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Period: 450 to 1066
Old English Period
Or Anglo-Saxon England, consists of poetry, prose, charms, riddles, maxims, proverbs, and various other wisdom sayings. -
731
The Venerable Bede
In his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people -
800
Beowulf
The first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons -
Period: 1066 to 1500
Middle English Period
After the Norman conquest of England, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives. The Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman, and Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. -
1300
Duns Scotus
Known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce -
1375
The courtly poem
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur -
Period: 1500 to
English Renaissance
Renaissance literature started with a renewed interest in the classical Greek and Roman learning. The invention of the printing press and the weakening of the Catholic Church's influence on the daily lives of the people, among other things, enabled Renaissance writers to express their beliefs in new ways. -
1510
Erasmus and Thomas More
Take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism -
1524
William Tyndale
Studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English -
1564
Marlowe and Shakespeare
Are born in the same year, with Marlowe the older by two months -
English poet Edmund Spenser
Celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene -
James I
commissions the Authorized version of the Bible, which is completed by forty-seven scholars in seven years -
John Smith
Publishes A Description of New England, an account of his exploration of the region in 1614 William Shakespeare dies at New Place, his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and is buried in Holy Trinity Church -
Izaak Walton
Devoted fisherman publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler -
Period: to
Restoration Age
The period witnessed news become a commodity, the essay develop into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism. -
Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress,
Written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular -
John Locke
publishes his Essay concerning Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience -
Period: to
18 th Century
18th Century Europe started in the Age of Enlightenment and gradually moved towards Romanticism. In the visual arts, it was the period of Neoclassicism. -
The Augustan Age
Begins in English literature, claiming comparison with the equivalent flowering under Augustus Caesar -
George Berkeley
25-year-old attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge -
Mary Shelley
Publishes Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale about giving life to an artificial man -
Daniel Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel -
David Hume
Publishes his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he applies to the human mind the principles of experimental science -
Robert Burns
Scottish poet publishes Tam o' Shanter, in which a drunken farmer has an alarming encounter with witches -
Thomas Paine
Publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France -
Mary Wollstonecraft
English author publishes a passionately feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman -
English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge
Jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement -
Period: to
Romanticism
The movement was characterized by a celebration of nature and the common man, a focus on individual experience, an idealization of women, and an embrace of isolation and melancholy. -
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, based on a youthful work of 1797 called First Impressions, is the second of Jane Austen's novels to be published -
Charles Dickens
24-year-old begins monthly publication of his first work of fiction, Pickwick Papers (published in book form in 1837) -
Charles Dickens
First novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838) -
Period: to
Victorian
It can be called a fusion of romantic and realist style of writing. Though the Victorian Age produced two great poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, the age is also remarkable for the excellence of its prose. -
Ebenezer Scrooge
Mends his ways just in time in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol -
Benjamin Disraeli
In his novel Coningsby develops the theme of Conservatism uniting 'two nations', the rich and the poor -
Friedrich Engels
After running a textile factory in Manchester, publishes The Condition of the Working Class in England -
Charles Darwin
Puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of 20 years' research -
John Stuart
In On Liberty Mill makes the classic liberal case for the priority of the freedom of the individual -
Sherlock Holmes
features in Conan Doyle's first novel, A Study in Scarlet -
Bram Stoker
English author publishes Dracula, his gothic tale of vampirism in Transylvania -
Period: to
Modern Literature
It is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction. -
Erskine Childers
has a best-seller in The Riddle of the Sands, a thriller about a planned German invasion of Britain -
James Joyce's
Novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man begins serial publication in a London journal, The Egoist -
Virginia Woolf
publishes the most fluid of her novels, The Waves, in which she tells the story through six interior monologues -
Period: to
Post Moderns
It is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. -
George Orwell
Publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four, a novel set in a terrifying totalitarian state of the future, watched over by Big Brother -
Christopher Logue
War Music is the first instalment of Christopher Logue's version of the Iliad -
J.K. Rowling
A schoolboy wizard performs his first tricks in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone -
Period: to
Contemporary
