England: Notable Writers (and their Works) and Notable Literary Developments

Includes Writers, Authors, Novelists, Playwrights, Poets, Historians, Chroniclers, etc.

970 - The Exeter Book (All Facts)

• Manuscript that consists of lyric and elegiac Anglo-Saxon English poetry

• Includes poems like “The Seafarer”

• Includes poems by Cynewulf such as “The Dream of the Rood”

995 - The Battle of Maldon (All Facts)

• Old English poem describing and celebrating the namesake battle that occurred 4 years prior to its publication in which an Anglo-Saxon army failed to repulse a Viking raid

• Old English poem whose central theme was feudal loyalty

• Although extant, its beginning and ending are lost

Miracle / Mystery Plays (All Facts)

• Form of drama popular in the medieval period, especially in England

• The first one of the namesake was performed at Dunstable in England around 1100

• They were performed in Latin

• They were performed in churches

• They drew on both the scriptures (biblical themes) and lives of the saints

• They were enacted in popular style in England and throughout Europe by the 1400s

1330 - 1386 - William Langland: Piers Plowman (All Facts)

• Vernacular poem by the namesake English parson

• Poem that was essentially an allegory of the soul’s journey to find salvation

• Poem which attacked corruption in the Church and in the state

• Poem which was an appeal on behalf of the poor and plea for spiritual equality

• Considered by many to be one of the greatest works of English literature of the Middle Ages

  • It is known to have influenced Geoffrey Chaucer's “Canterbury Tales”

• It brought to Middle English the alliterative tradition of Anglo-Saxon verse in a series of 11 “dream visions”

• It contains the first known reference to the literary tradition of Robin Hood tales

1370 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (All Facts)

• Anonymous chivalric Arthurian romance in Middle English alliterative verse

1300s - Pearl (All Facts)

• Middle English poem that is considered one of the most important surviving Middle English works with elements of medieval allegory and the “dream vision” genre

1470 - Thomas Malory: Le Morte d’Arthur (All Facts)

• Work which was a retelling of the Arthurian legends

• Work which essentially unified Arthurian legend in epic prose romance

• Work which was translated by the namesake compiler from French sources into English

• Work whose admirably plain style and creative adaption of medievalism to modern thought deeply influenced later writers

• Work which was published by William Caxton

1422 - 1491 - William Caxton (All Facts)

• English Printer (Merchant) and Writer

  • He was a key figure in the development of English printing

• He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, and, as a printer, to be the first English retailer of printed books

  • He is credited with the first dated book printed in the English language, the “Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers”

  • He is credited with the first English publication of the Arthurian legends written by Thomas Malory, the “Le Morte d’Arthur”

• From his printing works and offices in Westminster, he also published foreign works

• He made all kings of writings widely available including

  • chivalric romances

  • history

  • philosophy

  • an encyclopedia

• Printed poster had rolled off his press, advertising the thermal cures at Salisbury

1343 - 1400 - Geoffrey Chaucer (All Facts)

• English Writer and Poet

  • He is considered the “Father of English Poetry” and “Father of English Literature”

  • He is considered the first truly native English poet

  • He was a giant of English poetry

• He came from a well-to-do family of vintners with court connections

  • For example, his father was deputy butler to King Edward III of England

• He received a court education as a page and was put into the service of John of Gaunt

• He fought for England against France during the Hundred Years’ War

  • He was taken prisoner and later ransomed

  • He came back enthused by the French fashion for poems of courtly love

• He was able to read in English, French, Italian, and Latin

• He was influenced by French and Italian styles of literature

  • He borrowed tales from Giovanni Boccaccio

• He prospered at the court of King Edward III of England

  • He became a controller of customs and a magistrate

• By the reign of King Richard II of England, he was granted a daily jug of wine

  • All of that ceased, however, when John of Gaunt, the namesake’s patron, went to Spain

  • Thus, the namesake was set at leisure

• He was England’s best-loved writer at the time

• He died whilst his most famous and ambitious poetic cycle was still incomplete

  • This poetic cycle focused on his band of pilgrims from the namesake English town, whom he drew with a mixture of shrewdness and pithy humor

• He was buried in Westminster Abbey

• 132 years after his death, his poetical works were published in a collected edition

1387 - Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Cressida (All Facts)

1395 - Geoffrey Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (All Facts)

1330 - 1408 - John Gower (All Facts)

• English Poet

• He was

  • a contemporary of William Langland

  • a friend of Geoffrey Chaucer

1330 - 1408 - John Gower: Confessio Amantis (All Facts)

