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Themes: heroism, fate , moral instruction
Genres: oral traditions, poetry
Key authors: Beowulf poet
Historical context: Clans ruled themselves
Literature´s effects: oral traditions unites myths of different groups -
In his monastery at Jarrow, completes his history of the English church and people
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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
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Taking shape in Iceland, derives from earlier sources in Norway, Britain and Burgundy
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Anselm includes in his Proslogion his famous 'ontological proof' of the existence of God
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Known as the Subtle Doctor in medieval times, later provides humanists with the name Dunsman or dunce
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He advocates paring down arguments to their essentials, an approach later known as Ockham's Razo
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A narrator who calls himself Will and whose name may be Langland, begins the epic poem of Piers Plowman
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One of four new yeomen of the chamber in Edward III's household is Geoffrey Chaucer
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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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Chaucer completes Troilus and Criseyde, his long poem about a legendary love affair in ancient Troy
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Chaucer begins an ambitious scheme for 100 Canterbury Tales, of which he completes only 24 by the time of his death
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Thomas Malory, in gaol somewhere in England, compiles Morte d'Arthur – an English account of the French tales of King Arthur
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Themes: human potential, love
Genres: drama, poetry
Key authors: BShakespeare, Milton
Historical context: War of roses end, printing press invented
Literature´s effects: Literature accesible to middle class -
Erasmus and Thomas More take the northern Renaissance in the direction of Christian humanism
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William Tyndale studies in the university at Wittenberg and plans to translate the Bible into English
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The first version of the English prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer, is published with text by Thomas Cranmer
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They are born in the same year, with Marlowe the older by two months
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They are published in Welsh, to be followed by the complete Bible in 1588
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The 18-year-old William Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway in Stratford-upon-Avon
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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 I as The Faerie Queene
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After tentative beginnings in the three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare achieves his first masterpiece on stage with Richard III
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Ben Jonson writes The Masque of Blackness, the first of his many masques for the court of James I
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Shakespeare's last completed play, The Tempest, is performed
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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 Heminge and Henry Condell publish thirty-six Shakespeare plays in the First Folio
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The poems of Massachusetts author Anne Bradstreet are published in London under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America
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Paradise Lost is published, earning its author John Milton just £10
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Part I of The Pilgrim's Progress, written during John Bunyan's two spells in Bedford Gaol, is published and is immediately popular
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John Bunyan publishes The Life and Death of Mr Badman, an allegory of a misspent life that is akin to a novel
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For much of the 18th century, a new way of thinking became increasingly common in both Western Europe and the American colonies of North America. Known as both the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment Taken from:
https://study.com/academy/lesson/characteristics-of-enlightenment-literature.html -
25-year-old George Berkeley attacks Locke in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
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Jonathan Swift launches his hero on a series of bitterly satirical adventures in Gulliver's Travels
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English poet Thomas Gray publishes his Elegy written in a Country Church Yard
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Samuel Johnson publishes his magisterial Dictionary of the English Language.
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English author Horace Walpole provides an early taste of Gothic thrills in his novel Castle of Otranto
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A Society of Gentlemen in Scotland begins publication of the immensely successful Encyclopaedia Britannica
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English historian Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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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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Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
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English author Mary Wollstonecraft publishes a passionately feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
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English poets Wordsworth and Coleridge jointly publish Lyrical Ballads, a milestone in the Romantic movement
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is published in Lyrical Ballads
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Themes: Peace through nature
Genres: Poetry, lyricall balads, novels
Key authors: austen, Byron, keats, blake
Historical context: Middle class enters politics
Literature´s effects: Populations critically examinates society -
William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton
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Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the long romantic poem that first brings him fame
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English author Jane Austen publishes her first work in print, Sense and Sensibility, at her own expense
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The first two cantos are published of Byron's largely autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bringing him immediate fame
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Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes probably his best-known poem, the sonnet Ozymandias
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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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Byron begins publication in parts of his longest poem, Don Juan an epic satirical comment on contemporary life
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Themes: city vs country, aristocratic villians, promiscuity.
