English Literature Timeline

  • 1200 BCE

    The Classical Period (1200 BCE-455 BCE)

    The Classical Period (1200 BCE-455 BCE)
    Homeric or Heroic Period (1200-800 BCE)
    Classical Greek Period (800-200 BCE)
    Classical Roman Period (200 BCE-455 BCE)
    Patristic Period (c.70 CE-455 CE)
  • 450

    Old English Period (450CE – 1066CE)

    Old English Period (450CE – 1066CE)
    Also called Anglo-Saxon literature, it was written in old English.
    Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066.
  • 1066

    Middle English Period: (1066 -1500)

    Middle English Period: (1066 -1500)
    Before the conquest, rhyme had begun to supplant rather than supplement alliteration in some poems, which continued to use the older four-stress line.
  • 1390

    Gower

    Gower
    Confessio amantis
  • 1392

    Chaucer

    Chaucer
    Canterbury tales
  • 1485

    Malory

    Malory
    Morte d'Arthur
    The Death of Arthur is Sir Thomas Malory's retelling of the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
  • 1500

    Renaissance: 1500-1600

    Renaissance: 1500-1600
    Poetry in the Renaissance became one of the most valued forms of literature and was often accompanied by music.
  • 1516

    Sir Thomas More

     Sir Thomas More
    Utopia
  • Neoclassical Period: 1600-1785

    Neoclassical Period: 1600-1785
    This time period is broken down into three parts: the Restoration period, the Augustan period, and the Age of Johnson. Writers of the Neoclassical period tried to imitate the style of the Romans and Greeks.
  • William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare
    Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear
  • Romantic Period: 1785-1832

    Romantic Period: 1785-1832
    The movement was characterized by a celebration of nature and the common man, a focus on individual experience, an idealization of women, and an embrace of isolation and melancholy.
  • Wordsworth and Coleridge

    Wordsworth and Coleridge
    Lyrical Ballads
  • Victorian Age: 1832-1901

    Victorian Age: 1832-1901
    The 19th century is considered by some to be the Golden Age of English Literature, especially for British novels. It was in the Victorian era that the novel became the leading literary genre in English.
  • Elizabeth barrett browning

    Elizabeth barrett browning
    The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point
  • Edwardian Period: 1901-1910

    Edwardian Period: 1901-1910
    Edwardian era writers focused on the bigger picture: subversive ideas were presented metaphorically, symbolically, and in opposition to the liberating force of nature.
  • Georgian Period: 1910-1936

    Georgian Period: 1910-1936
    Georgian literature, produced primarily in monasteries, was ecclesiastical; hymns and religious biographies and chronicles as well as Biblical and liturgical translations are among the principal works surviving from this period.
  • Modern Period: (1910 to 1950)

    Modern Period: (1910 to 1950)
    Modernist writers in general rebelled against clear-cut storytelling and formulaic verse from the 19th century.
  • Virginia Woolf

    Virginia Woolf
    The Waves
  • Postmodern Period: 1950 - 2000

    Postmodern Period: 1950 - 2000
    Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues.
  • Dylan Thomas

    Dylan Thomas
    Collected histories
  • Roland Barthes

    Roland Barthes
    Image-Music-Text
  • J. K. Rowling

    J. K. Rowling
    Harry Potter
  • Contemporary Period (2000 - Today)

    Contemporary Period (2000 - Today)
    The 21st century in literature refers to world literature produced during the 21st century. The measure of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from (roughly) the year 2001 to the present.
  • John Green

    John Green
    Paper Towns
    Let it snow
    Lookinf for Alaska
    The fault in our stars
    ...
  • Becca fitzpatrick

    Becca fitzpatrick
    Hush Hush
    Crescendo
    Silencio
    Finale
    Dangerous liars
    ....