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600
Old English
Beowulf
An epic poem, one of the first recorded in the works of Old English, its author was J. R. R. Tolkien.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
It is a collection of history about ancient England, caedmon's hymn poem is preserved in twenty-one manuscripts, which are extensive in religious literature in Anglo-Saxon times.
Exeter Book
It is one of the largest collections of this era, and although the precise dates on which it was written and compiled are unknown. -
1066
English literature in the Middle Ages
Canterbury Tales 1386 and 1389
Most of the text was written in verse and two in prose, which makes up a collection of twenty-four stories that Geoffrey Chaucer began to write during the 1380s
Piers Plowman 1370-1390
It is an allegorical religious poem written by William Langland in more than 7000 verses without rhyme.
The Date of Mankind
One of the books written by the journalist, professor, Dutch American author Hendrik Willem Van Loon, received the Newbery Medal for his literature. -
1500
Literature of the English Renaissance 1500-1660
This era began with the Tudor dynasty, has three main periods: The Elizabethan Theatre period includes comedies and tragedies, the Jacobite comprises tragedies of revenge and the Carolingian bloody tragedies. Works of mystery are forbidden since they must be adapted to the new religious dogma, the Anglican. -
1558
Elizabethan era 1558-1603
Doctor Faustus
The tragic story of Dr. Faust, is a work written by Christopher Marlowe although it was published eleven years after his death, the exact date of its writing is unknown, but different sources confirm that it was approximately in the 1500s.
William Shakespeare 1595 a 1597
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy by William Shakespeare that narrates the events that happen during the marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, with Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. -
Romeo and Juliet
Years later, approximately in 1597, William finished writing the work Romeo and Juliet in which he expressed the love that is born in the roots of a hatred so deep and apparently unjustified that it ended in tragedy. -
Jacobite era 1603-1625
The Alchemist
It is a comedy by Ben Jonson that was first performed in the year 1610, It is considered one of his best comedies, one of the most characteristic, its plot was rated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge as one of the three best in literature. -
Carolingian era 1625 to 1660
Leviathan in April 1651
It is the best known book of the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, its title refers to the biblical monster Leviathan, of enormous power, markedly materialistic, can be understood as a justification of the absolute State, as well as the theoretical proposition of the social contract. -
English Literature of the Restoration
The term refers to a series of works, with a relatively homogeneous style, that focus on the celebration or rejection of the restored court of Charles II. -
A Panegyric on his Coronation, and To My Lord Chancellor
These poems suggest that Dryden sought to find some pattern, but instead of making a living writing for the aristocracy, he did so by writing for the printers, ultimately for the reading public.
John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic and playwright, who dominated literary life in English Restoration England to such an extent that it became known as the Dryden Era. -
Paradise Lost
Written by John Milton the poem is divided into twelve books and exceeds 10,000 verses without rhyme, it is an epic about the biblical theme of the fall of Adam and Eve. The work deals fundamentally with the problem of evil and suffering in the sense of answering the question of why a good and all-powerful God decides to allow them when it would be easy for him to avoid them. -
Sodom
It is an obscene wardrobe drama of the Restoration, published in 1684. The work has been attributed to John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, although its authorship is disputed. It consists of five acts in rhymed couplets. There are two prologues, two epilogues and a short final speech. This work begins with Bolloxinion, king of Sodom, authorizing same sex sodomy as an acceptable sexual practice within the kingdom. -
Illustration
It was a period in which industry and commerce had a great development. -
Robinson Crusoe
It is one of the most famous works of the famous writer Daniel Defoe, it is considered the first English novel. It is a fictional autobiography of the protagonist, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote desert island at the mouth of the Orinoco, near the coasts of Trinidad and Venezuela. -
Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift is one of the most outstanding authors of this era with this work that is an intelligent mixture of travel story, intimate diary, and utopia. Doctor Lemuel Gulliver wakes up on the island of Liliput, after the boat he was traveling on capsizes. On the island, he befriends its inhabitants, little men who are only a few centimeters tall. -
Vindication of the Rights of Men
In a Letter to the Right Honorable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France, is a political pamphlet, written by the 18th-century British liberal feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, which attacks aristocracy and advocates republicanism. -
Romanticism
It covers from the end of the eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century. This movement focuses on man's relationship with nature and its roots, it is a celebration of the natural world and of the individual experience with melancholic tones and solitude. -
Pride and prejudice
At this time we can see one of the leading women in literature with the most famous work of Jane Austen's novels and one of the first romantic comedies in the history of the novel. His first sentence is also one of the most famous in English literature: It is a world-renowned truth that a single man, possessing a great fortune, needs a wife. -
Frankenstein
It is a literary work of the writer Mary Shelley framed in the tradition of the Gothic novel, the text speaks of themes such as scientific morality, the creation and destruction of life and the daring of humanity in its relationship with God. -
The Lord of the Rings
Again, we find J. R. R. Tolkien. And this time for writing this novel in stages between 1937 and 1949 and publishing it for the first time in the United Kingdom, it became one of the most popular works of the twentieth century.