History of

British Literature
Overview

Dr Kalyani Vallath
 Old English
Middle English
Modern English
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
1340-1400
 MAJOR WORKS
• Translation of Roman de la Rose
• The Book of the Duchess
• The House of Fame
• The Parliament of Fowls
• Translation of Consolation of Philosophy
• Troilus and Criseyde
• The Legend of Good Women
• The Canterbury Tales
 Chaucer’s contemporaries
• William Langland
• The Vision of Piers the Plowman
• John Gower
• The Chaucerians (15th Century)
• John Lydgate
• Speculum Meditantis
• King James I of Scotland
• Vox Clamantis
• Robert Henryson
• Confessio Amantis • William Dunbar
• John Wycliff • Gavin Douglas
• Translation of the Bible • Thomas Malory
• Origins of Drama
• Miracles, Mysteries, Moralities, Interludes
The Renaissance
 The Renaissance
• Fall of Constantinople
• Tudor Rule started in England
• Humanism and Reformation
• New learning and literary experimentation
• Geographic discoveries and colonialism
• Roger Ascham, Thomas Elyot, Thomas More, John Skelton
• Wyatt and Surrey, Tottel’s Miscellany
• Elizabethan Period
 William
Shakespeare
1564-1616
 MAJOR WORKS
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Romeo and Juliet
Apprenticeship Richard III Two Gentlemen of Verona
Titus Andronicus
The Comedy of Errors

Sonnets &
Long Poems

Richard II A Midsummer Night’s Dream

History Plays &
King John The Merchant of Venice
Romantic Comedies
Henry IV Much Ado About Nothing

Julius Caesar
Troilus and Cressida Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,
Dark Comedies &
All’s Well That Ends Well Macbeth
Great Tragedies
Measure for Measure Antony and Cleopatra

The Winter’s Tale

The Romances Henry VIII
The Tempest
 Shakespeare’s Contemporaries
• Philip Sidney
• Astrophel and Stella
• Arcadia
• University Wits
• Apologie for Poetrie • John Lyly—Euphues
• Edmund Spenser • George Peele
• • Thomas Lodge
The Shepherd’s Calendar
• Thomas Kyd—The Spanish Tragedy
• Astrophel • Robert Greene
• The Faerie Queene • Thomas Nashe
• • Christopher Marlowe
Amoretti & Epithalamion
• Tamburlaine the Great
• Prothalamion • The Jew of Malta
• Doctor Faustus
• Edward II
 Shakespeare’s Contemporaries
• Ben Jonson
• Every Man in His Humour
• Every Man Out of His Humour
• Cynthia’s Revels
• The Poetaster
• Francis Bacon

• Volpone • Essays: Counsels Civil and Moral

• The Epicene • The New Atlantis

• The Alchemist • John Donne
• Bartholomew Fair
The 17th century
The Jacobean Period
The English Civil War
The Restoration Period
 The Jacobean Period
• George Chapman
• Translation of Homer
• The Blind Beggar of Alexandria • John Webster
• Eastward Ho! • The White Devil
• Thomas Heywood
• A Woman Killed With Kindness • The Duchess of Malfi
• The English Traveller • Beaumont and Fletcher
• Thomas Dekker • Philaster
• The Shoemaker’s Holiday • Thomas Middleton
• John Marston • A Game at Chess
• The Malcontent • A Chaste Maid in Cheapside
• Women Beware Women
• The Changeling
• The Witch
John Milton
1608-1674
 The Period of the Civil War
• John Milton
• L’Allegro & Il Penseroso
• Arcades & Comus
• Lycidas • Prose Writers
• Latin Poetry • Thomas Browne
• Milton’s Left Hand • Thomas Fuller
• Paradise Lost • Jeremy Taylor
• Paradise Regained • Izaak Walton
• Samson Agonistes • Thomas Hobbes
 The Period of the Civil War
• Cavalier Poets
• Richard Lovelace • Metaphysical Poets
• John Suckling • Abraham Cowley
• Edmund Waller • Andrew Marvell
• Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
• Thomas Carew • Thomas Carew
• George Herbert
• Richard Crashaw
• Henry Vaughan
• Thomas Traherne
 The Restoration Period

