每次阅读英文诗或英文原著，联系literary period/movement，对理解分析作品非常有帮助~

well-known writers and their intricately interwoven ties with the evolving zeigeist of history!
SHC context = social, histocial, cultural background in which the work is written

English and American literary peoriods are interlocking, interactive, yet divergent.

一些英语文学时期的详细笔记
Renaissance(1500 – 1670):
William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser
<The Faerie Queene> by Edmund Spenser, praise Elizabeth I
（对比中国：明1368 清1636 - 此时的中国已经流行小说了！老外们还在写诗。莎士比亚也才开始改变古英语，创造现代英语单词~）
Restoration(1660–1689):
<Pilgrim’s Progress> a religious poem allegorical of Christian life
<Paradise Lost> by John Milton
The Age of Enlightenment (1700 – 1800)
(The movement advocated the logical working out of problems, the use of empirical evidence to support beliefs, and the rejection of superstition. E.g. Newton, Mozart)
Alexander Pope – <The Rape of the Lock>-a witty satire of England’s ruling classes corruption
The Romantic Period (1798 – 1870) (England)
(1.against social change and pollution brought by the Industrial Revolution 2.against the Enlightenment's scientific rationalization of nature)
William Wordsworth- <Lyrical Ballads> now seen as an important development in English literature because the simpler language used – a reaction against the florid, overly intellectual language of 18th century poetry – made the poems accessible to anybody.
This was also an acknowledgement of the fact that human emotion is a universal experience, whether rich or poor
Transcendental Movement (1830 – 1860) (USA)
(influenced by Romanticism, against rationalization\politics\religion and advocated the power of inherent human spirituality)
Louisa May Alcott – <Little Women> -domesticity, work, love, virtue over wealth
Literary Realism (1820-1920)
George Eliot – Middlemarch
Victorian Literature (1837 – 1901)
novelists: Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, William Thackeray and the Bronte sisters
poets: Browning and Tennyson
drama: Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde's plays
Charles Dickens – <Oliver Twist>
Modernism (1901-1939)
James Joyce – <Ulysses> “a demonstration and summation of the entire [Modernist] movement” read Ulysses with a map of Dublin
Post-modernism (post-World War Two to the present)
Joseph Heller’s Catch-22
Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar