poet – odes)
Cicero (philosophy)
Livy (history)
Tacitus (history)
Imitated the Greek
format of epic poetry,
lyric poetry, tragedies
and comedies
Emphasized what it
meant to be Roman:
duty, discipline, integrity,
and dignity.
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Renaissance
(Neoclassical)
Enlightenment
(Age of Reason)
Romanticism
Time frame?
1800-1840
Region of
origin?
What did the
period
emphasize?
Europe
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Major historical
and/or social
influences?
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Rejected science and
reason and emphasized
nature in an idealized
form, emotion, and
individual experience
Political and social change
Spread of nationalism –
devotion to one’s nation
rather than to a ruler
Rise and fall of Napoleon
Boneparte
Successful revolutions
leading to the
independence of Greece
and Belgium
Artists focused on the
dramatic and imaginative
as well as individual
feelings and beliefs as
subject matter
Beethoven – used classical
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forms but to express
Romantic ideals such as
passion and the dramatic
 Arthur Schopenhauer –
philosopher who believed
the world is understood as
people perceive it through
their senses.
 William Wordsworth and
Samuel Coleridge – Lyrical
Ballads
 Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe – Faust
 Heinrich Heine – The
Lorelei
Characteristics of all forms:
emphasis on emotion, imagination,
the individual, and nature.
Major writers?
Characteristics
of the
literature?
Realism
Time frame?
1840-1900
Region of
origin?
Europe
Modernism
Contemporary
(Post-Modernism)
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What did the
period
emphasize?
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Major historical
and/or social
influences?
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Scientific
discoveries and
inventions (light
bulb, photography,
Darwin’s theory of
evolution)
Imperialism of
major European
nations
(colonization)
Mass production
Industrial
Revolution
Growth of factories
and poor working
class/child labor
Expansion of
railroads
Attempts at reform:
suffrage, freedom of
slaves in English
and French lands
and serfs in Russia
Unification of
Germany and Italy
Free public
education (by end of
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Major writers?
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Characteristics
of the
literature?
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period)
Discovery by Louis
Pasteur that
bacteria caused
disease.
Guy de Maupassant
(“Old Milon”)
Anton Chekhov (“A
Problem”)
Charles Dickens (A
Tale of Two Cities,
Oliver Twist)
Leo Tolstoy (Anna
Karenina)
Henrik Ibsen (A
Doll’s House)
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels
(The Communist
Manifesto)
Charles Darwin
(The Origin of the
Species)
Examined real life
as it is (rejection of
Romanticism and its
idealism)
Addressed social
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and political issues
Emphasis on
development of the
novel
Drama that was
realistic in content,
staging and
language