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Period: Jan 1, 730 to
English Literature
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731
BEDE
672/3 – 26 May 735
Bede was an English Benedictine monk at the monastery of St. Peter and its companion monastery of St. Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles. Bede became one of the greatest teachers and writers of the Early Middle Ages and is considered by many historians to be the single most important scholar of antiquity for the period between the death of Pope Gregory I in 604 and the coronation of Charlemagne in 800. Bede's monastery had access to an impressive library. -
800
BEOWULF
It is an Old English epic poem. It can be said that is one of the most important works of Old English literature. The story is set in Scandinavia. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. The full story survives in the manuscript known as the Nowell Codex. It has no title in the original manuscript but has become known by the name of the story's protagonist. -
950
EDDA
It is now known as the Prose Edda and an older collection of poems without an original title now known as the Poetic Edda. The term historically referred only to the Prose Edda, but it since has fallen out of use because of the confusion with the other work. Both works were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching into the Viking Age. -
1300
DUNS SCOTUS
He is known as one of the three most important philosopher-theologians of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages. Scotus has had considerable influence on both Catholic and secular thought. The doctrines for which he is best known are the "univocity of being", that existence is the most abstract concept we have, applicable to everything that exists. Scotus also developed a complex argument for the existence of God and argued for the Immaculate Conception of Mary. -
1340
WILLIAM OF OCKHAM
He was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher and theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the center of the major intellectual and political controversies of the 14th century. -
1367
PIERS PLOWMAN
It is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed, alliterative verse divided into sections called passus (Latin for "step"). Piers Plowman is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of English literature of the Middle Ages.
The poem is a mix of theological allegory and social satire concerns the narrator/dreamer's quest for the true Christian life in the context of medieval Catholicism. -
1375
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT
It is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories. It was written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel. It is an important example of a chivalric romance. It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who challenges any knight to strike him with his ax if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. -
1564
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Shakespeare was born in 1564. He was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Until about 1608, he wrote mainly tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. -
OZYMANDIAS
Ozymandias is the title of two poems published in 1818. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet Horace Smith (1779–1849), who also wrote a sonnet on the same topic with the same title. In antiquity, Ozymandias was a Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth century BC -
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE
It is a poem by John Keats. According to Brown, a nightingale had built its nest near the house Keats and Brown shared in the spring of 1819. Inspired by the bird's song, Keats composed the poem in one day. It soon became one of his 1819 odes and was first published in Annals of the Fine Arts the following July. The tone of the poem rejects the optimistic pursuit of pleasure found within Keats's earlier poems and, instead, explores the themes of nature, transience, and mortality. -
CHARLES DICKENS
Oliver Twist was the second novel by Charles Dickens. It was initially published in monthly installments that began in February of 1837 and ended in April of 1839. The story centers on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into an apprenticeship with an undertaker. -
WILLIAM BUTLER YEAST
He was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, The Wanderings of Oisin. -
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray in which Gray's portrait grows old and ugly. -
THE STORY OF TREASURE SEEKERS
The Story of the Treasure Seekers is a novel by E. Nesbit. First published in 1899, it tells the story of Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and Horace Octavius (H. O.) Bastable, and their attempts to assist their widowed father and recover the fortunes of their family. The story is told from a child's point of view. The narrator is Oswald, but on the first page, he announces: "It is one of us that tells this story – but I shall not tell you which: only at the very end perhaps I will. -
PETER PAN
Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up. Barrie never described Peter's appearance in detail, even in his novel, leaving it to the imagination of the reader and the interpretation of anyone adapting the character. In the play, Peter's outfit is made of autumn leaves and cobwebs. -
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN
It is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialized in The London Magazine during 1905 and first published in book form in 1906. The setting is thought to be inspired by Edith's walks to Chelsfield railway station close to where she lived, and her observing the construction of the railway cutting and tunnel between Chelsfield and Knockholt. -
ANN VERONICA
Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H. G. Wells published in 1909. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly 22" against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to live her own life. When her father forbids her attending a fashionable ball, she decides she has no choice but to leave her family home and make a fresh start in London -
IF
"If" is a poem by English Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The poem became his most popular poem among the British. It is written in the form of paternal advice to the poet's son, John. -
COMPTON MACKENZIE
Sinister Street was the first volume of Mackenzie autobiographical novel. In the UK, the novel was published as two volumes, and in the USA these appeared as two separate books: Youth's Encounter (1913) and Sinister Street (1914). -
REBECCA WEST
Rebecca West was a British author and journalist. West established her reputation as a spokesperson for feminist and socialist causes and as a critic, turning out essays and reviews for many newspapers. The Return of the Soldier is the debut novel of English novelist Rebecca West, first published in 1918. The novel recounts the return of the shell shocked Captain Chris Baldry from the trenches of the First World War from the perspective of his cousin Jenny. -
Mrs. DALLAWAY
Mrs. Dalloway was published on 14 May 1925. It is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post–First World War England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels. -
WINNIE-THE-POOH
It is also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner (1928). Milne also included a poem about the bear in the children's verse book When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927). All four volumes were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. -
THE PRESERVATION OF RURAL ENGLAND
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) is a pressure group in England with over 40,000 members and supporters. Formed in 1926 by Sir Patrick Abercrombie to limit urban sprawl and ribbon development, the CPRE (until the 1960s the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and from then until 2003 the Council for the Protection of Rural England) claims to be one of the longest running environmental groups. CPRE campaigns for a "sustainable future" for the English countryside. -
SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM
T. E. Lawrence published his autobiographical account of his experiences while serving as a liaison officer with rebel forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks of 1916 to 1918.
It was completed in February 1922 but first published in December 1926. -
I, CLAUDIUS
I, Claudius (1934) is a novel by English writer Robert Graves, written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. Accordingly, it includes the history of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and the Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in 41 AD. -
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
It is a travel book written by Dame Rebecca West, published in 1941 in two volumes by Macmillan in the UK and by The Viking Press in the US. West's objective was "to show the past side by side with the present it created". The publication of the book coincided with the Nazi Invasion of Yugoslavia, and West added a foreword highly praising the Yugoslavs for their brave defiance of Germany. -
THE PURSUIT OF LOVE
It is a novel by Nancy Mitford, first published in 1945. It is the first in a trilogy about an upper-class English family in the interwar period. Although a comedy, the story has tragic overtones. -
JAMES BOND
The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming which was his first novel, Casino Royal. James Bonds series featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorized Bond novels or novelizations. -
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Winston Churchill was a politician and author of six-volume history books about The Second Wolrd War. Churchill labeled the "moral of the work" as follows: "In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill". Churchill wrote the book, with a team of assistants, using both his own notes and privileged access to official documents while still working as a politician. Churchill was largely fair in his treatment but wrote the history from his point of view. -
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
It is an epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling novels ever written, with over 150 million copies sold. -
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka. The story was originally inspired by Roald Dahl's experience of chocolate companies during his schooldays. Cadbury would often send test packages to the schoolchildren in exchange for their opinions on the new products. -
WAR MUSIC
War Music is the working title of British poet Christopher Logue's long-term project to create a modernist poem based on Homer's Iliad, begun in 1959 and was published in 1981. Logue's work created controversy among classicists since Logue did not know Ancient Greek and instead based his work on other translations of the Iliad and on a word-for-word crib provided by Classical scholar Donald Carne-Ross, who first proposed the project to Logue for the BBC. -
FROM THE BIG BANG TO BLACK HOLES
From the Big Bang to Black Holes is a popular-science book on cosmology (the study of the universe) by British physicist Stephen Hawking.It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for nonspecialist readers with no prior knowledge of scientific theories. In A Brief History of Time, Hawking writes in non-technical terms about the structure, origin, development and eventual fate of the universe. -
THE MAN WITH NIGHT SWEATS
Thomson William "Thom" Gunn" was an English poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style. He wrote about gay-related topics particularly in his most famous work, The Man With Night Sweats in 1992 as well as drug use, sex, and his bohemian lifestyle. He won major literary awards and his best poems have a compact philosophical elegance. -
HARRY POTTER
Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, on 26 June 1997, the books have found immense popularity, critical acclaim, and commercial success worldwide. -
COPENHAGEN
Copenhagen is a play by Michael Frayn, based on an event that occurred in Copenhagen in 1941, a meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It premiered in London in 1998 at the National Theatre, running for more than 300 performances.
Michael Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy. -
THE AMBER SPYGLASS
The Amber Spyglass is the third novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy, written by English author Philip Pullman. Published in 2000, it won the 2001 Whitbread Book of the Year award, the first children's novel.