• Samuel Butler • John Dryden

• Heroic Stanzas
• Hudibras • Astaea Redux
• William D’Avenant
• Annus Mirabilis
• The Wild Gallant
• Gondibert • The Indian Emperor
• The Conquest of Granada
• The Siege of Rhodes • Absalom and Achitophel
• Thomas Killigrew • The Medal
• Mac Flecknoe
• Of Dramatick Poesie
• Preface to the Fables
John Dryden
1631-1700
 The Restoration Period
• Restoration Comedy
• William Wycherley
• The Country Wife
• The Plain Dealer
• William Congreve • Aphra Behn
• The Double Dealer • Oroonoko
• The Way of the World
• George Etherege • Eliza Haywood
• The Man of Mode • John Bunyan
• George Farquhar • Grace Abounding to the Chief of
• John Vanbrugh Sinners
• Colley Cibber • Pilgrim’s Progress
• Holy War
The 18th century
 The Augustan Age
The Romantic Revival
Alexander Pope
1688-1744
 The Augustan Age
• Alexander Pope
• Pastorals
• An Essay on Criticism
• The Rape of the Lock • Daniel Defoe
• Windsor Forest • The Shortest Way with the Dissenters
• Translation of Homer
• Edition of Shakespeare • Robinson Crusoe
• Essay on Man • Captain Singleton
• The Dunciad
• Moral Essays • Memoirs of a Cavalier
• Imitations of Horace • Moll Flanders
• An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot
• Colonel Jack
• Roxana
• A Journal of a Plague Year
 The Augustan Age
• Jonathan Swift
• The Battle of the Books
• A Tale of a Tub
• Drapier’s Letters • Dr Samuel Johnson
• Gulliver’s Travels • Irene
• Essays • Dictionary
• Joseph Addison
• Rasselas
• Essays in The Spectator
• Cato • Preface to Shakespeare
• Richard Steele • Lives of the Poets
• Essays in The Tatler • Essays in The Rambler
• The Conscious Lovers • Samuel Richardson
• Pamela 2 Parts
• Clarissa
• Sir Charles Grandison
Henry Fielding
1707-1754
 The Augustan Age
• Henry Fielding
• Tom Thumb
•
•
Joseph Andrews
• Jonathan Wild Tobias Smollett
• Tom Jones • Roderick Random
• • Peregrine Pickle
• Ferdinand Count Fathom
Amelia
• Laurence Sterne • Launcelot Greaves
• Tristram Shandy • Humphrey Clinker
• A Sentimental Journey • Oliver Goldsmith
• Fanny Burney • The Vicar of Wakefield
• Evelina • The Good Natur’d Man
• • She Stoops to Conquer
•
Cecilia
Camilla • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
• The Rivals
• The School for Scandal
• The Critic
 The Romantic Revival
• James Thomson
• The Seasons
• The Castle of Indolence
• Graveyard Poets • Gothic Romance
• Thomas Gray • Horace Walpole
• Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard • The Castle of Otranto
• William Collins • Ann Radcliffe
• William Cowper • The Mysteries of Udolpho
• William Blake • Matthew Gregory Lewis
• Songs of Innocence and of Experience • The Monk
• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell • William Beckford
• Robert Burns
• Vathek
• Mary Shelley
• Frankenstein
The 19th century
The Romantic Period
The Victorian Age
 WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH
1770-1850
 The Romantic Period
• William Wordsworth
• Lyrical Ballads
• ST Coleridge
• Tintern Abbey • Conversation Poems
• Kubla Khan
• Lucy Poems • Ancient Mariner
• • Asra Poems
Michael
• Christabel
• The Prelude • Biographia Literaria
• Lectures on Shakespeare
• The Excursion • Robert Southey
• • Thalaba the Destroyer
Immortality Ode • The Curse of Kehama
• Madoc
 The Romantic Period

• • PB Shelley
Lord Byron
• Queen Mab
• Hours of Idleness • Alastor
• English Bards and Scotch Reviewers • The Revolt of Islam
• Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage • Odes
• Beppo, Mazeppa • The Cenci
• Don Juan • Prometheus Unbound
• The Mask of Anarchy
• Verse drama • The Triumph of Life
• Adonais
• A Defence of Poetry
 The Romantic Period

• John Keats • Walter Scott

• Endymion • Scottish poems
• Isabella • Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border
• The Eve of St. Agnes • The Lay of the Last Minstrel
• Hyperion • Marmion
• The Fall of Hyperion • The Lady of the Lake
• Six Great Odes • Waverley novels
• Ivanhoe
• Kenilworth
JANE AUSTEN
1775-1817
 The Romantic Period

