English Literature Literary Figures and Periods

A complete set of vocabulary flashcards covering major literary figures, titles, historical periods, and prominent works across all provided lecture sources.

Geoffrey Chaucer

First major poet to write in English (1343-1400); designated as the Father of English Literature and Father of (modern) English Poetry/Poem. Key works include The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, and The Legend of Good Women.

William Shakespeare

National poet of England (1564-1616) nicknamed 'the Swan of Avon' and titled 'the Bard' or 'the Bard of Avon'. Titled the greatest writer in English and greatest dramatist of all time. Wrote 37 plays and 154 Sonnets during the Shakespearean Age (1590-1616) and considered an Elizabethan dramatist.

George Bernard Shaw

Father of modern English Literature (1856-1950) and greatest modern English Dramatist. The only winner of both a Nobel prize and an Oscar. Works include Arms and the Man, Man and Superman, Candida, Pygmalion, Major Barbara, The Devil's Disciple, and You Never Can Tell.

Caedmon

First/Earliest English poet.

Edmund Spenser

Elizabethan poet (1552-1599) holding the title 'Poet of Poets'. Author of The Faerie Queen, The Ruins of Time, and The Shepherd's Calendar.

Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron)

Literary figure designated as the Rebel Poet and National Heo of Greek.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Romantic poet designated as Poet of Skylark and Winds and Revolutionary Romantic Poet.

John Keats

Romantic poet designated as Poet of Beauty, Romantic Poet, and Poet of sensuousness.

William Wordsworth

Romantic poet designated as Poet of Nature and Lake Poet.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Romantic poet designated as Poet of supernaturalism.

Christopher Marlowe

Father of English Tragedy (1564-1593), greatest playwright before Shakespeare, and University wit. Works include Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, Tamburaline the Great, and Hero and Leader.

Venerable Bede

Literary figure designated as the Father of English History/English Learning.

John Milton

Literary figure designated as Epic poet and Great Master of verse.

Jonathan Swift

The most famous satirist in English literature; belongs to the Neo-classical age.

John Donne

Literary figure designated as Founder of Metaphysical poetry and Poet of Love.

Sir Thomas Wyatt

Father of English Sonnet (1503-1542); associated with Tottel's Miscellany.

John Dryden

Literary figure designated as Father of Modern English Criticism.

Alexander Pope

Literary figure designated as Mock Heroic Poet.

Jane Austen

Literary figure designated as Anti-Romantic in the Romantic Age.

Alfred the Great

Literary figure designated as Founder of English Prose.

John Wycliffe

Father of English Prose (1330-1384); translated the Bible / New Testament into English.

William Tyndale

Father of English Prose (1494-1536); translated the Bible into English.

Francis Bacon

Father of English essays/prose (1561-1626). Works include Of Studies, Of Great Place, Of Marriage and Single Life, The Advancement of Learning, and Novum Orgum.

Edgar Allan Poe

Literary figure designated as Father of English short story and Father of (Modern) Detective story.

Robert Browning

Literary figure designated as Father of Dramatic Monologue.

Nicholas Udall

First English comedy writer (1504-1556); author of Ralph Roister Doister (the first English comedy).

Thomas Kyd

Father of English Revenge Tragedy (1557-1595). Works include The Spanish Tragedy and Pompey the Great.

Thomas Norton

Elizabethan author (1532-1584); co-author of Gorbuduc (the first English tragedy).

Ben Jonson

Literary figure designated as Father of Comedy of Humours.

Jules Verne

Literary figure designated as Father of Science Fiction.

Herbert George Wells

Father of English Science Fiction (1866-1946). Works include Kipps, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Wars of the Worlds, The History of Mr Polly, The First Man on the Moon, and Love and Mr Lewisham.

Lindley Murray

Literary figure designated as Father of English Grammar.

Rudyard Kipling

English writer and journalist born in India (1865-1936); first English writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. Works include Kim, The Jungle Book, Songs from Books, The Five Nations, The Seven Seas, If, Gunga Din, and Mandalay.

Mark Twain

Literary figure designated as Father of American Literature.

Anglo-Saxon Period / Old English Period

Historical period of English literature spanning 450-1066.

Middle English Period

Historical period of English literature spanning 1066-1500; divided into Anglo Norman Period (1066-1340), The Age of Chaucer (1340-1400), and The Barren/Dark Age (1400-1485).

The Renaissance Period

Literary period spanning 1500-1660; includes Preparation for Renaissance (1500-1558), Elizabethan Period (1558-1603), Jacobean Age (1603-1625), Caroline Age (1625-1649), and Commonwealth Period / Puritan Period (1649-1660 / 1620-1660).

The Neo-Classical Period

Literary period spanning 1660-1798; includes The Restoration Period (1660-1700), The Augustan Age or Age of Pope (1700-1745), and The Age of Sensibility or Age of Johnson (1745-1798).

The Romantic Period

Historical period of English literature spanning 1798-1832.

The Victorian Period

Historical period of English literature spanning 1832-1901, named after Queen Victoria. Includes sub-movements The Pre-Raphaelites (1848-1860) and The Aestheticism and Decadence (1880-1901).

