The Timeline
World English
Literature
From its earliest roots to the present, explore the complete history of English literature across Britain, America, the Commonwealth and the wider world.
British Literature by Age
450
Old English
450 – 1066
Beowulf · Caedmon · Cynewulf
1066
Anglo-Norman Period
1066 – 1340
Layamon · Wace · Marie de France
1340
Age of Chaucer
1340 – 1400
Chaucer · Langland · Gower
1400
Fifteenth Century
1400 – 1500
Malory · Lydgate · Hoccleve
1500
Renaissance Period
1500 – 1660
Shakespeare · Marlowe · Spenser
1500
Early Tudor Period
1500 – 1558
More · Wyatt · Surrey
1558
Elizabethan Age
1558 – 1603
Sidney · Marlowe · Kyd
1603
Jacobean Age
1603 – 1625
Donne · Jonson · Webster
1625
Caroline Age
1625 – 1649
Herrick · Carew · Lovelace
1649
Commonwealth Period
1649 – 1660
Milton · Marvell · Vaughan
1660
Neoclassical Period
1660 – 1785
Dryden · Pope · Johnson
1660
Restoration Age
1660 – 1700
Dryden · Behn · Congreve
1700
Augustan Age
1700 – 1745
Pope · Swift · Addison
1745
Age of Sensibility
1745 – 1785
Johnson · Gray · Goldsmith
1785
Romantic Period
1785 – 1832
Wordsworth · Coleridge · Keats
1832
Victorian Period
1832 – 1901
Dickens · Tennyson · Hardy
1901
Edwardian Period
1901 – 1914
Shaw · Wells · Galsworthy
1910
Georgian Period
1910 – 1936
Brooke · de la Mare · Masefield
1914
Modern Period
1914 – 1945
Eliot · Woolf · Joyce
1945
Postmodern Period
1945 →
Beckett · Larkin · Rushdie