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500
Beowulf By: Anonymous
Beowulf was told in Old English between the years 500 to 1100. In the poem, Beowulf, a geat, goes to Hrothgar to help him out by defeating Grendel. Grendel escapes to his den, but Beowulf has clearly won the fight. He goes to the creature's cave and discovers that the creature's mother is there, so he kills her with a mighty sword and takes Grendel's head as a trophy. Shortly after, Beowulf returns home and eventually becomes king, and kills a dragon with Wiglaf's help but dies from wounds. -
Apr 30, 1397
The Canterbury Tales: The Prologue By: Geoffrey Chaucer
The date of the poem is not for sure but is between the years 1380 to 1400. At an inn in Southwark, the narrator starts to travel with twenty-nine other people to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Then the poem goes into great description of the many people traveling. After that it is decided that each person shall tell two tells and the Host will judge. Whoever tells the best story will have his meal paid for by the rest. -
Jan 1, 1398
The Wife of Bath's Tale By: Geoffrey Chaucer
It was written between the years 1380 and 1400.It is a poem about a knight who raped a women.He is going to be killed but King Athur's wife and other women in the court decide that if the knight can figure out ,within a year,what women want most in the world,his life will be spared.He meets an old woman on his last day, and she supplies him with the answer that women want to be in charge of their husbands.The old woman then marries the man,and he learns his lesson.She becomes beautiful and good. -
Jan 1, 1420
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight By: Anonymous
It was wrote between the years of 1405 and 1471.At Arthur's castle a Green Knight appears during a New Year's Eve party.He challenges someone to hit him with his axe, and he will hit them back in a years time.Sir Gawain decides to do it for Arthur.Sir Gawain travels to the castle and is told that he must give whatever he gets, but does not tell about the girdle.
The Green Knight is actually Bertilak and he does not chop off Sir Gawain's head,but Gawain still proved himself. -
Jan 1, 1485
English Renaissance Period
1625 -
Period: Jan 1, 1485 to
English Renaissance Period
Dramas came into play, but even with writers creating dramas, they still wrote poetry. -
Jan 1, 1570
Sonnet 1 By: Edmund Spenser
It was written between the years of 1552 and 1599.It describes how Spenser's girlfriend is everything to him, and how he made the poem to please her. -
Jan 1, 1575
Sonnet 31 By: Sir Philip Sidney
It was written between the years of 1554 and 1586.The poem describes a man comparing himself with the moon in the sense of his lovesickness.He talks to the moon and asks how is love up there and how are the women? -
Jan 1, 1576
Sonnet 39 By: Sir Philip Sidney
It was written between the years 1554 and 1586.It is a poem about how sleep is the most important thing for a person.It rejuvinates them and everyone has the right to sleep, but he cannot sleep because all he can think about is Stella. -
Jan 1, 1581
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love By: Christopher Marlowe
It was written between the years 1564 and 1593. It is a poem about a man begging a women to be with him and he will give her everything he possibly can. -
Jan 1, 1582
Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd By: Walter Raleigh
It was written between the years 1554 and 1618.It is a poem that replies to The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.It is the woman saying that the things do not matter, but what does is that youth and love do not last.If they did she would be with him. -
Puritans and Cavaliers; Leading to Age of Reason
1798 -
Period: to
Puritans and Cavaliers; Leading to Age of Reason
People started questioning whether everything was right in their society and other things in their lives. -
Holy Sonnet 10 By: John Donne
It was written between the years 1572 and 1631. -
Meditation 17 By: John Donne
It was written between the years 1572 and 1631. Every human under God is connected.Also, everyone will eventually die, but if they believe in God they can make it to heaven. -
On My First Son By: Ben Jonson
It was written between the years 1572 and 1637.His son has just died at the age of only seven and he is saying goodbye.Then he envies his son for not having to with the pain of living.Finally, he says his son is his best poetry. -
To His Coy Mistress By: Andrew Marvell
It was written between the years 1621 and 1678.A man is telling his mistress that if there were only more time to admire her.Then he tells her that they need to be together because they will die soon, and then they will not have each other.He then realizes that they cannot make time stop but can live in the moment. -
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time By: Robert Herrick
