History of English Literature

Old literature

858

During this period which is from 858 to 1100 people communicated poems and literary works orally because the writing was not so much important.

Beowulf

1000

This year is known because it was written the longest epic poem in Old English.

Norman psalter

1060

It was a personal prayerbook and it looks like it was written in old English.

Middle Ages

1100

This age range between 1100 and 1500.

The Owl and the Nightingale

1190

This is a poem in which two competing characters trade insults with each other. It is the earliest example in English of a popular literary form known as a verse contest.

Magna Carta

1215

This writing is one of the most celebrated documents in western history. It was the first written material to set limits on the power of an English monarch and was intended to prevent King John from exploiting his people. T

Medieval Surgical Procedures

1300

This illustrated medieval manuscript shows a surgical procedure for fixing a broken skull. This is accompanied by a text describing Christ's life.

Le Palmer's encyclopedia

1370

This encyclopedia was written by a London clerk named James le Palmer. The book must have been exhausting to complete. It has more than 2,000 pages and 800 illustrations, and it is not even finished.

Gutenberg Bible

1455

Johan Gutenberg's amazing invention, the printing press and the use of moveable metal type would revolutionize the way books were created in the West. Before Gutenberg, every book produced in Europe had to be copied by hand. Now it was possible to speed up the production process and still make works of high quality. This is probably the most famous Bible in the world and is the earliest full-scale work printed in Europe using Gutenberg's technology.

Renassaince

1500

This age ranges between 1500 and 1660.

Letter from Elizabeth I

1553

Probably written in 1553, when the future Queen of England was 20 years old, Elizabeth's letter reveals the personal costs behind the power struggles of the troubled Tudor dynasty. She tells her young half-brother, Edward VI, how she had tried to visit him during what would prove his final illness but had been turned away.

Neo-Classical Age

1660

This age ranges from 1660 to 1798

Account of a shipwreck

1693

This account of a shipwreck appears in a 17th-century anthology of sensational disasters. Journeying in stormy seas from Goa to Portugal in 1686, the ship crashes against the rocks and is destroyed

The art of cookery

1747

This was first published in 1747. It was a best seller for over 100 years and made Glasse one of the best-known cookery writers of the 18th century.

19th Century Literature

1799

This age ranges from 1799 to 1900

The Communist Manifesto

1848

it was first published in 1848 and written by Karl Max. It formed the basis for the modern communist movement as we know it, arguing that capitalism would inevitably self-destruct, to be replaced by socialism and ultimately communism.

Oxford English Dictionary

1879

In 1879 an agreement was reached with Oxford University Press to begin work on a revolutionary New English Dictionary. The plan was to create a vast and comprehensive collection of English words, those from the Early Middle English period (1150) onwards, a lexicon of the language more complete than any English dictionary-maker had ever attempted.

English Literature Since 1901

1901

1901 and onwards

Modernism

1939

Literature from various parts of the world started spreading. New writers were tried to impersonate the glory of British writers. Women at the time were suppressed in the literary sense. They were not allowed to write freely.

Post-Modernism

2000

It ranges from 1940 to 21st century