English Literature / Unit 2 ENL 0134 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Recognizing the Period of an Excerpt
The idea
Other questions ask in which period an excerpt was written. The course's method uses four clues. First, spelling and grammar: thou and thee, doth and hath point before the eighteenth century, and Middle English spellings point earlier still. Second, form: alliterative half-lines suggest Old English, rhyme royal or the sonnet the sixteenth century, the heroic couplet the Restoration and eighteenth century, the dramatic monologue the Victorians, free verse the twentieth century. Third, subject and attitude: courtly love, wit and reason, nature and imagination, doubt and duty, fragment and alienation are rough period signatures. Fourth, prose style: long balanced periodic sentences suggest the eighteenth century, social panoramas the Victorian novel, interior monologue the modernists. Combine at least two clues before deciding, and unit nineteen practises the method across all six periods.
In practice
Spelling, form, subject, prose style; two clues at least.
Where people slip
One clue alone misleads, because later writers imitate earlier forms. A twentieth-century poet can write a sonnet, so let diction and subject confirm what the form suggests.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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