History of English Literature

By olgalucia2020
  • 731

    Venerable Bede

    Venerable Bede
    The Venerable Bede, in his monastery at 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.
  • 1367

    Narrator Will

    A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman
  • 1385

    Troilus and Criseyde

    Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy.
  • 1387

    100 Canterbury Tales

    Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death.
  • 1460

    Robert Henryson

  • 1469

    Tales of Thomas Malory

    Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur.
  • 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.

  • The Prostestan Elizabeth I

    English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth I as The Faerie Queene.

  • William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare the greates of writers Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth, king Lear

  • Ben Jonson

    The satirical voice of the English playwright Ben Jonson is heard to powerful effect in Volpone.

  • Robinson Crusoe

    Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, with its detailed realism, can be seen as the first English novel.

  • Oliver Goldsmith

    Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer is produced in London's Covent Garden theatre.

  • Edward Gibbon

    English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  • Romactic Periodo

    English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement.

  • Jane Austen

    English author Jane Austen publishes her first work in print, Sense and Sensibility, at her own expense.

  • Percy Shelley

    Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes probably his best-known poem, the sonnet Ozymandias.

  • John Keats

    English poet John Keats publishes Ode to a Nightingale, inspired by the bird's song in his Hampstead garden.

  • Victorian periodo

    The Victorian era or Victorian era in the history of the United Kingdom marked the cusp of its Industrial Revolution and the British Empire. Authors of this period Charles Dickens, Tennyson y Matthew Arnold.

  • Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838).

  • Oscar Wilde

    Oscar Wilde publishes his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the ever-youthful hero's portrait grows old and ugly.

  • Agatha Christie

    The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot features in Agatha Christie's first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

  • Tolkien

    British philologist J.R.R. Tolkien publishes the third and final volume of his epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings.

  • J.K.Rowling

    A schoolboy wizard performs his first tricks in J.K Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosopher stone.