ENGLISH LITERATURE CHRONOLOGY

1. THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1050)

HISTORY 449(?). 477. 547. 597. 617. 635-665. LITERATURE Landing of Hengist and Horsa in Britain Landing of South Saxons Angles settle Northumbria Landing of Augustine and his monks. Conversion of Kent Eadwine, king of Northumbria Coming of St. Aidan. Conversion of Northumbria

547.

Gildas's History

664. 673-735. 750

Cdmon at Whitby Bede (cir.). Cynewulf poems Anglo-Saxon Chronicle begun

867. 871. 878. 901.

Danes conquer Northumbria Alfred, king of Wessex Defeat of Danes. Peace of Wedmore Death of Alfred

860.

991.

Last known poem of the Anglo-Saxon period, The Battle of Maldon, otherwise called Byrhtnoth's Death

1013-1042. 1016. 1042. 1049. 1066.

Danish period Cnut, king Edward the Confessor. Saxon period restored Westminster Abbey begun Harold, last of Saxon kings. Norman Conquest

2. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1350)

HISTORY 912. 1066. LITERATURE Northmen settle in Normandy Battle of Hastings. William, king of England 1086. 1087. William Rufus Domesday Book completed

1093. 1096. 1100.

Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury 1094(cir.). First Crusade Henry I 1110. First recorded Miracle play in England (see chapter on the Drama) Geoffrey's History Anselem's Cur Deus Homo

1135. 1147. 1154. 1189. 1199. 1215. 1216. 1230 (cir.). 1265.

Stephen 1137(cir.). Second Crusade Henry II Richard I. Third Crusade John 1200 (cir.). Magna Charta Henry III 1225 (cir.). University of Cambridge chartered Beginning of House of Commons. 1267. Simon de Montfort Roger Bacon's Opus Majus Ancren Riwle Layamon's Brut

1272. 1295.

Edward I First complete Parliament 1300-1400. York and Wakefield. Miracle plays Cursor Mundi

1307. 1327. 1338.

Edward II 1320 (cir.). Edward III Beginning of Hundred Years' War with France 1340 (?). 1350 (cir.). Birth of Chaucer Sir Gawain. The Pearl

3. THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1350-1400) FOURTEENTH CENTURY

HISTORY 1327. Edward III 1338. Beginning of Hundred Years' War with France 1347. Capture of Calais LITERATURE

1340(?).

Birth of Chaucer

1348-1349. Black Death

1356. 1360-1370.

Mandeville's Travels 1359. Chaucer in French War Chaucer's early or French period

1373.

Winchester College, first great public school Richard II. Wyclif and the Lollards begin Reformation in England Peasant Rebellion. Wat Tyler

1370-1385. Chaucer's Middle or Italian period 1362-1395. Piers Plowman

1377.

1381.

1399.

1385-1400. Canterbury Tales 1382. First complete Bible in English Deposition of Richard II. 1400. Death of Chaucer Henry IV chosen by Parliament (Dante's Divina Commedia, c. 1310; Petrarch's sonnets and poems, 1325-1374; Boccaccio's tales, c. 1350.)

4. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING (1400-1550)

HISTORY LITERATURE 1413. Henry V 1415. Battle of Agincourt 1422. Henry VI 1470. Malory's Morte d' Arthur 1428. Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc 1474(c). Caxton, at Bruges, 1453. End of Hundred Year's War prints the first book in 1455-1485. War of Roses English, the Recuyell of the 1461. Edward IV Histories of Troye 1483. Richard III 1477. First book printed in England 1485. Henry VII 1485. Morte d'Arthur printed by Caxton 1492. Columbus discovers America 1499. Colet, Erasmus, and More 1509. Henry VIII bring the New Learning to Oxford 1509. Erasmus's Praise of Folly 1516. More's Utopia 1525. Tydale's New Testament 1534. Act of Supremacy. The 1530(c). Introduction of the

Reformation accomplished 1539. 1547. 1553. 1558. Edward VI Mary Elizabeth 1557.

sonnet and blank verse by Wyatt and Surrey The Great Bible Tottel's Miscellany

5. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH (1550-1620)

