The second period which consists of the mid-14th to mid-17th century is dominated by devotional poetry (Bhakti Kavyas). The Hindi bhakti poetry's consists of two streams :  1)Nirguna, the poets who believed in a formless God or abstract name and  2)Saguna, the poets who believed in singing about a God with attributes.

Kabir (1398-1518) is the most important poet in the Nirguna school. He preached the universal religion of man above and beyond Hindu and Muslim orthodoxy and composed a large number of songs and poems. Guru Nanak (1469-1538), the founder of Sikhism is also accepted as an outstanding poet of this school.

The Saguna stream is related to Vaishnava poets who belong to the two categories, those worshipping Krishna and those worshipping Rama. Surdas whose poems have been compiled under the title Sursagara was a great poet of Krishna poetry. Vidyapati was also a versatile composer of Hindi poems. The great champion of Rama poetry is Tulasidas (1543-1623) whose Ramacharitamanasa is considered as an important classic by all Hindi lovers. He has command over all the important styles of composition - narrative, epic, lyrical and dialectic. He has given a human character to Rama, potraying him as an ideal son, husband, brother, king and so on.

The third period is spoken as the Ritikavyakal. It is also referred to as the Ritismgara Kavya. Riti refers to a special form in which the erotic element is preponderant. Hindi is very rich in both these categories of poetry. During this period Hindi had also a good collection of devotional and historic poetry. In the Bhakti period there were many epics and long narrative poems composed in the dialects of Hindi.

The modern period of Hindi literature commences with the second half of the 19th century. Bharatendru Harishchandra (1850-84) was the pioneer who ushered in the modern era. Other important writers of this formative period are Maithli Sharan Gupta (1886-1964), R.N.Tripathi (1889-1962) and Gopala Sarana Sinha (1891-1960). Maithli Saran revived the epic tradition. The romantic upsurge spoken as Chayavad is an important element of this period.

Jayashankara Prasad, Suryakant Tripathi Nirala and Sumitra Nandan Pant are the leading luminaries of this period. Kamayani (1936) by Jayashankar is hailed as a magnum opus. It is the psycho-biological journey of a man through time and space. Mahadevi Varma is one of the major poets of the Chayavad school.

In the second phase of the modern period which is referred to as the Dwivedi yug, the leading figure obviously was Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi. Poetry, drama, novel, short story and the essay flourished on account of the western impact. Drama in Hindi has a long history from the 14th century. But the prose-drama developed only towards the close of the 19th century.

Bharatendru and Jayashankar prasad have written quite a few plays. In the field of fiction, the great stalwart is Premchand. His novel Godan has been translated into many languages, Indian and foreign. By his novels and short stories, Premchand raised Hindi literature from the plane of entertainment to one of contemporary realism. Other important novelists of the contemporary period are Jainendra Kumar, Phaneshwar Nath Renu and Satchidananda Vatsyayan.

Jainendra Kumar in his novels Sunita and Tyagapatra concentrated on human psyche. Renu gave a new dimension to novel writing by introducing the regional novel, the classical example being his Maila Anchal. Vatsyayan (Ajneya) is the initiator of a new trend in Hindi literature called Prayogavad (experimentalism). Sekhar Ek Jivani (1941) has been acknowledged as his most important novel. Dharma Vir Bharati, Girija Kumar Mathur, Muktiboth, and Lakshmi Kant Verma are other distinguished experimentalists of the post-Independence period.