• Jane Austen • Prose Writers

• Sense and Sensibility • Charles Lamb
• Essays of Elia
• Pride and Prejudice • William Hazlitt
• Mansfield Park • Characters of Shakespeare
• Emma • The Round Table
• Persuasion • The Lectures on the English Poets
• The Spirit of the Age
• Northanger Abbey • Thomas de Quincey
• The Confessions of an English Opium Eater
• On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth
ALFRED TENNYSON
1809-1892
 The Victorian Period
• Poets
• Alfred Tennyson
• The Lotos Eaters • Poets
• Ulysses • Matthew Arnold
• The Lady of Shalott • The Scholar Gypsy
• Morte d’Arthur • Dover Beach
• The Princess
• In Memoriam • Thyrsis
• Robert Browning • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
• Andrea del Sarto • Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
• Fra Lippo Lippi • DG Rossetti
• Rabbi Ben Ezra • WH Hunt
• My Last Duchess • JE Millais
• William Morris
• Christina Rossetti
Charles dickens
1812-1870
 The Victorian Period
• Charles Dickens
• Pickwick Papers
• Oliver Twist • Elizabeth Gaskell
• Nicholas Nickleby
• The Old Curiosity Shop
• WM Thackeray
• Barnaby Rudge
• Vanity Fair
• A Christmas Carol • Charlotte Bronte
• Dombey and Son • Jane Eyre
• David Copperfield • Emily Bronte
• Bleak House • Wuthering Heights
• Hard Times • George Eliot
• A Tale of Two Cities • Adam Bede
• Great Expectations • Silas Marner
• The Mill on the Floss
• Middlemarch
 The Victorian Period
• Samuel Butler
• George Meredith
• Henry James
• Thomas Hardy
• Daisy Miller
• Far from the Madding Crowd
• The Portrait of a Lady
• The Mayor of Casterbridge
• The Turn of the Screw
• The Return of the Native
• The Ambassadors
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles
• Jude the Obscure
• RL Stevenson

• Wessex Poems
• Treasure Island
• Jerome K Jerome
• Three Men in a Boat
 The Victorian Period

• Prose Writers
• Prose Writers
• Thomas Carlyle
• John Ruskin

• Translated Goethe • Unto This Last

• Signs of the Times • Modern Painters
• Sartor Resartus • Sesame and Lilies
• On Heroes and Hero Worship
• Matthew Arnold
• TB Macaulay
• Essays
• Essays in Criticism