Last Half of the Sixteenth and First Half of the Seventeenth Centuries HISTORY LITERATURE 1558. Elizabeth (_d_. 1603) 1559. John Knox in Edinburgh 1562(?). Gammer Gurton's Needle. Gorboduc 1564. Birth of Shakespeare 1571. Rise of English Puritans 1576. First Theater 1577. Drake's Voyage around the 1579. Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. World Lyly's Euphues. North's Plutarch. 1587. Shakespeare in London. Marlowe's Tamburlaine 1588. Defeat of the Armada 1590. Spenser's Faery Queen. Sidney's Arcadia 1590Shakespeare's Early Plays 1595. 1597Bacon's Essays 1625. 1598Chapman's Homer 1614. 1598. Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour 1600Shakespeare's Tragedies 1607. 1603. James I (d. 1625) 1604. Divine Right of Kings 1605. Bacon's Advancement of Learning proclaimed 1607. Settlement at Jamestown, 1608. Birth of Milton Virginia 1611. Translation (King James Version) of Bible 1614. Raleigh's History 1616. Death of Shakespeare 16201620. Pilgrim Fathers at Shakespeare's successors. 1642.

Plymouth 1620. 1622. 1625. Charles I 1626.

End of drama Bacon's Novum Organum First regular newspaper, The Weekly News Death of Bacon

6. THE PURITAN AGE (1620-1660)

Seventeenth Century HISTORY

LITERATURE 1621. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy 1623. Wither's Hymn Book

1625.

Charles I Parliament dissolved 1628. Petition of Right 1629. 1630-1640. King rules without Parliament. Puritan migration to New England 1630-1633. 1632-1637. 1640. Long Parliament 1642. Civil War begins 1642. 1643. Scotch Covenant 1643. Press censorship 1644. 1645. Battle of Naseby; triumph of Puritans 1649. Execution of Charles I. Cavalier migration to Virginia 1649-1660. Commonwealth 1649. 1650. 1651. 1653. 1663-1694. 1666. 1667. 1674. 1678.

Milton's Ode on the Nativity

Herbert's poems Milton's Horton poems Browne's Religio Medici Milton's Areopagitica

1653-1658. Cromwell, Protector 1658-1660. Richard Cromwell 1660. Restoration of Charles II

Milton's Tenure of Kings Baxter's Saints' Rest. Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living Hobbes's Leviathan Walton's Complete Angler Dryden's dramas (next chapter) Bunyan's Grace Abounding Paradise Lost Death of Milton Pilgrim's Progress published (written earlier)

7. PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION (1660-1700)

Last Half of the Seventeenth Century HISTORY 1649. Execution of Charles I 1649-1660. Commonwealth 1660. Restoration of Charles II

LITERATURE 1651. Hobbes's Leviathan 1660-1669. Pepys's Diary 1662. Royal Society founded 1663. Butler's Hudibras

1665-1666. Plague and Fire of London War with Holland 1667. Dutch fleet in the Thames

1667.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Dryden's Annus Mirabilis 1663-1694. Dryden's dramas 1671. Paradise Regained 1678. Pilgrim's Progress published 1681. Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel

1680.

Rise of Whigs and Tories

1685.

James II Monmouth's Rebellion 1687. Newton's Principia proves the law of gravitation

1688. 1689.

English Revolution, William of Orange called to throne Bill of Rights. Toleration Act 1690. 1698. 1700. Locke's Human Understanding Jeremy Collier attacks stage Death of Dryden

8. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE (1700-1800)

End of Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Century HISTORY LITERATURE 1689. William and Mary 1683-1719. Defoe's early writings Bill of Rights. Toleration Act 1695. Press made free 1700(?) Beginning of London clubs 1702. Anne (d. 1714) War of Spanish Succession

1704. 1707.

Battle of Blenheim Union of England and Scotland

1702. 1704.

First daily newspaper Addison's The Campaign Swift's Tale of a Tub

1709.

