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500
Beowulf
The date it was written is uncertain.
Written by: an unknown author.
Translated by Burton Raffel. -
Apr 30, 673
The Honorable Bede
Born 673 and later died 735.
Also known as "the Venerable (Respected) Bede."
"Helped originate the dating of events from the birth of Christ, a cornerstone of the Western calendar."
Wrote "from A History of the English Chruch and People"
later translated by Leo Sherley-Price -
Apr 30, 750
Surviving version of Beowulf composed.
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Apr 30, 1375
Surviving version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight written
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Apr 30, 1381
Bible first translated into English.
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Apr 30, 1386
Chaucer begins writing The Canterbury Tales.
"Canterbury Tales is actually a story about stories...." -
Apr 30, 1470
Thomas Malory writes Morte d'Arthur.
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Period: May 3, 1485 to
The English Renaissance Period
"What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in for and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!" -William Shakespeare, Hamlet -
May 3, 1516
Thomas More publishes "Utopia"
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May 3, 1554
Sir Philip Sidney
Died in 1586.
a true "Renaissance Man."
Attended both Oxford and Cambridge.
wrote Sonnet 31 and Sonnet 39 -
May 6, 1554
Sir Walter Raleigh
Died in 1618.
Wrote "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd". -
May 3, 1564
Christopher Marlowe
Died in 1593.
Killed before the age of thirty.
wrote "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" -
May 3, 1572
Ben Jonson
"He was not of an age, but for all time!"
Wrote "On My First Son", "Still to Be Neat" etc. -
Edmund Spenser publishes "The Faerie Queene", Part 1
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Period: to
The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
"Methinks I see in my mind a noble....nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks" -John Milton, from Areopagitica -
John Donne
Born around 1572, John Donne was a clever writer of love poems. -
"Song" - Sir John Suckling
"Circa 1640"
A Beautiful poem, but the mood is very sad. -
Daniel Defoe
Died in 1731.
"A false, shuffling, prevaricating rascal" - fellow author Joseph Addison described Defoe.
Defoe wrote great novels such as "from A Journal of the Plague Year". -
Jonathan Swift
Died in 1745.
Wrote "Gulliver's Travels", and "A Modest Proposal". -
John Milton
Born in 1608, John Milton was regarded as one of the greatest poets of the english language.
He wrote many great poems and stories such as "Paradise Lost". -
Thomas Gray
Born in 1716, Gray was the only surviving child of his siblings.
He wrote poems like "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard". -
Samuel Johnson
Born in 1709.
Wrote "from A Dictionary of the English Language". -
William Wordworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads
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Period: to
Rebels and Dreamers
Also known as the Romantic Period.
"Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher." -William Wordsworth, from "The Tables Turned" -
Jane Austen publishes "Pride and Prejudice"
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Period: to
The Victorian Period
"In order that people may be happy in their work, thesenthree things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it." -John Ruskin, from Pre-Raphaelitism -
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
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Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Born in 1809.
Wrote "from In Memoriam, A.H.H." -
Period: to
The Modern and Postmodern Periods
"We are living at one of the great turning points of history...Yesterday, we split the atom. We assaulted that colossal citadel of power, the tiny unit of the substance of the universe. And because of this, the great dream and the great nightmare of centuries of human thought have taken flesh and walk beside us all, day and night." -Doris Lessing, from "The Small, Personal Voice." -
William Butler Yeats
Born in 1865.
Wrote great poems such as "When You Are Old" and "The Second Coming". -
T.S. Eliot
Born in 1888.
Wrote poems such as "Journey of the Magi" and "The Hollow Men" -
Saxon monks copy Old English into the Exeter Book.
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Period: to Apr 29, 1485
Old English and Medieval Periods
Beginings of English.
Perils and Adventures.
