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Period: Jan 1, 1200 to
Literature
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May 5, 1265
Was born Dante Alighieri
Dante was an Italian poet and moral philosopher best known for the epic poem The Divine Comedy, which comprises sections representing the three tiers of the Christian afterlife: purgatory, heaven, and hell. This poem, a great work of medieval literature and considered the greatest work of literature composed in Italian, is a philosophical Christian vision of mankind’s eternal fate. Dante is seen as the father of modern Italian, and his works have flourished since before his death. -
Jan 1, 1320
The Divine Comedy (Exact date unknown)
• The Divine Comedy is an epic poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature.
• The poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven;but at a deeper level, it represents, allegorically, the soul's journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy. -
Sep 14, 1321
Dante Alighieri dies
• In 1315 he had been imposed on Florence a sentence of death. Exiled in Ravenna, this city was threatened by the doge of Venice to be invaded. Dante went as an ambassador to the city from the waters. The long journey in the heavy Italian summer, by land first and then by the lagoons of the Adriatic coast will thunder health.
• Return to Ravenna, the malaria took hold of him and he died on the 14th of September 1321. He was buried with solemn tributes in the church of San Francisco. -
Sep 29, 1547
Was born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• The son of a deaf surgeon, Miguel de Cervantes was born near Madrid in 1547. He became a soldier in 1570 and was badly wounded in the Battle of Lepanto. Captured by the Turks in 1575, de Cervantes spent five years in prison. He was freed in 1580 and returned home. De Cervantes finally achieved literary success in his later years, publishing the first part of Don Quixote in 1605.
• He has been given the nickname of "Prince of Wits". -
Don Quixote (Exact date unknown)
• Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote in 1605. The novel tells the story of an elderly man who becomes so enamored by old stories of brave knights that he seeks out his adventures. The title character soon gets lost in his own fantasy world, believing he is one of these knights, and convinces a poor peasant, Sancho Panza, to serve as his squire. Quixote regains his senses before the novel ends.
• The became the world's first best-seller, published the second part in 1615 -
Miguel de Cervante Saavedra dies
• De Cervantes continued to write after the success of Don Quixote, but he failed to finish The Labors of Persiles and Segismunda before his death. De Cervantes died on April 23, 1616, in Madrid. He was buried on the grounds of a convent there, in an unmarked grave.
• Since his passing, de Cervantes has been credited with writing the first modern novel. His work has inspired countless other authors, and the story of Don Quixote has been retold in many ways, including in the popular musical. -
Was born Jonathan Swift
• Born on November 30, 1667, Irish author, clergyman and satirist Jonathan Swift grew up fatherless. Under the care of his uncle, he received a bachelor's degree from Trinity College and then worked as a statesman's assistant. Eventually, he became dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. Most of his writings were published under pseudonyms. He best remembered for his 1726 book Gulliver's Travels. -
Gulliver's Travels (Exact date unknown)
•Swift began to write what would become his best-known work. In 1726, at last finished with the manuscript, he traveled to London and benefited from the help of several friends, who anonymously published it as Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts, also known, more simply, as Gulliver's Travels. The book was an immediate success, interestingly, much of the storyline points to historical events that Swift had lived throug years prior, during intense political turmoil. -
Jonathan Swift dies
• In 1742, Swift suffered from a stroke and lost the ability to speak. On October 19, 1745, Jonathan Swift died. He was laid to rest next to Esther Johnson inside Dublin's St. Patrick's Cathedral. -
Was born Victor Hugo
• Victor Hugo was born on February 26, 1802, in Besançon, Franceto, His father was a military officer who later served as a general under Napoleon. After training as a lawyer, Hugo embarked on the literary career. He became one of the most important French Romantic poets, novelists and dramatists of his time, having assembled a massive body of work while living in Paris, Brussels and the Channel Islands. -
Was Born Charles Dickens
