Author Timeline Flashcards
General Timeline of Key Literary Events (34 cards)
Date 400-1300 (Period/Notes)
Old English (English language became strongly influenced by medieval French) (c. 1000) Battle of Hastings (William of Normandy killed King Harold Godwinson - decisive victory of Normans) (1066)
Date 400-1300 (Authors)
Caedmon (earliest English poet) (late 7th cen.)
Author of Beowulf (late 8th cen.)
Date 1300-1500 (Period/Notes)
Middle English Battle of Agincourt (Turning point for England against France in Hundred Years' War, Shakespeare [Henry V]) (1415) Gutenberg Bible (1456)
Date 1300-1500 (Authors)
William Langland (Piers Plowman) (late 14th cen.) Geoffrey Chaucer (late 14th cen.) Thomas Malory (mid 15th cen.)
Date 1500-1558 (Period/Notes)
Elizabethan period (Reign of Elizabeth I)
Date 1500-1558 (Authors)
Philip Sidney (Defence of Poesy) Edmund Spenser John Lyly (Euphues) Christopher Marlowe William Shakespeare
Date 1603-1625 (Period/Notes)
Jacobean period. Reign of James I
James I had alienated both popular and elite opinion at the time by staying out of European religious conflict (Thirty Year War). In retrospect a very good move. Late Shakespeare’s patrons included not only James I but also his queen Anne of Denmark.
Date 1603-1625 (Authors)
Ben Jonson (Volpone) Francis Bacon
Date 1625-1649 (Period/Notes)
Caroline period
Reign of Charles I
Conflict between the Royalist Party (King and his supporters) and the Puritans was gaining a darker hue, what with the ongoing Thirty Years’ War. English colonization of the American continent continued.
Date 1625-1649 (Authors)
John Donne John Webster (The Duchess of Malfi)
Date 1649-1660 (Period/Notes)
Charles I executed in 1649. Cromwell and the Interregnum.
English Civil War / War of the Three Kingdoms (1642-1651): War between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers). Ended with trial and execution of Charles I, exile of Charles II, end of Church of England’s monopoly in English christian worship.
England during the interregnum underwent various forms of republican government. Oliver Cromwell claimed executive power for life but died soon. Puritan influences on law were credited to him, but were actually brought in by Commonwealth Parliament.
Date 1649-1660 (Authors)
John Milton
Robert Herrick ("To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time")
Andrew Marvell ("To His Coy Mistress")Date 1660-1714 (Period/Notes)
Restoration Period
Reign of Charles II (1660-1702)
Exiled royalists returned and rewarded. Regicides punished. General John Lambert was abandoned by his army and George Monck marched to London. Lambert was captured by Richard Ingoldsby who hoped to win a pardon for his regicide.
Date 1660-1714 (Authors)
William Congreve George Etherege ([The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub(1664)]) John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress) John Dryden (was so prominent that restoration period was also known as "Age of Dryden". [Absalom and Achitophel]. [Mac Flecnoe])
Due to decreased Puritan influence, theater thrived again, making bawdy “Restoration Comedy” a recognizable genre. Women were able to be actresses for the first time.
Date 1714-1727 (Period/Notes)
Reign of Anne, the last Stuart monarch (1702-1714)
James II (Charles II’s brother) and VII removed from monarch of England and Scotland, respectively. Mary and William III of Orange as joint monarchs. Mary dies, then William dies, Anne succeeds him.
Anne favored moderate Tories than Whigs because they were likely sympathetic towards her Anglican views.
Date 1714-1727 (Authors)
Alexander Pope
Daniel Defoe
Date 1727-1760 (Period/Notes)
Reign of George I of the House of Hanover
Allowed critiques to be published without censorship, provided sanctuary to Voltaire when he was exiled from Paris (1726). Deemed as ignorant in English language and customs, cold and overserious.
Date 1727-1760 (Authors)
Jonathan Swift
Henry Fielding ([Tom Jones] picaresque)
Thomas Gray ("Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard")Date 1760-1790 (Period/Notes)
Reign of George II The Enlightenment First 30 years of reign of George III (George II's grandson) American Revolution (1775-1783) The Gothic Novel
George II tends to be viewed as faintly ludicrous.
George III won the Seven Years’ War but lost American colonies. Under him British Agricultural Revolution reached its peak.
Date 1760-1790 (Authors)
Samuel Johnson ([A Dictionary of the English Language(1755)]) Lawrence Sterne (The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy) Horace Walpole ([The Castle of Otranto]. gothic style) Thomas Chatterton (influenced Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth. suicide at age 17) Mary Wollstonecraft William Cowper (influenced nature poetry by writing about English countryside)
Date 1790-1820 (Period/Notes)
Early Romantic period and Second 30 years of reign of George III (after England and Ireland became United Kingdom)
Sturm und Drang in Germany (“storm and drive”. individual subjectivity and extremes of emotion emphasized. Reaction to emphasis on reason during Enlightenment / Renaissance, Industrial Revolution)
Date 1790-1820 (Authors)
Anne Radcliffe ([The Mysteries of Udolpho]. pioneer in gothic fiction) William Blake William Wordsworth Samuel Coleridge Percy Bysshe Shelley Lord Byron John Keats Charles Lamb (Tales from Shakespeare) Jane Austen
Date 1820-1837 (Period/Notes)
Middle Romantic period
Reign of George IV (1820-1830)
Reign of William IV (1830-1837)
George IV served as regent due to father George III’s mental illness. Led the Regency Era’s extravagant lifestyle, was unpopular.
Younger brother William IV was the last king and penultimate monarch from House of Hanover. Found himself reduced in influence over public opinion. Abolished slavery from nearly all British Empire, restricted child labor, updated poor laws (criticized by both reformers and reactionaries).
Date 1820-1837 (Authors)
Thomas Carlyle ([The French Revolution: A History]) Alfred Tennyson
Washington Irving ("Rip Van Winkle" "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow")
Edgar Allan Poe
