Periods of English Literature

Old English (700–1150 CE)
The era of anonymous writers, with the exception of Caedmon and Cynewulf, who wrote on biblical and religious themes. 
Middle English (1150–1485)
The era of Geoffrey Chaucer, whose most famous work is The Canterbury Tales, and the Pearl Poet, whose most famous work is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 
Renaissance (1485–1660)
The era of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, Edmund Spenser, and Sir Walter Raleigh.
Restoration (1660–1750)
The era of Daniel Defoe and John Milton, who wrote the religious epic poem Paradise Lost. 
Romantic (1750–1837)
The era of Mary Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, William Blake, and Lord Byron. 
Vctorian (1837–1901)
The era of Oscar Wilde, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Christina Rossetti. 
Twentieth century (1900–1999)
The era of James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, G. K. Chesterton, and others. 
Modern (1914–1945)
The era of W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, and Wilfred Owen. 
Post modern period(1945-present)
A new generation of writers—such as David Foster Wallace, William T. Vollmann, Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, Chuck Palahniuk, Jennifer Egan, Neil Gaiman, Carole Maso, Richard Powers, Jonathan Lethem