From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature The principal characteristics of Elizabethan literature are its diversity and inventiveness, which were spread across not only the already traditional forms of poetry and drama, but the less securely established one of prose fiction.
From The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature Used to indicate the period of James I (1603-25) and applied especially to the literature and style of architecture of his reign.
English dramatist and poet, who established blank verse as a creative form of dramatic expression. His plays include Tamburlaine the Great (1590), Edward II (?1592), and Dr Faustus (1604). He was stabbed to death in a tavern brawl.
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide Prose, poetry, and drama written in English in Britain during the Restoration (the period when the monarchy, in the person of Charles II, was re-established after the English Civil War and the fall of the Protectorate in 1660).
English poet. His early works, notably L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (1632), the masque Comus (1634), and the elegy Lycidas (1637), show the influence of his Christian humanist education and his love of Italian Renaissance poetry.
English diarist and naval administrator. His diary, which covers the period 1660-69, is a vivid account of London life through such disasters as the Great Plague, the Fire of London, and the intrusion of the Dutch fleet up the Thames.
From The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English
‘Augustan’ is an adjective borrowed from the name given to the reign of Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor (27 BC to AD 14).
From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850 The term “Gothic fiction” refers to a literary form popular in the period between the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto in 1764 (the second edition was subtitled “A Gothic Story”) and Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer in 1820.
English novelist, journalist, spymaster, and pamphleteer, noted particularly for his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719). His other novels include Moll Flanders (1722) and A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).
English novelist and dramatist, noted particularly for his picaresque novel Tom Jones (1749) and for Joseph Andrews (1742), which starts as a parody of Richardson's Pamela: also noted as an enlightened magistrate and a founder of the Bow Street runners (1749).
British writer and historian whose correspondence and memoirs provide valuable information about his era. He wrote The Castle of Otranto (1764), considered the first Gothic novel in English.