English Literature Timeline By Coheed924 597 St. Augustine founds Christian monastery at Canterbury, Kent 653 Celtic Church begins to spread Christianity among the people living in Severn Valley. 731 A History of the English Church and People Bede completes A History of the English Church and People 750 Surviving version of Beowulf composed 975 Saxon monks copy Old English poems into The Exeter Book 1073 Canterbury becomes England's religious center. 1130 Oxford becomes the center for learning 1381 Bible first translated into English 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer begins to write The Canterbury Tales. 1448 Robert Herrick publishes Hesperides 1470 Thomas Malory writes Morte d'Arthur. Period: 1485 to 1625 The English Renaissance The revival of art and literature in the modern day from and way of life and culture. 1500 Everyman first performed 1512 First Masque performed 1516 Thomas More publishes Utopia 1534 Church of England established 1549 The book of Common Prayer issued 1560 Thomas Tallis publishes English Cathedral Music 1564 William Shakespeare is born 1580 Francis Drake returns from circumnavigating the globe 1582 Sir Philip Sidney writes Astrophel and Stella 1590 Edmund Spencer publishes The Faerie Queene, Part I 1594 Shakespeare writes Romeo and Juliet 1599 Globe theater opens 1609 The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser is published in its entirety 1611 king James Bible published 1620 Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum 1627 Sir Francis Bacon publishes The New Atlantis 1628 William Harvey explain blood circulation 1635 Public mail service established 1638 John Milton publishes Lycidas 1640 Charles I summons Long Parliament 1642 The English Civil War begins 1642 Puritans close theaters 1646 John Suckling publishes Fragmenta Aurea 1649 Richard Lovelace publishes Lacasta 1650 Early newspaper ads appear 1658 Puritan government collapses 1660 Monarchy is restored in England 1660 Theaters reopened 1660 Samuel Pepys begins Diary 1662 Royal Society chartered 1663 Drury Lane theater opens 1666 The Great Fire of London 1667 John Milton's novel Paradise Lost is published 1668 John Dryden publishes An Essay of Dramatic Poesy 1687 Sir Isaac Newton publishes his Principia 1689 Bill of Rights becomes law 1690 John Locke publishes his two Treatises of Government 1702 First daily newspaper begins publication 1707 Great Britain created by Act of Union 1712 Alexander Pope publishes The Rape of the Lock 1719 Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe 1726 Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver's Travels 1749 Henry Fielding publishes Tom Jones 1751 Thomas Grey publishes "Elegy in a Country Courtyard." 1755 Samuel Johnson publishes Dictionary of the English Language 1756 Britain Enter the Seven Years' War 1791 James Boswell publishes Life of Samuel Johnson 1793 England goes to war with France