English literature By facebooker_2284395554951532 731 Go to Bede (673–735) completes his history of the English church and people http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 800 Beowulf, the first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 950 The material of the Eddas, taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1300 Duns Scotus, known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1340 William of Ockham advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razor http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1340 A narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1375 Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir in The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (3 ed.) http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1385 Troilus and Criseyde in The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (3 ed.) http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1387 Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1469 Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1510 Erasmus and Thomas More take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1524 William Tyndale studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1549 The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1567 The Book of Common Prayer and the New Testament are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588 http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1587 Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, introduces the swaggering blank verse of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1601 Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1604 James I commissions the Authorized version of the Bible, which is completed by forty-seven scholars in seven years http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1605 Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1606 The satirical voice of the English playwright Ben Jonson is heard to powerful effect in Volpone http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1611 Shakespeare's last completed play, The Tempest, is performed http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1616 John Smith publishes A Description of New England, an account of his exploration of the region in 1614 http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1650 The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1653 Devoted fisherman Izaak Walton publishes the classic work on the subject, The Compleat Angler http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1988 Ayatollah Khomeini declares a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his Satanic Verses http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1990 Racing Demon launches a trilogy on the British establishment by English playwright David Hare http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1991 Alan Bennett's play The Madness of George III is performed at the National Theatre in London http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1992 English poet Thom Gunn's The Man with Night Sweats deals openly with AIDS http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1993 English novelist Sebastian Faulks publishes Birdsong, set partly in the trenches of World War I http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1993 Vikram Seth publishes his novel A Suitable Boy, a family saga in post-independence India http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1994 Louis de Bernières publishes Captain Corelli's Mandolin, a love story set in Italian-occupied Cephalonia http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1997 The poems forming Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters describe his relationship with Sylvia Plath http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1997 A schoolboy wizard performs his first tricks in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 1998 Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen dramatizes the visit of Werner Heisenberg to Niels Bohr in wartime Denmark http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001 2000 The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191737053.timeline.0001