• Poem which told moralistic stories of courtly love

• Long English Poem with moral and political themes

1370 - 1451 - John Lydgate (All Facts)

• English Poet and Monk

  • He is considered an imitator of Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio

• He is known for his many works including

  • the “Troy Book”

  • the “Siege of Thebes”

1374 - 1479 - John Fortescue: Commendation of the Laws of England / “De Laudibus Legum Angliae” (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author praised English law over Roman law

• Work which was famous for its discussion on the “Presumption of Innocence” principle

1463 - 1529 - John Skelton (All Facts)

• English Humanist Poet, Playwright, and Tutor (of) during the reign of King Henry VIII

• He wrote scathing attacks on the court and clergy

1478 - 1535 - St. Thomas More (All Facts)

• He was a greatly respected lawyer and the under-sheriff of the city of London

• He was loved by his fellow citizens who regarded him as “the fairest of judges, the general patron of the poor”

• He was a man of simple tastes, noted for his gentle sense of fun and his in those around him

• He was “born for friendship”

• He made his name as a writer early in his career when he wrote a biography and condemnation of King Richard III of England

• He was imprisoned in the Tower of London, and beheaded after refusing to take the oath to Anne’s issue demanded by the Succession Act; he is thus considered a martyr in the Roman Catholic Church

1516 - St. Thomas More: Utopia (All Facts)

• Written in the Renaissance Humanist tradition

  • It was known as the “golden little book” by the Humanists at the time

  • It was published at Louvain

  • It was written by the namesake while he was in service to King Henry VIII

  • It was later translated from Latin into English

• It is a shrewd, sometimes furious look at European society

  • It is an indictment of its harsh rulers at the time

  • It is a guide to the construction of an ideal civilization, as it was written in such a style

• The title refers to an island somewhere off the New World, coming from the Greek meaning “no place”

• It is about a people who

  • are distanced from all the social ills of Europe

  • live a communal existence, sharing equally in their food, government, clothes, houses, education, and wars

  • are a part of a deeply religious community, in which God rewards by an afterlife of immortality

• Many saw the book differently, including

  • as a fantasy, a humorless travelogue of a land which could exist in the dreams of an idealist

  • as a comedy, with humorous intent

• It essentially depicts an imaginary islands that lacked the evils of Europe at the time

1503 - 1542 - Thomas Wyatt (All Facts)

• English Poet

• He is credited with introducing the sonnet to English literature

  • He wrote in sonnets and blank verse, forms that were perfected after him

1517 - 1547 - Henry Howard (All Facts)

• English Poet

• He wrote in sonnets and blank verse

1524 - 1580 - Thomas Tusser (All Facts)

• English Poet and Farmer during the English Renaissance / reign of Queen Elizabeth

• He was educated at the University of Cambridge

1557 - Thomas Tusser: One Hundred Good Points of Husbandry (All Facts)

• Original version of the namesake author’s work written in prose

1562 - Thomas Tusser: Five Hundred Good Points of Husbandry (All Facts)

• Work in which the namesake author uses his gift for verse to sow a rich harvest

• It was a book of rhymed proverbs, designed to help the namesake poet’s fellow farmers

• These poems were more easily remembered in this version than in the original version of the namesake work which was in prose

• Work in which the namesake author has advice for every season

1525 - 1582 - Raphael Holinshed (All Facts)

• English Chronicler

• He was most famous for his work, “The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland” commonly known as his namesake “chronicles”

  • It was the "first complete printed history of England composed as a continuous narrative

  • It influenced many future English writers and playwrights

1554 - 1586 - Philip Sidney (All Facts)

• English Poet

1590 - Philip Sidney: Arcadia (All Facts)

• Verse prose

• Drew on a tradition of pastoral romance established in Spain

1560s - 1600s - English Renaissance / Elizabethan Theater / Jacobean Drama (All Facts)

• Plays that were tragic, comedic, or horror-based during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James of England

• Up until this point, most English plays were based on religious themes, but starting in this time and with the namesake style, plays dew on secular themes based on

  • individuals and their motives, often drawn from

    • classical legends

    • history

• The London Stage returned to normal after it was reopened following the closing of its city theaters due to the recent London Plague outbreak prior

• Movement of playwrights whom often collaborated with one another, making it difficult to tell who was the author of what including

  • William Shakespeare

  • Thomas Middleton

  • Cyril Tourneur

  • John Marston

  • George Chapman

  • Thomas Dekker

  • Beaumont and Fletcher

1564 - 1593 - Christopher Marlowe (All Facts)

• English Playwright, Poet, and Spy during the English Renaissance / reign of Queen Elizabeth

