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500 BCE
Premodern or medieval period
Europe during the Middle Ages (from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, 500 AD to the Renaissance of the fifteenth 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. That is to say, that works of all kinds were produced, from the totally sacred to the completely profane. -
1500
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 middle of the seventeenth.
That era of English cultural history is also known as "The Age of Shakespeare" or "The Elizabethan Era", referring to the most important author and monarch of the time. -
1558
Elizabethan literature
Bodies of work produced during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), The Elizabethan era had a prosperous literary production, especially in the field of theater.
William Shakespeare was an outstanding author of poetry and plays, probably the most relevant figure that English literature has had in his history. Other figures have also played an important role in the theater such as Marlowe, Dekker, Fletcher and Beaumont. The urban comedy genre was also developed very often and admired. -
William Shakespeare’s Plays
While it’s difficult to determine the exact chronology of William Shakespeare’s plays, over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving around several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies. -
Jacobean Literature
The poet and playwright Ben Jonson led the Jacobean literature, after the death of Shakespeare. Several authors followed his style as Beaumont and Fletcher, they were all called "sons of Ben". Another popular style of the time was the revenge theater that became popular with John Webster and Tomas Kyd. -
John Webster
Tragedies: The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. His life and career overlapped William Shakespeare's. -
Restoration Literature
The reopening of the theaters gave the opportunity to represent satirical works about the new nobility and the growing bourgeoisie. The mobility of society, which followed the social upheavals of the previous generation, provided the ideas for the creation of the comedy of manners. Aphra Behn was the first female novelist and professional dramatist. The allegory of John Bunyan, The Pilgrim, is one of the most read works of this period. -
Literature of the Augustus era
The epoch of the early eighteenth century is known as the Augustan era or neoclassical literature. -
1760
English literature first enters the university in the 1760s, in Scotland. -
Romanticism
The reaction to industrialization and urbanism pushed the poets to explore nature, as the group of "The poets of the lake" in which we include William Wordsworth. These romantic poets brought to English literature a new degree of sentimentality and introspection. Among the most important authors of the second generation of romantic poets are Lord Byron, Percy Bysse Shelley and John Keats. -
English Literature in the nineteenth-century
English Literature in the nineteenth-century universities became instead a way of connecting yourself to the past. It allowed students to understand themselves as the inheritors of an English national identity that was embodied in the nation’s literature. -
Sense and Sensibility (1811) By Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)
The novel, which sold out its first print run of 750 copies in the middle of 1813, marked a success for its author. It had a second print run later that year. The novel continued in publication throughout the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries and has many times been illustrated, excerpted, abridged, and adapted for stage and film. -
Pride and Prejudice (1813) By Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)
Romantic Novel. It charts the emotional development of protagonist Elizabeth Bennet, who learns the error of making hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between the superficial and the essential. The comedy of the writing lies in the depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the British Regency period. -
Emma (1816) By Jane Austen (1775 – 1817)
The novel was first published in December 1815 while the author was alive, with its title page listing a publication date of 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency England; she also creates a lively comedy of manners among her characters and depicts issues of marriage, gender, age, and social status. -
1828
University College London began teaching in 1828 and included on its staff Britain’s fi rst ‘Professor of English Language and Literature’. -
1835
The political establishment responded by founding a rival institution, King’s College London, the following year; by 1835 it had a professor of English Literature and History too. -
Charles Dickens
Dickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers.
Dickens published well over a dozen major novels and novellas, a large number of short stories, including a number of Christmas-themed stories, a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats. -
Victorian literature
The novel was the most important literary form. Most authors were more focused on knowing the tastes of the middle class that read, than on satisfying the aristocrats. -
1838 Victorian Writers
Among the most well-known works of this era we highlight: the works of strong emotional content of the Brontë sisters; the Vanity Fair satire by William Makepeace Thackery; the realistic novel by George Eliot; and the insightful portraits of the life of the landlords and the professional class of Anthony Trollope. Charles Dickens came on the scene in 1830 under the trend of serial publication. -
1862
Older universities followed suit: Glasgow in 1862, and Trinity College Dublin in 1867 -
Lutwidge Dodgson (pseudonym: Lewis Carroll)
English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.
It tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures.
Its narrative course, structure, characters, and imagery have been enormously influential in both popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. -
1878
At last Cambridge University established an examination board in ‘Medieval and Modern Languages’ which included English as one of its topics in 1878. -
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. Sitwells also gained strength among literary and artistic movements, but with less influence. The most important writers of popular literature were P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie. -
1885 and 1911
Oxford established a Professorship in English Language and Literature in 1885 and Cambridge a separate Professorship in English Literature in 1911 -
VLADIMIR NABOKOV OBRA: 1ra: 1926 - Ultima: 1975
Máshenka, 1926 (Машенька), Novela.
El original de Laura (póstumo e inacabado), 1975
Nabokov's Lolita (1955), his most noted novel in English, was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels; Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list, and his memoir, Speak, Memory (1951), was listed eighth on the publisher's list of the 20th century's greatest nonfiction. He was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times. -
ERNEST HEMINGWAY (1899 – 1961) Main Masterpieces
Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)
A Farewell to Arms (1929). For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940) -
Postmodern literature characteristics
American Literature began to be taught in its own right from the late nineteenth century as well. In the late 1930s and 1940s, American teachers developed an approach to studying literature which was immediately christened ‘the New Criticism’: the best known New Critics being John Crowe Ransom, Cleanth Brooks, William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley. -
JORGE LUIS BORGES 1944
FICCIONES. Is the most popular collection of short stories by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges, often considered the best introduction to his work. -
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. -
1960
It was in 1960s that a shift in the nature of literary studies began which remains the context in which English Literature is taught in universities today. -
SAMUEL BECKETT. Main materpiece: "Stirrings Still"
"Stirrings Still" (1988) is a rambling interior monologue that describes a man looking back on his life. (It's written in the third person, but it's hard not to imagine Beckett himself when you're reading it.)