It was written between the years 1591 and 1674.Do what you can while you are alive because before you know it you will be dead. -
Romantic Period
1832; Emraced Nature -
The Lamb By: William Blake
It was written between 1757 and 1827.He asks if the lamb knows that God made him.Also,God is a lamb and the animals are his creation. -
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner By: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In the poem, a sailor speaks of how he killed an albatross, which cost him his crew and made his life sad. -
Period: to
Romantic Period
During this period, authors mostly wrote about the beauty of nature. -
The Tyger By: William Blake
It was written between the years 1757 and 1827.Who would make the scary tiger?Did God make you, just as he made the lamb? -
Ode to a Nightingale By: John Keats
John Keats wants to commit suicide, but hears a beautiful bird and realizes that life is better than what he thought. -
To a Skylark By: Percy Bysshe Shelley
The speaker is praising a skylark and even calls it a blithe spirit, which makes it not a bird to the speaker.The speaker loves the bird so much because of its beautiful song.Even though there is happiness in the world there is also sadness. -
Victorian Period
1901 -
Period: to
Victorian Period
Novels became the most important works of this period.These novels often dealt with love and hard work. -
The Lady of Shalott By: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Cursed to stay in her tower for the rest of her life, a woman can only see the outside world through a mirror, so she decides to go outside and ends up dying. -
from In Memoriam, A.H.H. By: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He says he will always remember his great friend and that is why he made the poem -
Ulysses By: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
A man who has been in battles all his life returns home, and is dissapointed with his boring life. -
from Hard Times By: Charles Dickens
Mr. Gradgrind believes that children should only learn facts and nothing else.There is a new student called Sissy, but he refuses to call her by a nickname, so he calls her Cecilia.Most of the time he calls the children by numbers.Facts are all that are taught. -
My Last Duchess By: Robert Browning
In the poem, Browning speaks of a picture of his former wife to another man. -
Period: to
Modern and Postmodern Periods
People began to believe in experimentation and individualism.Also, during the postmodern period people began to go against enlightenment and moderist thinking. -
Modern and Postmodern Periods
Present -
D.H. Lawrence
He was born on September 11, 1885.He did not believe ways other people believed in politics and morality, which made people question his writing.His first published novel was Sons and Lovers in 1913.In 1916, he published The Rainbow.He died on March 2, 1930. -
James Joyce
He was born on February 2, 1882.He became a writer even though his family wanted him to be a priest.He published Dubliners in 1914, which were a collection of short stories.He also published A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916.He died on January 13, 1941. -
Virginia Woolf
She was born on January 25,1882.She was the pioneer of the stream-of-consciousness technique.She came from a Victorian family.One of her first novels was Jacob's Room in 1922.Three more of her novels are Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves.She died on March 28,1941. -
Dylan Thomas
He was born on October 27, 1914.He had a dark side.Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog was one of his first collections published in 1940.He is best known for prose: Under Milkwood and A Child's Christmas in Wales, a memoir.He struggled with alcoholism most of his life.He died on November 9,1953. -
T.S. Elliot
He was born on September 26,1888.He led the way for Modernism.He used allusions in his poetry.He went to Harvard University.A few of his published works are Prufrock and Other Observations, The Wasteland, and "he Hollow Men."He also wrote "Preludes,"and "Journey of the Magi."He died on January 4,1965. -
Ozymandias By: Percy Bysshe Shelley
It was written between the years 1792 and 1822.Nothing lasts forever, not even the memory of a King. -
Old English and Medieval Periods
1485 -
The Seafarer By: Anonymous
The Seafarer is part of the Exeter Book that is a collection of manuscripts. The exact date of when the book was created is not for sure but it happened between 871 A.D. and 899. The Seafarer is a poem that talks of a mariner's lonely life. The mariner always seems to go back to the sea no matter how depressed he becomes. The sea calls to him more than any other worldly pleasure. He knows that all men's fates ar e to die, but says a man should believe in God to make it to heaven. -
Period: to Jan 1, 1485
Old English and Medieval Periods
Poems were a main form in these periods and some even created epic poems that would tell wondrous stories.
