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in his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people
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Themes: heroism, fate , moral instruction
Genres: oral traditions, poetry
Key authors: Beowulf poet
Historical context: Clans ruled themselves
Literature´s effects: oral traditions unites myths of different groups -
the first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons
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taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy
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Anselm includes in his Proslogion his famous 'ontological proof' of the existence of God
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known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce
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advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razor
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who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman
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The courtly poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur
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The courtly poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur
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The courtly poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur
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- Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy. *Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death.
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Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death
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Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur
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Erasmus and Thomas More take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism
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William Tyndale studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English
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The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer
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are born in the same year, with Marlowe the older by two months.
*The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588. -
The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588
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*The 18-year-old William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway in Stratford-upon-Avon.
*Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, introduces the swaggering blank verse of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. -
Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, introduces the swaggering blank verse of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama
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English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene
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After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III
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Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident
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Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I
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*John Smith publishes A Description of New England, an account of his exploration of the region in 1614. *John Donne, England's leading Metaphysical poet, becomes dean of St Paul's. *John Heminge and Henry Condell publish thirty-six Shakespeare plays in the First Folio
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John Donne, England's leading Metaphysical poet, becomes dean of St Paul's
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John Heminge and Henry Condell publish thirty-six Shakespeare plays in the First Folio
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George Herbert's only volume of poems, The Temple, is published posthumously
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The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
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Devoted fisherman Izaak Walton publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler
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On the first day of the new year Samuel Pepys gets up late, eats the remains of the turkey and begins his diary
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Paradise Lost is published, earning its author John Milton just £10
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Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular
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- Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko makes an early protest against the inhumanity of the African slave trade *John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience
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John Locke publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience
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1700 – 1800
Enlightenment period
For much of the 18th century, a new way of thinking became increasingly common in both Western Europe and the American colonies of North America. Known as both the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment Taken from:
https://study.com/academy/lesson/characteristics-of-enlightenment-literature.html -
- The Augustan Age begins in English literature, claiming comparison with the equivalent flowering under Augustus Caesar
The Tatler launches a new style of journalism in Britain's coffee houses, followed two years later by the Spectator
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- 25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.
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Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel
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Jonathan Swift sends his hero on a series of bitterly satirical travels in Gulliver's Travels
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David Hume publishes his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he applies to the human mind the principles of experimental science
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Samuel Richardson's Clarissa begins the correspondence that grows into the longest novel in the English language
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Henry Fielding introduces a character of lasting appeal in the lusty but good-hearted Tom Jones
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*English poet Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy written in a Country Church Yard
*James Woodforde, an English country parson with a love of food and wine, begins a detailed diary of everyday life.
*Laurence Sterne publishes the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, beginning with the scene at the hero's conception -
James Woodforde, an English country parson with a love of food and wine, begins a detailed diary of everyday life
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Laurence Sterne publishes the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, beginning with the scene at the hero's conception
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James Boswell meets Samuel Johnson for the first time, in the London bookshop of Thomas Davies
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17-year-old Thomas Chatterton, later hailed as a significant poet, commits suicide in a London garret
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English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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*William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself
*Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Tam o' Shanter, in which a drunken farmer has an alarming encounter with witches
*English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement -
Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, a blistering attack on recent events across the Channel
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1794
William Blake's volume Songs of Innocence and Experience includes his poem 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright' -
Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake brings tourists in unprecedented numbers to Scotland's Loch Katrine
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Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes probably his best-known poem, the sonnet Ozymandias
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English poet John Keats publishes Ode to a Nightingale, inspired by the bird's song in his Hampstead garden
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- English author Frances Trollope ruffles transatlantic feathers with her Domestic Manners of the Americans, based on a 3-year stay *Friedrich Engels, after running a textile factory in Manchester, publishes The Condition of the Working Class in England *English author William Makepeace Thackeray begins publication of his novel Vanity Fair in monthly parts (book form 1848)
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Themes: city vs country, aristocratic villians, promiscuity.
Genres: novel, poetry, monologues
Key authors: Dickens, Tennnison, Bronte
Historical context: Raise of country and trade,
Literature´s effects: The literature is accessible to everyone -
Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838)
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English poet Robert Browning publishes a vivid narrative poem about the terrible revenge of The Pied Piper of Hamelin
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London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
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Charles Dickens begins serial publication of his novel "Great Expectations" (in book form 1861)
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Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier
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George Eliot publishes Middlemarch, in which Dorothea makes a disastrous marriage to the pedantic Edward Casaubon
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- The Aesthetic Movement and 'art for art's sake', attitudes personified above all by Whistler and Wilde, are widely mocked and satirized in Britain. *Oxford University Press publishes the A volume of its New English Dictionary, which will take 37 years to reach Z. *23-year-old Irish author William Butler Yeats publishes his first volume of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin
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Scottish anthropologist James Frazer publishes The Golden Bough, a massive compilation of contemporary knowledge about ritual and religious custom
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Oscar Wilde's most brilliant comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest is performed in London's St. James Theatre
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- Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Lord Jim about a life of failure and redemption in the far East *Joseph Conrad publishes a collection of stories including Heart of Darkness, a sinister tale based partly on his own journey up the Congo *Edmund Gosse publishes Father and Son, an account of his difficult relationship with his fundamentalist father, Philip Gosse
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In his poem Cargoes John Masefield compares a 'dirty British coaster' with two romantic boats from the past
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Sapper's patriotic hero makes his first appearance, taking on the villainous Carl Peterson in Bull-dog Drummond
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Patrick Abercrombie publishes The Preservation of Rural England, calling for rural planning to prevent the encroachment of towns T.E. Lawrence publishes privately his autobiographical Seven Pillars of Wisdom, describing his part in the Arab uprising Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and the others make their first appearance in A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh
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- A spoof history text book, 1066 and all that, is justifiably described by its authors, Walter Sellar and Robert Yeatman, as a Memorable History of England. *Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman is rejected by numerous publishers before becoming, decades later, his best-known novel *English author and alcoholic Malcolm Lowry publishes an autobiographical novel, Under the Volcano
- C.S. Lewis gives the first glimpse of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
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John Maynard Keynes defines his economics in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money In Language, Truth and Logic 26-year-old A.J. Ayer produces a classic exposition of Logical Positivism Terence Rattigan's first play, French without Tears, is performed in London
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Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman is rejected by numerous publishers before becoming, decades later, his best-known novel
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Titus Groan begins British author Mervyn Peake's trilogy of gothic novels
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English author L.P. Hartley sets his novel The Go-Between in the summer of 1900 James Bond, agent 007, has a licence to kill in Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale
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US poet Sylvia Plath commits suicide in London English author John Le Carré publishes a Cold-War thriller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
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Peter Shaffer's play about Mozart, Amadeus, has its premiere in London
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Themes: Open-mindedness
Genres: First person fiction, narratives
Key authors: Stoppard, follet, Rowling
Historical context: Clans ruled themselves
Literature´s effects: Advances in comunication make the world seem smaller -
English author Julian Barnes publishes a multi-faceted literary novel, Flaubert's Parrot
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Racing Demon launches a trilogy on the British establishment by English playwright David Hare
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English novelist Sebastian Faulks publishes Birdsong, set partly in the trenches of World War I
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Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen dramatizes the visit of Werner Heisenberg to Niels Bohr in wartime Denmark
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The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials
