-
Period: 500 to 1100
Old English
It is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England. -
731
VENERABLE BEDE
He was an English Benedictine monk at the monastery of St. Paul, known in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People and for his biblical commentaries and exegetical -
800
Beowulf
the first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons -
950
The material of the Eddas
Taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy -
Period: 1100 to 1500
Middle English
-
1300
Duns Scotus
Known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce -
1340
William of Ockham
He advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razor -
Period: 1340 to 1400
Geoffrey Chaucer
He is considered the most important English poet of the Middle Ages, his most famous work: The Canterbury Tales -
1375
Poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
That poem shows a great part of the characteristics of the literature of this era and about the history of King Arthur. -
1469
Thomas Malory
He compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur -
1476
William Caxton
He was the first person to introduce a printing press into England. From that moment, the vernacular literature began to flourish. -
Period: 1500 to
Modern English
Modern English evolved from Early Modern English which was used from the beginning of the Tudor period until the Interregnum and Restoration in England.[6] The works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible are considered to be in Modern Englis -
Period: Jan 1, 1501 to
Anglican Reformation
The Anglican Reformation inspired the production of a proper liturgy that led to the Book of Common Prayer, a key influence in English literature. -
1510
Erasmus and Thomas More
Take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism -
1524
William Tyndale
He studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English -
1549
English prayer book
The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer -
1567
Publishment of New Testament and Book of common prayer
The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588 -
Hamlet
Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age -
King James Bible
Beginning of one of the most important projects in the history of translation in England. The play became the standard Bible for the Church of England -
The Masque of Blackness
Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I -
John Donne
England's leading Metaphysical poet, becomes dean of St Paul's -
The Temple
George Herbert's only volume of poems, The Temple, is published posthumously -
The Augustan Age
The Augustan Age begins in English literature, claiming comparison with the equivalent flowering under Augustus Caesar -
Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel -
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift sends his hero on a series of bitterly satirical travels in Gulliver's Travels -
Treatise of Human Nature
David Hume publishes his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he applies to the human mind the principles of experimental science -
Tristram Shandy
Laurence Sterne publishes the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, beginning with the scene at the hero's conception -
Castle of Otranto
English author Horace Walpole provides an early taste of Gothic thrills in his novel Castle of Otranto -
Period: to
Romantic literature in English
Various dates are given for the Romantic Period but one of the most accepted is with the publishing of William Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is taken as the beginning, and the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 as its end. -
Period: to
Modernism
It has its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in Europe and North America, and is characterized by a very self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction -
Charles Dickens, his first work
With 24-year-old Charles Dickens begins monthly publication of his first work of fiction, Pickwick Papers (published in book form in 1837) -
Period: to
Victorian literature
It was preceded by Romanticism and followed by the Edwardian era (1901–1910). While in the preceding Romantic period, poetry had been the dominant genre, it was the novel that was most important in the Victorian period. -
Charles Kingsley
English author Charles Kingsley publishes an improving fantasy for young children, The Water-Babies -
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier -
Culture and Anarchy
English author Matthew Arnold publishes Culture and Anarchy, an influential collection of essays about contemporary society -
New English Dictionary
Oxford University Press publishes the A volume of its New English Dictionary, which will take 37 years to reach Z -
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes features in Conan Doyle's first novel, A Study in Scarlet -
The Wanderings of Oisin
23-year-old Irish author William Butler Yeats publishes his first volume of poems, The Wanderings of Oisin -
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde publishes his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the ever-youthful hero's portrait grows old and ugly -
Dracula
English author Bram Stoker publishes Dracula, his gothic tale of vampirism in Transylvania -
Over the Brazier
Robert Graves publishes his first book of poems, Over the Brazier -
The Man with Two Left Feet
Jeeves and Bertie Wooster make their first appearance in P.G. Wodehouse's The Man with Two Left Feet