The Modern Period

Historical period of English literature spanning 1901-1939; includes The Edwardian Period (1901-1910) and The Georgian Period (1910-1936).

The Post Modern Period

Historical period of English literature spanning from 1939 to the Present.

Charlotte Bronte

Eldest daughter of the Bronte family (1816-1855). Author of the novels Shirly, Villette, Jane Eyre, and The Professor (her first novel).

Emily Bronte

Second daughter of the Bronte family (1818-1848); author of Wuthering Heights.

Anne Bronte

Third daughter of the Bronte family (1820-1849); author of Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Thomas Hardy

Victorian writer (1840-1928); author of Far From the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and The Return of the Native.

George Eliot

Victorian author (1819-1880) whose real name was Mary Ann Evans. Works include Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Author (1850-1894) of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The New Arabian Nights, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Oscar Wilde

Irish novelist and dramatist (1854-1900); author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Woman of No Importance, Lady Windermere's Fan, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, An Ideal Husband, and The Selfish Giant.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Author (1859-1930) of The Lost World and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Joseph Conrad

Author (1857-1924) born in Poland, became a British citizen in 1886, and was a crew member of a ship. Works include Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Rescue, The Arrow of Gold, The Rover, Under Western Eyes, The Shadow Line, and The Nigger of the Narcissus.

William Butler Yeats

Famous Irish poet and dramatist (1865-1939), Senator of Irish parliament, and 1923 Nobel Prize recipient. Wrote introduction for Gitanjali. Works include The Wild Swans at Coole, The Winding Stair, The Rose, Crossways, The Lake Isle of Innisfree, A Prayer for My Daughter, The Second Coming, The Green Helmet, and The Land of Heart's Desire.

Thomas Stearns Eliot

Poet (1888-1965) born in the USA whose literary collaborator was Ezra Pound. Works include poems The Waste Land and Four Quartets, and plays The Cocktail Party and Murder in the Cathedral.

Bertrand Russell

British philosopher (1872-1970) and recipient of Nobel Prize in literature in 1950. Works include Roads to Freedom, Marriage and Morals, History of Western Philosophy, Mysticism and Logic, The Analysis of Mind, and Principia Mathematica.

Winston Churchill

Statesman (1874-1965) and Nobel Prize winner in 1953. Works include A History of the English Speaking Peoples, History of the Second World War, River War, and The World Crisis.

Ezra Pound

Author and poet (1885-1972); works include Shop Girl, Alba, Ropotes, The Cantos, and Mauberley.

Wystan Hugh Auden

British poet (1907-1973) who became a US citizen in 1946. Works include Another Time, The Shield of Achilles, An Unknown Citizen, In Memory of W.B. Yeats, The Oxford Book of Light Verse, and The Age of Anxiety.

Edward Morgan Forster

English novelist, essayist, and short story writer (1879-1970). Works include A Passage to India, A Room with a View, Howards End, The Longest Journey, Aspects of the Novel, The Celestial Omnibus, and Where Angels Fear to Tread.

James Joyce

Irish author (1882-1941) and pioneer of stream of consciousness. Novels include A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, Finnegans Wake, Ulysses, Exiles, and Dubliners.

William Somerset Maugham

English novelist, playwright, and short story writer (1874-1965). Novels include Of Human Bondage, The Sacred Flame, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge, The Magician, Cakes and Ale; short stories include The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Luncheon, and The Vessel of Wrath.

David Herbert Lawrence

Author (1885-1930) of novels Sons and Lovers, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Rainbow, Women in Love, and The White Peacock.

Virginia Woolf

Writer of stream of consciousness (1882-1941). Works include The Voyage Out (her first novel), To the Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway, A Room of One's Own, Orlando, Night and Day, The Waves, Flush, and The Years.

Ted Hughes

Poet (1930-1998) whose works include Pike, Jaguar, Daffodils, Birthday Letters, and Crow.

O'Henry / William Sydney Porter

Short story writer (1862-1910) whose works include The Gift of the Magi, After Twenty Years, A Service of Love, The Ransom of Red Chief, and The Green Door.

George Orwell

Author (1903-1950) born in India who worked in British Police in Burma. Works include Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Homage to Catalonia, Shooting an Elephant, and The Road to Wigan Pier.

John Millington Synge

Irish Playwright (1871-1909); works include The Playboy of the Western World, Riders to the Sea, In the Shadow of the Glen, and The Will of the Saints.

Samuel Beckett

Irish writer (1906-1989) who won the Nobel Prize in 1969. Works include Waiting for Godot (absurd drama), Breath (shortest dramatic work), Endgame (one act), and Murphy (novel).

Harold Pinter

British playwright (1930-2008) who won the Nobel Prize in 2005. Plays include The Birthday Party, The Homecoming, Betrayal, and The Caretaker.

Sir Thomas More

Elizabethan author (1478-1535) of Utopia and The History of King Richard III.

Sir Philip Sidney

Poet and Soldier (1554-1586); works include Arcadia, Astrophel and Stella, The Lady of May, and The Defence of Poesy (An Apology for Poetry).

Renaissance

Literary term defined as 'The revival of learning'.