• He was known for his rebellious and fevered spirit in his writing and known for his tragedies

  • His writing reflected circles of dark and violent subterfuge

• He died in an argument in a tavern at Deptford near London at an early age

  • He met three secret agents at Bull’s Tavern in Deptford in Kent only to die instantly after being stabbed above his right eye after a fight after a quarrel

1587 - Christopher Marlowe: Tamburlaine (All Facts)

• Play which is a fierce indictment of ambition

1588 - Christopher Marlowe: Dr. Faustus (All Facts)

• Play in which the namesake playwright affirms his belief in supernatural forces

• Play which perfected the blank verse

1589 - Christopher Marlowe: The Jew of Malta (All Facts)

• Play that denunciates the power of money

1592 - Christopher Marlowe: Edward II (All Facts)

• Play that is a tragedy of human impotence

1593 - Christopher Marlowe: The Massacre at Paris (All Facts)

• Dark play which depicts the story of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

1558 - 1594 - Thomas Kyd (All Facts)

• English Playwright during the English Renaissance / reign of Queen Elizabeth

1589 - Thomas Kyd: Spanish Tragedy (All Facts)

• Blank Verse

1564 - 1616 - William Shakespeare (All Facts)

• English Playwright, Poet, and Actor during the English Renaissance / reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James

  • He was from Stratford and retired there after his career

  • His father John was an alderman of Stratford

  • His mother Mary Arden was a farmer’s daughter from the village of Wilcomte

  • He went to the local grammar school in Stratford

  • He emerged as the leading light of the (new) English drama

  • He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist

    • He emerged as the foremost of London’s actor-playwrights after the death of his contemporary Christopher Marlowe

    • His plays brought him immense fame and success so much so that he established himself as a man of standing in his native Stratford where he was known to have bought his “New Place” house

    • He and his writing were considered amiable, honest, and witty

    • He was a consummate master of the English language

  • He was known for having acted in his own plays; but his leading tragic roles were played Richard Burbage

  • He produced a stream of comedies, tragedies, and historical dramas revealing a remarkable range of human experience and thought

    • He perfected the sonnet and blank verse forms of poetry

    • He wrote some 20 plays

• His profound tragedies dealt with heroes trapped as much by the human condition as by their individual flaws of character

• He was prominent at the Globe Theater on London’s Bankside, where he was an actor and shareholder in “The King’s Men” Company of Richard Burbage, under royal patronage

• His sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe, written during the London Plague outbreak when theaters were closed and circulated privately among friends and intimates of the Earl of Southampton, who was the patron of the namesake poet

• He worked with the (new) Lord Chamberlain’s Company at The Theatre, England’s first public playhouse, located at Shoreditch

  • This was where most of his “history” plays were performed

• He acted in his friend and fellow playwright Ben Jonson’s play “Every Man in his Humor” while having appeared at the Curtain Theater

• He died in his hometown of Stratford (on Avon), four years after returning there from London

  • He was buried where he was christened, in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford (on Avon), having died on his 52nd birthday

  • He was survived by his widow Anne and two daughters

• 16 of his plays were published posthumously by Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard, both of whom had obtained a license to publish these plays by the namesake; and then they both published a folio volume thereafter of nearly a thousand pages containing most of the original 16 plays

  • The Folio Volume brought together 36 plays (pieces) in all brought together

  • The plays were listed under three headings: “Comedies,” “Histories,” and “Tragedies”

1591 - William Shakespeare: Henry VI (All Facts)

• Historical Drama in three parts written in five acts taken from the Holinshed Chronicles

1593 - William Shakespeare: Richard III, Comedy of Errors (All Facts)

• History Play

1593 - William Shakespeare: Venus and Adonis (All Facts)

• Collection of erotic poems

1594 - William Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus (All Facts)

• Play in which there is a scene in which a mother finds that she has eaten her sons baked in a pie

1594 - William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew (All Facts)

1595 - William Shakespeare: Richard II (All Facts)

• History Play

1595 - William Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice (All Facts)

• Black Comedy

1596 - William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (All Facts)

1596 - William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (All Facts)

1597 - William Shakespeare: Henry IV (All Facts)

• Historical Play in two parts based on the character Falstaff

• It is said that Queen Elizabeth of England liked the robust character of Falstaff in both parts of the namesake and its succeeding play that she asked the namesake author to write another play for her in which Falstaff is shown in love, which would become the “Merry Wives of Windsor”

1597 - William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor (All Facts)

• Comedy in which Falstaff falls in love, written at the request of Queen Elizabeth of England who fell in love with the character originally from the namesake author’s plays “Henry IV” and “Henry V”

