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Period: 500 to 1500
Premodern or medieval period
This period includes all the works that were available in Europe during the Middle Ages (from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, 500 AD to the Renaissance of the 15th century). The literature of this era was dominated by religious writings, which included poetry, theology and the lives of the saints, but secular works and scientific works were also produced. -
731
Venerable Bede
Venerable Bede, in his monastery in Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people -
800
Beowulf
Beowulf, the first great work of Germanic literature, mixes the legends of Scandinavia with the English experience of the Angles and Saxons. -
1078
Ontological argument
Anselmo includes in his Proslogion his famous "ontological proof" of the existence of God -
1367
Piers Plowman
A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem by Piers Plowman. -
1385
Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary romance in ancient Troy. -
1469
Thomas Malory
Thomas Malory, en la cárcel en algún lugar de Inglaterra, compila Morte d'Arthur , un relato en inglés de los cuentos franceses del rey Arturo -
Period: 1501 to
Early modern period or Renaissance
"The English Renaissance" is the term used to describe the artistic and cultural movement that existed in England from the sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth. -
1510
Erasmus and Thomas
Erasmus and Thomas More take the Northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism -
1549
Thomas Cranmer
The first version of the English prayer book, or Common Prayer Book, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer. -
1574
Samuel Sewall
Samuel Sewall begins a diary of daily life in Boston, Massachusetts, which will span a period of more than fifty years.. -
Marlowe, Christopher
Marlowe's first work, Tamburlaine the Great, presents the shocking blank verse of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. -
Shakespeare
The central character of Shakespeare in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disappointment of a less confident era -
William Bradford
William Bradford begins a journal of the experience of the pilgrims in New England, published later (in 1856) as History of Plymouth Plantation. -
John Locke
John Locke publishes his Essay on Human Understanding, arguing that all knowledge is based on experience -
Period: to
Neoclassical literature
The epoch of the early eighteenth century is known as the Augustan era or neoclassical literature. The works of Alexander Pope demonstrate that the poetry of these years was very formal. In the middle of the XVIII the novel was based on the hand of authors like Henry Fielding, Laurence Stern and Samuel Richardson, who perfected the epistolary novel; Richardson was a moralist while Fielding and Stern came closer to the comic genre. -
The Age of Augustus
The Age of Augustus begins in English literature, claiming comparison with the flowering equivalent under Augustus Caesar -
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, with his detailed realism, can be considered as the first English novel -
To Clarissa: o The story of a young lady
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson begins the correspondence that becomes the longest novel in the English language -
Gibbon, Edward
The English historian Edward Gibbon, sitting among the ruins of Rome, conceives the idea of Decay and Fall of the Roman Empire. -
Encyclopedia Britannica
A Society of Knights in Scotland begins the publication of the immensely successful Encyclopedia Britannica -
Period: to
Romanticism
The reaction towards industrialization and urbanism pushed the poets to explore nature, as the group of "The poets of the lake". These romantic poets brought to English literature a new degree of sentimentality and introspection. -
Freneau, Philip Morin
The American poet Philip Freneau describes in The British Prison Ship the horrors of his experiences as a prisoner -
Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his response to Burke's reflections on the revolution in France. -
Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel
Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the long romantic poem that first gives him fame -
Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice, based on a 1797 youth work called First Impressions, is the second Jane Austen novel to be published -
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein, or Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale about how to give life to an artificial man. -
Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
Walter Scott publishes Ivanhoe, a love story, tournaments and sieges at the time of the Crusades. -
Moore, Clement Clarke
An American poem, A Visit of Saint Nicholas, describes modern Santa Claus in every detail. -
América
The patriotic anthem of Samuel Francis Smith, United States, is sung for the first time on July 4 in Boston -
Simms, William Gilmore
The American novelist William Gilmore Simms publishes Guy Rivers, the first of his series known as Border Romances. -
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville publishes in French the first two volumes of his extremely influential study Democracy in America. -
Divinity School
In his Discourse on the School of Divinity, delivered at Harvard, Ralph Waldo Emerson criticizes formal religion and gives priority to personal spiritual experience. -
Browning, Robert
The English poet Robert Browning publishes a vivid narrative poem about the terrible revenge of The Pied Piper of Hamelin -
Period: to
Modern literature
The most outstanding novelists of the period between wars were D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, this last member of the Bloomsbury group. The Sitwells also gained strength among literary and artistic movements, but with less influence. -
Engels, Friedrich
Friedrich Engels, after directing a textile factory in Manchester, publishes The condition of the working class in England. -
The theory of evolution
Charles Darwin presents the theory of evolution in On the origin of species, the result of a 20-year investigation. -
The Rise of Silas Lapham
In his novel The Rise of Silas Lapham, the American author William Dean Howells follows the fate of a man made in Boston -
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes Women and Economics, developing the feminist theme in the political and cultural life of the United States. -
Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
The first novel of Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, does not receive publicity because its editor, Frank Doubleday, considers it immoral -
Period: to
Postmodern literature
Two examples of English postmodern literature are: John Fowles and Julian Barnes. Some important writers of the beginning of the 21st century are: Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Will Self, Andrew Motion and Salman Rushdie. -
Tarzan
Tarzan makes his first appearance in the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the monkeys -
The Great Gatsby
Scott FitzGerald publishes his novel The Great Gatsby, set in a contemporary world of generous indulgence sustained by crime. -
Life of Galileo
The work of Bertolt Brecht The Life of Galileo opens in Los Angeles with Charles Laughton at the head -
Under Milk Wood
Dylan Thomas' 'voice game', Under Milk Wood, is broadcast on the BBC radio, with Richard Burton as the narrator -
Schumacher, Ernst Friedrich
The British economist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher publishes an influential economic tract, Small is Beautiful -
Faulks, Sebastian
The English novelist Sebastian Faulks publishes Birdsong, set in part in the trenches of the First World War. -
Harry Potter
A school magician performs his first tricks on Harry Potter and JK Rowling's Philosopher's Stone -
Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials.
