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731
The beginning of English literature
Venerable Bede, in his monastery in Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people. -
800
legends of scandinavia
Beowulf, the first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons -
950
The Middle Ages
The literature of Scandinavia and, in particular, of Iceland has reflected two extraordinary features of the social and cultural history of pagan Europe and of Iceland. The way in which names such as Siegfried, Brunhild, and Atli (Attila) cropped up again and again in different European literatures has borne witness to the dissemination of legends and traditions common to the early Germanic tribes of Europe, starting from the great movements westward in the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries. -
Period: 950 to 1300
Duns Scotus
The material of the Eddas, taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgund
end:
Duns Scotus, known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce. -
995
Sei Shonagon
Sei Shonagon, a lady-in-waiting to the Japanese empress, records her thoughts and impressions in her Pillow Book -
1301
Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain
Of these two great English alliterative poems, the second is entirely anonymous and the first virtually so. The narrator of Piers Plowman calls himself Will; occasional references in the text suggest that his name may be Langland. Nothing else, apart from this poem, is known of him. -
1367
Narrator Will
A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman -
1387
100 cuentos de Canterbury
Chaucer comienza un ambicioso plan para 100 Cuentos de Canterbury , del cual solo cumple 24 para el momento de su muerte. -
1469
Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1415 – 14 March 1471) was an English writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur (originally titled The Whole Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table). Since the late 19th century, he has generally been identified as Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. Occasionally, other candidates are put forward for authorship of Le Morte d'Arthur, but the supporting evidence for their claim has been described as "no more than circumstantial". -
1501
Literature and culture
Literature has a history, and this connects with cultural history more widely. Prose narratives were written in the 16th century, but the novel as we know it could not arise, in the absence of a literate public. The popular and very contemporary medium for narrative in the 16th century is the theatre. The earliest novels reflect a bourgeois view of the world because this is the world of the authors and their readers working people are depicted, but patronizingly, not from inside knowledg. -
1549
First sentence in English
The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer -
1567
The Bible
The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588 -
1582
wedding of William Shakespeare
The 18-year-old William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway in Stratford-upon-Avon -
The Protestant Elizabeth I
English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene -
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers. -
Hamlet
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet , is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare at an uncertain date between 1599 and 1602. Set in Denmark, the play dramatises the revenge Prince Hamlet is called to wreak upon his uncle, Claudius, by the ghost of Hamlet's father, King Hamlet. Claudius had murdered his own brother and seized the throne, also marrying his deceased brother's widow. -
Ben Jonson
The satirical voice of the English playwright Ben Jonson is heard to powerful effect in Volpone -
The rise of Romanticism
A movement in philosophy but especially in literature, romanticism is the revolt of the senses or passions against the intellect and of the individual against the consensus. Its first stirrings may be seen in the work of William Blake (1757-1827), and in continental writers such as the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the German playwrights Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. -
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassicism was born largely thanks to the writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, at the time of the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum. -
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer is produced in London's Covent Garden theatre -
Peter Mark Roget
London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases -
Henry James
Henry James's early novel Roderick Hudson is serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and is published in book form in 1876 -
Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four-act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first performed on Saturday, 20 February 1892, at the St James's Theatre in London. The story concerns Lady Windermere, who suspects that her husband is having an affair with another woman. -
The Riddle of the Sands
The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. The book, which enjoyed immense popularity in the years before World War I, is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influential in the genre of spy fiction. It has been made into feature-length films for both cinema and television. -
The Ambassadors
The Ambassadors is a 1903 novel by Henry James, originally published as a serial in the North American Review (NAR). This dark comedy, seen as one of the masterpieces of James's final period, follows the trip of protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether to Europe in pursuit of Chad Newsome, his widowed fiancée's supposedly wayward son; he is to bring the young man back to the family business, but he encounters unexpected complications. -
Charlie and the Chocolate Factor
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's book by British author Roald Dahl. This story featueres the adventures on the new products. At that time (around the 1920s), Cadbury and Rowntree's were England's two largest chocolate makers and they each often try to steal trade secrets by sending spies, posing as employees, into the other's factory. -
Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone
Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone, also called Harry Potter 1 or abbreviated HP1 (original title in English, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1 except in the United States, where it was titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), is the first book of the Harry Potter literary series, written by the British author JK Rowling in 1997, which also represented Rowling's debut as a professional writer. -
Birthday Letters
Birthday Letters, published in 1998, is a collection of poetry by English poet and children's writer Ted Hughes. Released only months before Hughes's death, the collection won multiple prestigious literary awards. This collection of eighty-eight poems is widely considered to be Hughes's most explicit response to the suicide of his estranged wife Sylvia Plath in 1963, and to their widely discussed, politicized and "explosive" marriage. -
Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials
