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The term Anglo-Saxon comes from two Germanic tribes, the Angles and the Saxons. This period of literature dates back to their invasion (along with the Jutes) of Celtic England circa 450. The era ends in 1066, when Norman France, under William, conquered England. Much of the first half of this period, prior to the seventh century, at least, had oral literature.
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The first great work of Germanic literature, mingles the legends of Scandinavia with the experience in England of Angles and Saxons
The poem is a series of adventure tales about a people called the Geats and an embattled hero named Beowulf. -
The Middle English period sees a huge transition in the language, culture, and lifestyle of England and results in what we can recognize today as a form of “modern” (recognizable) English. The era extends to around 1500. As with the Old English period, much of the Middle English writings were religious in nature; however, from about 1350 onward, secular literature began to rise.
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begun by a narrator who calls himself Will, and whose name may be Langland.
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The courtly poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a mysterious visitor to the round table of King Arthur
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Written by Geoffrey Chaucer, helped English to gain credibility as a literary language in a culture where educated people wrote mainly in Latin.
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compiled by Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England Morte – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur
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critics and literary historians have begun to call this the “Early Modern” period, but here we retain the historically familiar term “Renaissance.” This period is often subdivided into four parts, including the Elizabethan Age (1558–1603), the Jacobean Age (1603–1625), the Caroline Age (1625–1649), and the Commonwealth Period (1649–1660).
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Christopher Marlowe's first play, Tamburlaine the Great, introduces the swaggering blank verse of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama
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English poet Edmund Spenser celebrates the Protestant Elizabeth
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William Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III
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Age of English drama. Some of its noteworthy figures include Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, Edmund Spenser, Sir Walter Raleigh, and, of course, William Shakespeare. At this time, public theaters were closed (for nearly two decades) to prevent public assembly and to combat moral and religious transgressions.
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Shakespeare's central character in Hamlet expresses both the ideals of the Renaissance and the disillusion of a less confident age
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William Shakespeare dies at New Place, his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and is buried in Holy Trinity Church
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John Milton's Lycidas is published in memory of a Cambridge friend, Edward King
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allegorical epic published by the blind poet John Milton
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The beginning date for the Romantic period is often debated. Some claim it is 1785, immediately following the Age of Sensibility. Others say it began in 1789 with the start of the French Revolution, and still, others believe that 1798, the publication year for William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s book "Lyrical Ballads," is its true beginning. The time period ends with the passage of the Reform Bill (which signaled the Victorian Era) and with the death of Sir Walter Scott.
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published by Alexander Pop, introduces a delicate vein of mock-heroic in English poetry
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Jonathan Swift sends his hero on a series of bitterly satirical travels in Gulliver's Travels
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William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is published in Lyrical Ballads
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This period is named for the reign of Queen Victoria, who ascended to the throne in 1837, and it lasts until her death in 1901. It was a time of great social, religious, intellectual, and economic issues, heralded by the passage of the Reform Bill, which expanded voting rights.
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William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton
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Walter Scott's poem Lady of the Lake brings tourists in unprecedented numbers to Scotland's Loch Katrine
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Pride and Prejudice, based on a youthful work of 1797 called First Impressions, is the second of Jane Austen's novels to be published
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Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, a Gothic tale about giving life to an artificial man
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English author Thomas De Quincey publishes his autobiographical Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
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Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838)
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Friedrich Engels, after running a textile factory in Manchester, publishes The Condition of the Working Class in England
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English author William Makepeace Thackeray begins publication of his novel Vanity Fair in monthly parts (book form 1848)
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Charles Dickens begins the publication in monthly numbers of David Copperfield, his own favorite among his novels
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Alfred Tennyson's elegy for a friend, In Memoriam, captures perfectly the Victorian mood of heightened sensibility
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novel by Herman Melville
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London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrase
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Charles Darwin puts forward the theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species, the result of 20 years' research
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Mrs Henry Wood publishes her first novel, East Lynne, which becomes the basis of the most popular of all Victorian melodramas
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Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier
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The first volume of Das Kapital is completed by Marx in London and is published in Hamburg
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Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure story, Treasure Island, features Long John Silver and Ben Gunn
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Explorer and orientalist Richard Burton begins publication of his multi-volume translation from the Arabic of The Arabian Nights
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Sherlock Holmes features in Conan Doyle's first novel, A Study in Scarlet
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the first volume of poems published by author William Butler Yeats
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Oscar Wilde publishes his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in which the ever-youthful hero's portrait grows old and ugly
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Oscar Wilde's most brilliant comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest is performed in London's St. James Theatre
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H.G. Wells publishes The Time Machine, a story about a Time Traveller whose first stop on his journey is the year 802701
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English author Bram Stoker publishes Dracula, his gothic tale of vampirism in Transylvania
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H.G. Wells publishes his science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds, in which Martians arrive in a rocket to invade earth
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Joseph Conrad publishes a collection of stories including Heart of Darkness, a sinister tale based partly on his own journey up the Congo
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Joseph Conrad publishes his novel Nostromo, about a revolution in South America and a fatal horde of silver
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J.M Barrie's play for children Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has its premiere in London
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Rat, Mole and Toad, in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, appeal to a wide readership
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The modern period traditionally applies to works written after the start of World War I. Common features include bold experimentation with subject matter, style, and form, encompassing narrative, verse, and drama.
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The English writer Virginia Woolf publishes her first novel, The Voyage Out
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In The Economic Consequences of the Peace Maynard Keynes publishes a strong attack on the reparations demanded from Germany
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Ludwig Wittgenstein publishes his influential study of the philosophy of logic, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
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E.M. Forster's novel A Passage to India builds on cultural misconceptions between the British and Indian communities
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Patrick Abercrombie publishes The Preservation of Rural England, calling for rural planning to prevent the encroachment of towns
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Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and the others make their first appearance in A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh
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Virginia Woolf uses a Hebridean holiday as the setting for her narrative in To The Lighthouse
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H.G. Wells publishes The Shape of Things to Come, a novel in which he accurately predicts a renewal of world war
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Keynes defines his economics in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
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British author Christopher Isherwood publishes his novel Goodbye to Berlin, based on his own experiences in the city
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Evelyn Waugh publishes Brideshead Revisited, a novel about a rich Catholic family in England between the wars
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The postmodern period begins about the time that World War II ended. Many believe it is a direct response to modernism. Some say the period ended about 1990, but it is likely too soon to declare this period closed.
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C.S. Lewis gives the first glimpse of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
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James Bond, agent 007, has a licence to kill in Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale
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Politician and author Winston Churchill completes his six-volume history The Second World War
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British philologist J.R.R. Tolkien publishes the third and final volume of his epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings
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Roald Dahl publishes a fantasy treat for a starving child, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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British economist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher publishes an influential economic tract, Small is Beautiful
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Peter Shaffer's play about Mozart, Amadeus, has its premiere in London
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British physicist Stephen Hawking explains the cosmos for the general reader in A Brief History of Time: from the Big Bang to Black Holes
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A schoolboy wizard performs his first tricks in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