1598 - William Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing (All Facts)

1598 - William Shakespeare: As You Like It (All Facts)

1599 - William Shakespeare: Henry V (All Facts)

• English History Play

• He acted in this play as Chorus

1599 - William Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (All Facts)

• Play based on Plutarch’s account of the namesake figure’s murder on the Ides of March and the civil war that followed

1600 - William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (All Facts)

• Play about a reluctant young revenger caught in a web of intrigue and corruption in the Danish court of Elsinore

• He acted in this play, playing “Ghost”

1601 - William Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (All Facts)

• Play celebrating the traditionally anarchic festival of January 6th in England

1601 - William Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida (All Facts)

• Play that consisted of a wryly comic tale of the namesake lovesick man and his faithless lover

1604 - William Shakespeare: Othello, or the Moor of Venice (All Facts)

• Play that was a tragedy on the theme of sexual jealousy

1605 - William Shakespeare: Macbeth (All Facts)

• Play about the rise to power of the namesake Scottish regicide and his ambitious wife

• Play which prophesied that King James of England (and Scotland’s) ancestor Banquo will father a line of kings

• Play which dealt with witchcraft, of which King James of England had written

• Play which pleased King James of England

1605 - William Shakespeare: King Lear (All Facts)

1606 - William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra (All Facts)

• Play about the ill-fated love between the namesake Roman Triumvir and his Egyptian wife

1608 - William Shakespeare: Coriolanus (All Facts)

1608 - William Shakespeare: Timon of Athens (All Facts)

• Gory tragedy

1610 - William Shakespeare: Cymbeline (All Facts)

• Play based on a semi-historical English king

1611 - William Shakespeare: The Tempest (All Facts)

• Fanatical Romance Play with a valedictory tone, with its hero, Prospero the magician, abandoning his magic, casting his wand and book of spells into sea; and attended to the last by his winged spirit Ariel, while plagued by his earthly servant Caliban, the half-man, half-beast

• This play represented the spirit of reconciliation which appeared towards the end of his works as well as one of his last and most enigmatic plays

1613 - William Shakespeare: King Henry VIII (All Facts)

• Play which was the final work of the namesake playwright

1561 - 1595 - St. Robert Southwell (All Facts)

• English Jesuit (Catholic) Poet

• He authored works of Christian poetry

1552 - 1599 - Edmund Spenser (All Facts)

• English Poet during the English Renaissance / reign of Queen Elizabeth

• He perfected the sonnet and blank verse forms of poetry

1595 - Edmund Spenser: Epithalamion (All Facts)

• Written by the namesake on the occasion of his second marriage, it is a supreme marriage poem

1596 - Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queen (All Facts)

• Seven-volume poem dedicated to Queen Elizabeth of England

• Poem which set out to show the ideal gentleman or courtier in action

1553 - 1606 - John Lyly (All Facts)

• English Writer and Playwright

1580 - John Lyly: Euphues (All Facts)

• Early English Novel on manners

1553 - 1616 - Richard Hakluyt (All Facts)

• English Writer

• He was primarily known for his works that promoted the English colonization of North America

  • He may have had a work entitled “On the Value of the Colonies to England” published, but some say John Popham is accredited with this particular work

1609 - Richard Hakluyt: Virginia Richly Valued, by the Description of the Maine Land of Florida, Her Next Neighbor (All Facts)

• Work which promoted the Colony of Virginia

1584 - 1616 - Francis Beaumont (All Facts)

• English Playwright during the English Renaissance / reign of King James, famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher

1567 - 1619 - Richard Burbage (All Facts)

• English Stage Actor

• He pulled down the Shoreditch Playhouse on the south bank of the Thames River and began to build the Globe Theater in its place

• He worked with and performed and played the leading roles in the tragedies of William Shakespeare

• His “King’s Men” Company took over the Blackfriars Theater

1567 - 1620 - Thomas Campion (All Facts)

• English Poet

• He set his own verses to music

1579 - 1625 - John Fletcher (All Facts)

• English Playwright during the English Renaissance / reign of King James, famous for his collaborations with Francis Beaumont

1621 - John Fletcher: A Wild Goose Chase (All Facts)

• Comedy

1600s - 1626 - Cyril Tourneur (All Facts)

• English Playwright and Dramatist during the English Renaissance / reign of King James

1607 - Cyril Tourneur: The Revenger’s Tragedy (All Facts)

• Play in which a lecherous duke is induced to kiss a poisoned skull and dies seeing his bastard copulating with his duchess

1580 - 1627 - Thomas Middleton (All Facts)