Genres: novel, poetry, monologues
Key authors: Dickens, Tennnison, Bronte
Historical context: Raise of country and trade,
Literature´s effects: The literature is accessible to everyone -
Charles Dickens' first novel, Oliver Twist, begins monthly publication (in book form, 1838
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English poet Robert Browning publishes a vivid narrative poem about the terrible revenge of The Pied Piper of Hamelin
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Edward Lear publishes his Book of Nonsense, consisting of limericks illustrated with his own cartoons
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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 favourite among his novels
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Tennyson publishes a long narrative poem, Maud, a section of which ('Come into the garden, Maud') becomes famous as a song
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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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English author George Eliot wins fame with her first full-length novel, Adam Bede
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Tennyson publishes the first part of Idylls of the King, a series of linked poems about Britain's mythical king Arthur
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Charles Dickens begins serial publication of his novel "Great Expectations" (in book form 1861)
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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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English author Matthew Arnold publishes Culture and Anarchy, an influential collection of essays about contemporary society
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Lewis Carroll publishes Through the Looking Glass, a second story of Alice's adventures
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Lewis Carroll publishes The Hunting of the Snark, a poem about a voyage in search of an elusive mythical creature
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Oxford University Press publishes the A volume of its New English Dictionary, which will take 37 years to reach Z
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Thomas Hardy publishes his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, which begins with the future mayor, Michael Henchard selling his wife and child at a fair
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Sherlock Holmes features in Conan Doyle's first novel, A Study in Scarlet
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The Fabian Society publishes Essays in Socialisman influential volume of essays edited by Bernard Shaw
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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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W.B. Yeats publishes a short play The Countess Cathleen, his first contribution to Irish poetic drama
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Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book surrounds the child Mowgli with a collection of vivid animal guardians
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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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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 his novel Lord Jim about a life of failure and redemption in the far East
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Themes: Societal loss of values, loneliness
Genres: free verse poetry, fantasy, novels
Key authors: Joyce, Elliot, Conrad
Historical context: One milion of soldiers die in WW 1,
Literature´s effects: Belief that one must seize the moment before its gone. -
Beatrix Potter publishes at her own expense The Tale of Peter Rabbit
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John Masefield's poem 'Sea Fever' is published in Salt-Water Ballads
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Henry James publishes The Ambassadors, the second of his three last novels written in rapid succession
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Henry James publishes his last completed novel, The Golden Bowl
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Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, a letter of recrimination written in Reading Gaol to Lord Alfred Douglas, is published posthumously
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H.G. Wells publishes Kipps: the story of a simple soul, a comic novel about a bumbling draper's assistant
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E. Nesbit publishes The Railway Children, the most successful of her books featuring the Bastable family
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H.G. Wells publishes The History of Mr Polly, a novel about an escape from drab everyday existence
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D.H. Lawrence's career as a writer is launched with the publication of his first novel, The White Peacock
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The English writer Virginia Woolf publishes her first novel, The Voyage Out
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Sapper's patriotic hero makes his first appearance, taking on the villainous Carl Peterson in Bull-dog Drummond
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Ludwig Wittgenstein publishes his influential study of the philosophy of logic, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
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Virgiinia Woolf publishes her novel Mrs Dalloway, in which the action is limited to a single day
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English author W.H. Auden's first collection of poetry is published with the simple title Poems
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British author C.S. Lewis publishes a moral parable, The Screwtape Letters, about the problems confronting a trainee devil
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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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British author Rebecca West publishes an account of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
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In George Orwell's fable Animal Farm a ruthless pig, Napoleon, controls the farmyard using the techniques of Stalin
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J.B. Priestley challenges audiences with An Inspector Calls, a play in which moral guilt spreads like an infection
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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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William Golding gives a chilling account of schoolboy savagery in his first novel, Lord of the Flies
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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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English author Alan Sillitoe publishes his first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
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British author Roald Dahl publishes a novel for children, James and the Giant Peach
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English novelist Paul Scott publishes The Jewel in the Crown, the first volume in his 'Raj Quartet'
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Three young Liverpool poets publish a shared anthology under the title The Mersey Sound
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British economist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher publishes an influential economic tract, Small is Beautiful
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British author Ian McEwan publishes his first novel, The Cement Garden
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Themes: Open-mindedness
Genres: First person fiction, narratives
Key authors: Stoppard, follet, Rowling
Historical context: Clans ruled themselves
Literature´s effects: Advances in comunication make the world seem smaller -
British economist Nicholas Kaldor attacks monetarism in The Economic Consequences of Mrs Thatcher
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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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Alan Bennett's play The Madness of George III is performed at the National Theatre in London
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Scottish author Irvine Welsh publishes his first novel, Trainspotting
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A schoolboy wizard performs his first tricks in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
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The Amber Spyglass completes Philip Pullman's trilogy, His Dark Materials