• Macaulay’s Minute • Lytton Strachey

Wb yeats
1865-1939
 The Victorian Period
• WB Yeats
• Established Abbey Theatre
• Easter, 1916 • GM Hopkins
• The Second Coming • Sprung Rhythm
• Byzantium poems
• Among School Children • Terrible sonnets
• Poetic Drama • Curtal sonnets
• • The Windhover
Aesthetic Movement
• Walter Pater • Avant-Garde Movements
• Oscar Wilde • Impressionism
• The Importance of Being Earnest • Symbolism
• The Picture of Dorian Gray • Expressionism
• Surrealism
• Dadaism
• Futurism
The 20th century
 The First World War
Modernism
The Second World War
Postmodernism
 The Edwardians
• Rudyard Kipling
• Jungle Book
• Kim • Joseph Conrad
• Poetry • Almayer’s Folly
• John Galsworthy
• The Nigger of Narcissus
• Silver Box, Strife, Justice • Heart of Darkness
• Arnold Bennett
• Lord Jim
• Novels set in Five towns • Nostromo
• Clayhanger Trilogy • EM Forster
• HG Wells
• Where Angels Fear to Tread
• The Time Machine
• The War of the Worlds • A Room With a View
• Tono Bungay • Howards End
• A Passage to India
• Aspects of the Novel
• GK Chesterton
 The Georgians
• Georgian Poetry
• Edward Marsh’s anthology • War Poets
• WH Davies • Rupert Brooke
• John Drinkwater • Wilfred Owen
• John Masefield • Robert Graves
• Siegfried Sassoon
GB SHAW
1856-1950
 Irish Writers
• GB Shaw
• Widowers Houses
• Mrs. Warren’s Profession • Sean O’Casey
• Arms and the Man • Dublin Trilogy
• Candida
• The Devil’s Disciple • JM Synge
• Man and Superman
• The Doctor’s Dilemma • Riders to the Sea
• Pygmalion • Then Playboy of the Western World
• Saint Joan
• Apple Cart
• Short Stories and Novels
TS Eliot
1888-1965
 The modernists
• DH Lawrence
• The White Peacock
• Sons and Lovers • James Joyce
• The Rainbow • The Dubliners
• Women in Love • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Aaron’s Rod • Ulysses
• Kangaroo • Finnegan’s Wake
• The Plumed Serpent
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover • Ezra Pound
• Short Stories, Poetry, Drama • Imagism
• Criticism • Cantos
• Ripostes
• Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
 The Modernists
• TS Eliot
• The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
• Gerontion • Virginia Woolf
• The Waste Land (1922) • The Voyage Out
• The Hollow Men (1925) • Night and Day
• Ariel Poems (1927–1954) • Jacob’s Room
• Journey of the Magi (1927) • Mrs. Dalloway
• Ash Wednesday (1930) • To the Lighthouse
• Four Quartets (1945) • Orlando
• Poetic Drama • The Waves
• Literary Criticism • The Years
• Between the Acts
• Essays and Literary Criticism
 Other writers
• Aldous Huxley
• Crome Yellow
• Antic Hay • Thirties Poets
• Those Barren Leaves • WH Auden
• Point Counter Point • Stephen Spender
• Brave New World
• • Cecil Day Lewis
Somerset Maugham
• Of Human Bondage • Louis MacNeice
• JB Priestley • Christopher Isherwood
• Evelyn Waugh • George Orwell
• Graham Greene • Burmese Days
• The Power and the Glory • Animal Farm
• Nineteen Eighty Four
• Essays
George Orwell
1903-1950
 Other poets
• Dylan Thomas
• New Apocalypse Movement
• Ted Hughes
• Poem in October • Hawk Roosting
• Fern Hill • Thought Fox
• Movement Poets
• Jaguar
• Philip Larkin
• DJ Enright
• Pike
• Thom Gunn • Thrushes
• Elizabeth Jennings • Seamus Heaney
• Andrew Motion
 Dramatists
• Noel Coward

• The Rat Trap • Angry Young Man

• John Osborne
• The Vortex • Look Back in Anger
• Terence Rattigan • The Entertainer
• Kingsley Amis
• Christopher Fry • Lucky Jim
• The Lady’s Not for Burning
• Alan Sillitoe
• Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
• Arnold Wesker
• Shelagh Delaney
Samuel Beckett
1906-1989
 Dramatists
• The Theatre of the Absurd
• Samuel Beckett
• Waiting for Godot
• Endgame • Edward Bond
• Happy Days • Saved
• The Bundle
• Poetry • Lear
• Fiction • Bingo
• Harold Pinter • Tom Stoppard
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are
• The Birthday Party Dead
• The Dumb Waiter • Jumpers
• The Caretaker • Travesties
• Arcadia
• Indian Ink
• Caryl Churchill
William Golding
1911-1993
 Postwar novelists
• William Golding
• Lord of the Flies • Doris Lessing
• Anthony Burgess
• The Grass is Singing
•
•
Malayan Trilogy
A Clockwork Orange
• Children of Violence series
• Muriel Spark • The Golden Notebook
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie • Science fiction
• Iris Murdoch • John Fowles
• Under the Net
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman
• The Bell
• JG Ballard
• Empire of the Sun
 Postwar novelists
• AS Byatt
• Possession • Julian Barnes
• Margaret Drabble • Flaubert’s Parrot
• The Millstone • The Sense of an Ending
• Ian McEwan
• The Witch of Exmoor • The Cement Garden
• Angela Carter • Amsterdam
• Bristol Trilogy • Atonement
• The Magic Toyshop
• Martin Amis
• Peter Ackroyd
• Nights at the Circus • Graham Swift
• Hilary Mantel
Salman Rushdie
B. 1947
 Diasporic novelists
• Sam Selvon
• VS Naipaul • Timothy Mo
• A House for Mr Biswas • Hanif Kureishi
• Salman Rushdie • The Buddha of Suburbia
• Midnight’s Children • Caryl Philips
• Shame • Monica Ali
• The Moor’s Last Sigh • Brick Lane
• The Enchantress of Florence
• Zadie Smith
• White Teeth
Thats about it!