•Famed British author Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, on the southern coast of England. His father, John Dickens, was a naval clerk who dreamed of striking it rich. Charles Dickens’ mother, Elizabeth Barrow, aspired to be a teacher and school director. Despite his parents’ best efforts, the family remained poor. Nevertheless, they were happy in the early days.Charles Dickens was the well-loved and prolific British author of numerous works that are now considered classics. -
Was born Jules Verne
• Jules Verne was born on February 8, 1828, in the city of Nantes, France, a busy maritime port city. There, Verne was exposed to schooners and ships departing and arriving, sparking his imagination for travel and adventure. While attending boarding school, he began to capture his imagination in short stories and poetry. After Verne left boarding school, his father sent him to Paris to study law, as he himself had done before. Often referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction," -
Was born Leo Tolstoy
•Leo Tolstoy was born in Tula Province, Russia. In the 1860, he wrote his first great novel, War and Peace. He was the youngest of four boys. In 1830, when Tolstoy's mother, née Princess Volkonskaya, died, his father's cousin took over caring for the children. When their father, Count Nikolay Tolstoy, died just seven years later, their aunt was appointed their legal guardian. Although Tolstoy experienced a lot of loss at an early age, he would later idealize his childhood memories in his writing -
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• In 1831, he published one of his most enduring works, Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Set in the medieval period, the novel presents a harsh criticism of the society that degrades and shuns the hunchback Quasimodo. This was Hugo's most celebrated work to date, and paved the way for his subsequent political writing -
A Christmas Carol
• Dickens published two Christmas stories. One was the classic A Christmas Carol, which features the timeless protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, a curmudgeonly old miser, who, with the help of a ghost, finds the Christmas spirit. -
Journey to the Center of the Earth
• The story involves German professor Otto Lidenbrock who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the centre of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull, encountering many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, before eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy, at the Stromboli volcano. -
War and Peace (Exact date unknown)
• Tolstoy spent the better part of the 1860 toiling over his first novel, War and Peace. A portion of the novel was first published in 1865." By 1868, he had released three more chapters. A year later, the novel was complete. Both critics and the public were buzzing about the novel's historical accounts of the Napoleonic Wars. Among the ideas that Tolstoy extols in War and Peace is the belief that the quality and meaning of one's life is mainly derived from his day-to-day activities. -
Charles Dickens dies
• In 1865, Dickens was in a train accident and never fully recovered. Despite his fragile condition, he continued to tour until 1870. On June 9, 1870, Dickens had a stroke and, at age 58, died at Gad’s Hill Place, his country home in Kent, England. He was buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey, with thousands of mourners gathering at the beloved author’s gravesite. -
Victor Hugo dies
• In 1878, he was stricken with cerebral congestion. Hugo and his mistress, Juliette, continued to live in Paris for the rest of their lives. The street on which he lived was renamed Avenue Victor Hugo on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1882. Juliette died the following year and Victor Hugo died in Paris on May 22, 1885. He received a hero's funeral. His body lay in state beneath the Arc de Triomphe before burial in the Panthéon. -
Was born J.R.R. Tolkien
• Born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa, J.R.R. Tolkien settled in England as a child, going on to study at Exeter College. While teaching at Oxford University, he published the popular fantasy novels The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The works have had a devoted international fan base and been adapted into award-winning blockbuster films. -
Was born Jorge Luis Borges
•Borges was a poet, story writer and essayist. His short fiction was renowned for the rich and fantastical imagery. The University of Cuyo awarded him the National Prize for Literature and an honorary doctorate. In 1961, Jorge Luis Borges (along with Samuel Beckett) was awarded the Prix Formentor.
•Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1899. His family had a comfortable middle-class family. Borges’s father had a vast library, which inspired Jorge Luis Borges’s literary aspirations. -
Was born George Orwell
•Born in Motihari, Bengal, India, in 1903, George Orwell, novelist, essayist and critic, created some of the sharpest satirical fiction of the 20th century with such works as Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. He was a man of strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of his times, including imperialism, fascism and communism. -
Jules Verne dies
• In 1886, Verne's favorite nephew, Gaston, attempted to murder Verne. He fired two shots from a pistol, and one stuck Verne's shin, giving him a limp for the rest of his life. Gaston turned out to be sufferring from mental illness, and spent his life in a mental institution. A week after Verne was shot, Verne did, however, continue to travel and write. In 1905, while ill with diabetes, Verne died at his home in Amiens, France. -
Leo Tolstoy dies
• In November 1910, the stationmaster of a train depot in Astapovo, Russia opened his home to Tolstoy, allowing the ailing writer to rest. Tolstoy died there shortly after, on November 20, 1910. He was buried at the family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, in Tula Province, where Tolstoy had lost so many loved ones yet had managed to build such fond and lasting memories of his childhood.
•Tolstoy's novels are considered among the finest achievements of literary work. -
Was Born Gabriel García Márquez
•Writer and journalist Gabriel García Márquez was reportedly born on March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia. The eldest of twelve children, the young García Marquez lived with his maternal grandparents listening to numerous family stories, including his grandfather's military reminiscences, his grandmother's tales of the fantastic and his parents' dating adventures.
•His fiction work introduced readers to magical realism, which combines more conventional storytelling with vivid fantasy. -
El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (Exact date unknown)
• The Garden of the garden of forking Paths is one of the stories most representative and valued by the ingenious interweaving of their eternal idea of philosophical along with the ingredients of a fairy tale detective: the mystery, persecution, suspense, and criminal punishment. -
Animal Farm
• The book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union. Old Major, the old boar on the Manor Farm, summons the animals on the farm together for a meeting, during which he refers to humans as "enemies" and teaches the animals a revolutionary song. When Major dies, two young pigs, assume command and consider it a duty to prepare for the Rebellion. -
The Lord of the Rings (Exact date unknown)
• While working on scholarly publications, Tolkien developed the Lord of the Rings series, partially inspired by ancient European myths, with its own sets of maps, lore and languages. Tolkien released part one of the series, The Fellowship of the Ring, in 1954; The Two Towers and The Return of the King followed in 1955, finishing up the trilogy. The books talking trees and all manner of fantastic creatures, including characters like the wizard Gandalf and the dwarf Gimli. -
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Exact date unknown)
•García Márquez sequestered himself away in his Mexico City home for an extended period of time to complete his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, published in 1967. The author drew international acclaim for the work, which ultimately sold tens of millions of copies worldwide. García Márquez is credited with helping introduce an array of readers to magical realism, a genre that combines more conventional storytelling forms with vivid, layered fantasy. -
J.R.R. Tolkien dies
• Tolkien retired from professorial duties in 1959, going on to publish an essay and poetry collection, Tree and Leaf, and the fantasy tale Smith of Wootton Major. His wife Edith died in 1971, and Tolkien died on September 2, 1973, at the age of 81 in Bournemouth, Dorset. -
Jorge Luis Borges dies
•Starting in 1956 and lasting until his death, Borges was an instructor at the University of Buenos Aires. This was also the year he was appointed the Director of the National Library. However, when Juan Peron returned to power, Borges resigned his position. Politically, Jorge Luis Borges was against Peronism, Marxism and Communism.
•Jorge Luis Borges died in Geneva in 1986. He was suffering from liver cancer. -
Gabriel García Márquez dies
•The writer had been diagnosed with cancer in the late 1990s and, as reported by his brother, eventually began to suffer from dementia. Gabriel García Marquez died in Mexico City on April 17, 2014 at the age of 87, with the world immediately honoring his immeasurable literary legacy. -
George Orwell dies
•Nineteen Eighty-Four proved to be another huge success for the author, but he had little time to enjoy it. By this time, Orwell was in the late stages of his battle with tuberculosis. He died on January 21, 1950, in a London hospital. He may have passed away all too soon, but his ideas and opinions have lived on through his work. Both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four have been turned into films and have enjoyed tremendous popularity over the years.