The Tatler Johnson born (d. 1784) 1710-1713. Swift in London. Journal to Stella 1711. The Spectator 1712. Pope's Rape of the Lock 1714. 1721. George I (d. 1727) 1719. Cabinet government, Walpole first prime minister 1726. Gulliver's Travels 1726-1730. Thomson's The Seasons 1727. 1738. 1740. 1746. George II (d. 1760) 1732-1734. Essay on Man Rise of Methodism 1740. War of Austrian Succession 1742. Jacobite Rebellion 1749. Fielding's Tom Jones 1750-1752. Johnson's The Rambler 1751. Gray's Elegy 1755. Johnson's Dictionary Fielding's Joesph Andrews Richardson's Pamela Robinson Crusoe

1750-1757. Conquest of India 1756. 1759. 1760. 1765. War with France Wolf at Quebec George III (d. 1820) Stamp Act

1760-1767. Sterne's Tristram Shandy 1764. Johnson's Literary Club 1765. Percy's Reliques 1766. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 1770. Goldsmith's Deserted Village 1771. Beginning of great newspapers 1774-1775. Burke's American speeches 1776-1788. Gibbon's Rome 1779. Cowper's Olney Hymns 1779-81. Johnson's Lives of the Poets 1783. Blake's Poetical Sketches

1773. 1774. 1775. 1776. 1783.

Boston Tea Party Howard's prison reforms American Revolution Declaration of Independence Treaty of Paris

1785. 1786. Trial of Warren Hastings 1786.

Cowper's The Task The London Times Burns's first poems (the Kilmarnock Burns) Burke's Warren Hastings Burke's French Revolution Boswell's Life of Johnson

1789-1799. French Revolution 1790. 1791. 1793. War with France

9. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM (1800-1850)

End of the Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century HISTORY LITERATURE 1760-1820. George III 1770-1850. Wordsworth 1771-1832. Scott 1789-1799. French Revolution 1796-1816. Jane Austen's novels 1798. Lyrical Balads of Wordsworth and Coleridge 1800. Union of Great Britain and Ireland 1802. Colonization of Australia 1802. Scotts Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border 1805. Battle of Trafalgar 1805-1817. Scotts poems 1807. Wordsworth's Intimations of 1807. Abolition of slave trade Immortality. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare 1808-1814. Peninsular War 1809-1818. Byron's Childe Harold 1812. Second war with United States 1810-1813. Coleridge's Lectures on Shakespeare 1814. Congress of Vienna 1814-1831. Waverley Novels 1815. Battle of Waterloo 1816. Shelley's Alastor 1817. Coleridge's Biographia Literaria 1817-1820. Keats's poems 1818-1820. Shelley's Prometheus 1819. First Atlantic steamship 1820. George IV (d. 1830) 1820. Wordsworth's Duddon Sonnets 1820-1833. Lamb's Essays of Elia

1821. De Quincey's Confessions 1824-1846. Landor's Imaginary Conversations. 1826. 1829. 1830. First Temperance Society Catholic Emancipation Bill William IV (d. 1837) First railway Reform Bill Emancipation of slaves System of national education Victoria (d. 1901) 1853-1861. De Quincey's Collected Essays

1830. 1831.

Tennyson's first poems Scott's last novel Carlyle's Sartor Resartus Browning's Pauline

1832. 1833. 1834. 1837.

1833.

10. THE VICTORIAN AGE (1850-1900)

Nineteenth Century HISTORY

1830. William IV 1832. Reform Bill

LITERATURE 1825. Macaulay's Essay on Milton 1826. Mrs. Browning's early poems 1830. Tennyson's Poems, Chiefly Lyrical 1833. Browning's Pauline 1833-1834. Carlyle's Sartor Resartus 1836-1865. Dickens's novels 1837. Carlyle's French Revolution 1843. Macaulay's essays 1843-1860. Ruskin's Modern Painters 1847-1859. Thackeray's important novels 1847-1857. Charlotte Bront's novels 1848-1861. Macaulay's History 1853. Kingsley's Hypatia Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford

1837. Victoria (d. 1901) 1844. Morse's Telegraph 1846. Repeal of Corn Laws

1854. Crimean War 1853-1855. Matthew Arnold's poems 1856. Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh 1857. Indian Mutiny 1858-1876. George Eliot's novels 1859-1888. Tennyson's Idylls of the King 1859. Darwin's Origin of Species 1864. Newman's Apologia

Tennyson's Enoch Arden 1865-1888. Arnold's Essays in Criticism 1867. Dominion of Canada established 1870. Government schools established 1879. 1880. Gladstone prime minister 1883. 1885. 1887. Queen's jubilee 1889. 1892. 1901. Edward VII Browning's last work, Asolando Death of Tennyson Stevenson's Treasure Island Ruskin's Praeterita begun Meredith's The Egoist 1868. 1869. Browning's Ring and the Book Blackmore's Lorna Doone