• English Poet and Playwright during the during the English Renaissance / reign of King James

1608 - Thomas Middleton: A Mad World, My Masters (All Facts)

• Lively comedy

1554 - 1628 - Fulke Greville (All Facts)

• English Poet during the English Renaissance / reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James

• Patron of / for John Speed and his work

1551 - 1629 - John Speed (All Facts)

• English Historian and Chronicler during the English Renaissance / reign of King James

1611 - John Speed: History of Great Britain (All Facts)

• Work which outlined valuable material to the established history of England up to the point of its publication

1571 - 1631 - John Donne (All Facts)

• English Poet and Catholic Priest

  • He was a dean of St. Paul’s (Cathedral) and preached a series of fine sermons (there)

• He preached his sermon “Death’s Duel,” a sermon about death and resurrection, in front of a fervent congregation at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London

  • It was quite personal, as he was known to be ill and it was feared by his audience that it was his last address

  • His preaching earned him the title “a second Augustine”

• He was known for his

  • Satires and Elegies

  • Songs and Sonnets (written after his marriage)

  • Holy Sonnets (inspired by the death of his wife)

  • Pseudo-Martyr (attacked Catholic martyrs)

• He was known for his combination of erudition, wit, reason, and passion in his devotional and love poems, especially in his “Anniversaries” poems

1608 - John Donne: Biathanatos (All Facts)

• Study that served as a defense of suicide

1572 - 1632 - Thomas Dekker (All Facts)

• English Dramatist and Pamphleteer, a versatile and prolific writer, whose career spanned several decades and brought him into contact with many famous dramatists during the English Renaissance / reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James

1578 - 1632 - John Webster (All Facts)

• English Playwright and Dramatist during the English Renaissance / reign of King James

  • A poet of horror, who provided new ingenuities with each new play he showed

1593 - 1633 - George Herbert (All Facts)

• English Poet and Orator

• He explored the unity of flesh and spirit in a style that influenced modern English poetry

1612 - John Webster: The White Devil (All Facts)

• Play in which Vittoria, a whore, is stabbed to death, while her lover is poisoned by his own helmet and strangled by a “friar” pretending to give him the last rites

1613 - John Webster: The Duchess of Malfi (All Facts)

• Play that was a revenge tragedy in which the virtuous heroine marries beneath her to her steward, the only good man she can find in her court, but she cannot escaper the designs of her wicked brothers

• Play in which the namesake main character

  • found herself holding a severed hand in the dark

  • was killed for marrying her steward after prolonged torments by her bothers

1559 - 1634 - George Chapman (All Facts)

• English Poet, Playwright, and Translator during the English Renaissance / reign of King James

1576 - 1634 - John Marston (All Facts)

• English Playwright during the English Renaissance / reign of King James

1572 - 1637 - Ben Jonson (All Facts)

• English Playwright, Poet, and Critic during the English Renaissance / reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James

  • He had great classical learning and ready wit

  • He had a tendency to drink too much Canary among his friends like William Shakespeare, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher

• By King James, he was made England’s first “poet laureate” on a large pension

• He was also a bricklayer at one point

• His poems and plays, as comedies, were notable for their honesty

• He died and his funeral was held at Westminster Abbey

  • His tombstone inscription remarked how rare he was

1598 - Ben Jonson: Every Man in His Humor (All Facts)

• Play in which William Shakespeare acted and performed

• It was the namesake’s first major success

1599 - Ben Jonson: Every Man Out of His Humor (All Facts)

1605 - Ben Jonson: Eastward Ho (All Facts)

• Play which satirizes the good publicity given to the newly-created colony of Virginia and the belief that the Roanoke Colonists were still alive by that time

• Play which ridiculed the meanness of King James

1605 - Ben Jonson: Volpone, or the Fox (All Facts)

• Black comedy play about a wily miser

• Play which satirized human quirks

• Play which castigated human folly, capable of such a lyric as “drink to me only with thine Eyes”

1609 - Ben Jonson: The Silent Woman (All Facts)

1610 - Ben Jonson: The Alchemist (All Facts)

• Low-life comedy

• Play which satirized human quirks

1614 - Ben Jonson: Bartholomew Fair (All Facts)

• Play which chronicles London low life

• Its opening performance at the Hope Theater was a great success

  • It was notably performed before King James at Whitehall

• It was the latest hit on the London stage, where comedy and a (new) style of horror plays drew enthusiastic audiences

• It was a comedy of knavery, where visitors to a fair at Smithfield were gulled of their money and belongings

• It exposed the hypocrisy of certain Puritans