Classical Period

Definition:

Grab your time machines because we're headed way back. Running from roughly 1200 BCE to
455CE, the classical period was home to the great works of ancient Greece and Rome. You'll
sometimes see the words Greco-Roman or antiquity used to refer to this millennia-old period.

The classical period was a golden age for literature and the arts, take it from Shmoop. The big
writers from this period include all those Greek and Roman guys who wrote epics, like Homer of
the Iliad and Odyssey fame, and the Roman poet Virgil who wrote the Aeneid. The Greek
philosophers Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle called this period home, as did Greek dramatists like
Euripides and Aristophanes. As for poets, Horace and Ovid were two of the most influential.

What did these writers have in common? Well, when people talk about classicism they talk about
literature that is distinctive for its balance, order, and reasonableness. Aristotle's Poetics was
super important in defining these features for drama in the following centuries, as was Horace's
Ars Poetica. For Horace, poetry was supposed to be "dulce et utile," or "sweet and useful."

So fab was the classical period that later writers, beginning with the Renaissance, often imitated
the style of classical authors. This tradition of imitation is where we get the term neoclassical, or
new classics.

For more on the classical period, be sure to check out Shmoop Mythology.

Medieval Period
Definition:

Ever heard of the Dark Ages? (The Dark Ages: coming soon to a theater near you.)

Well, that's just a nasty name that some Italian guy gave to the Medieval Period or Middle Ages,
a period that lasted roughly between 500 and 1500 CE. Don't quote those dates, though, or you're
likely to get into some heated debates with tweed-sporting intellectuals.

This period fell smack dab between the classical period and the Renaissance, and compared to
the two, it was, um, kind of a dark and stormy time. The Inquisition, feudalism, and some other
not-so-fun things went down in this millennium. But that's not the only reason it was so dark.
See, the Renaissance peeps were pretty high on themselves and all about recreating what went
down in the classical period. So anything that came between them and their ancient inspiration
was considered, you know, just the middle.

As for literature, the genre of romance was in fashion, with its emphasis on courtly love and
knights and chivalry. The Song of Roland and Beowulf were already going by the 11th century,
but most of what we know as Medieval literature was late-Medieval. Think The Canterbury
Tales, The Divine Comedy, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Le Morte d'Arthur.

The Romantics and the Victorians were majorly influenced by Medieval art. And really, any time
you talk about a knight in shining armor, you should thank those Medieval authors. Without
them, we'd all still be damsels in distress.

Renaissance
Definition:

Renaissance art! Renaissance literature! Renaissance man!

Putting the word Renaissance in front of something gives it a fancy feel, don't you think? Let's
try it on for size: Renaissance Shmoop. (Ah, yes.)

Usually we define this movement as stretching from the 14th to the 17th centuries. But budding
scholars, beware. The Renaissance isn't a time period—it's a cultural movement that went down
during the Early Modern Period.

Here are some other things that went down in the Early Modern Period:

 The printing press was invented. Cue expanding reach of knowledge.

 In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
 Shakespeare
 Don Quixote
 The entire Elizabethan era
 Galileo

So yeah, it was a pretty big deal.

Renaissance actually means rebirth. But what exactly was being reborn? Classical culture, that's
what. When it comes to literature, humanists were poking around ancient Greek and Roman texts
and bringing them back to life through their own works. That means movements like Neo-
Platonism—yep, new Platos—were big. Anything to imitate (and even surpass—gasp!) the
greats of yesteryear.

If you're going to remember one thing about the Renaissance, it's this: Renaissance authors loved
them some Greek and Roman texts. Number two would be that these authors were more than
ever focused on us—good old humans and our earthly existence. We'll let everything else battle
it out for third.

In England, things started a bit later (end of the 1400s), but they had their chance, too. (And hey,
cut them some slack—the Chunnel wasn't around back then for information travel.) And in the
end, Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and John Donne turned out to be a pretty big deal.
Neoclassicism
Definition:

Just replace that o with a w and you've got yourself Newclassicism. And that's just what
Neoclassicism is—a movement (literary and otherwise) that was inspired by classical culture.
Put simply: these guys loved them some ancient Greece and Rome. Even more than their
Renaissance predecessors, if you can believe that.

This all went down during the Enlightenment (18th century-ish). A lot had changed since the
days of ancient Western civilization, but Neoclassicist thinkers had the idea that human nature
was stable enough that things weren't really all that different—and didn't have to be expressed
differently either.

Here's a list of words that were dear to the Neoclassicists' hearts:

 Order
 Moderation
 Limits
 Structure
 Reason
 Bowing to society

Sounds like a bunch of fun party guests, huh? Well, like it or not, this was a successful group of
gentlemen. The leader of the pack, Alexander Pope, is actually one of the most important poets
of all time. In fact, his "An Essay on Criticism" (1711) sums up the whole Neoclassicist thing
pretty nicely if you want to hear it from the horse's mouth.

When you're done here, we suggest you read up on Romanticism. Let's put it this way: these two
movements weren't too fond of each other.

Romanticism
Definition:

Let's talk about feelings. Come on, you're safe with Shmoop. Open up. Let it all out. Pour your
soul onto the page. What do you get?

Romantic literature, that's what. See, romanticism was all about unabashed emotion. Wordsworth
would never bottle himself up. Coleridge would never play his cards close to the vest. Nah,
they'd rather go for a walk in the beautiful Lake District, let their imaginations run wild, and then
return home to write it all down on some spare parchment.

That brings us to our next point. Not only were the Romantics all about the "spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings," they were also all about Nature with a capital N (at least, for the
most part). They believed that nature could have a powerful and beneficial effect on the artist if
he went out and immersed himself in it. They didn't seek inspiration from the bustling masses in
London; they sought it from solitary mountaintops.

Why were these guys so big on feelings and nature and all that jazz? Well, they weren't too
happy with that whole Enlightenment fiasco. They thought reason and rationality were a load of
codswallop, and that imagination was the cat's meow. They believed in freedom and spontaneous
creativity, not order and imitation like those snooty neoclassicists.

Now that we've given you the lowdown on Romantic principles, we'll give you the nitty gritty
details:

Who were the Romantics? Painters, philosophers, poets (anyone whose profession begins with
a P anyways). When it comes to Romanticism, the poets, though, were king. Meet the big six:
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, John Keats, Percy Bysshe
Shelley, and Lord Byron.

Ladies wrote during this time too, of course, though they don't get talked about as much as those
strapping Romantic outdoorsmen. Charlotte Smith wrote poems while Frances Burney and Mary
Shelley wrote novels.

When was Romanticism? Most scholars cite the beginning of Romanticism around the same
time the French Revolution went down—1789, to be exact. It reached its peak in the early 1800s,
but began to fade in the mid-19th century with the rise of Realism and the Victorian era.

What is Romantic writing all about? See for yourself. Take a gander at some of the classics:

 William Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a Cloud (Daffodils)"

 Samuel Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
 Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty"
 John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
 Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias"
 William Blake's "The Sick Rose"

All done? Awesome. Take a hike. Preferably among the daffodils.