Old English

Middle English

Geoffrey Chaucer (1342 ./43-1400)

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London

Geoffrey Chaucer is remembered as the author of Canterbury Tales, which ranks as one of the greatest epic works of world literature. Chaucer made a crucial contribution to English literature in writing in English at a time when much court poetry was still composed in Anglo-Norman or Latin. Although he spent one of two brief periods of disfavor, Chaucer lived the whole of his life close the centers of English power

Work:

Book of the Duchess, c. 1370)

Monk's Tale, c. 1374

Canterbury Tales, 1378-1400

The Parlement of Foules, 1382

The House of Fame, 1374-82

Legende of Goode Wimmen, 1368, 1395

Troilus and Criseyde, 1385

Complete Works, 1894-97 (7 vols.)

Complete Works, 1933 (2nd edn. 1957, ed. by F.N. Robinson)

William Langland:

 was probably born in Ledbury, Herefordshire in about 1332. Langland moved to London where he made his living by singing songs at rich men's funerals.

Langland also wrote poetry and is believed to be the author of The Vision Piers the Plowman. Written in West Midland dialect, the poem tells the story of Piers, a simple countryman. Langland was himself very poor and the poem provides a first-hand account of what life was like for ordinary people living in England during the 14th century. The poem also attacked the corruption of the nobility and leading members of the church.

The first version of The Vision of Piers Plowman appeared in 1362. Langland constantly worked on the poem and further versions were circulated in 1377 and 1395. Over sixty copies of The Vision of Piers Plowman have survived, which suggests that Langland's poem must have been extremely popular in the Middle Ages.

Langland may also have been the author of Richard the Redeless, a poem attacking the rule of Richard I. Langland died in about 1400.

The 17th period

John Milton

was born in London. His mother, Sarah Jeffrey, a very religious person, was the daughter of a merchant sailor. Milton's father, named John, too, had risen to prosperity as a scrivener or law writer - he also composed madrigasl and psalm settings. The family was wealthy enough to afford a second house in the country.

One of the greatest poets of the English language, best-known for his epic poem PARADISE LOST (1667). Milton's powerful, rhetoric prose and the eloquence of his poetry had an immense influence especially on the 18th-century verse. Besides poems, Milton published pamphlets defending civil and religious rights.

Work:

·        Comus (1634)

·        paradise lost (1667)

·        History of Britain(1670)

Bacon, Francis 1909-92,

English painter, writer; b. Ireland. Self-taught, he expressed the satirical, horrifying, and hallucinatory in such works as Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944; Tate Gall., London).

The restoration and 18th century

John Dryden,

an English poet and dramatist who would dominate literary efforts of The Restoration, was born on August 19, 1631, in Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, England. He received a classical education at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, then moved to London in 1657 to commence his career as a professional writer. His first play, The Wild Gallant (1663), was a failure when first presented, but Dryden soon found more success with The Indian Queen (1664) which he co-authored with Sir Robert Howard and which served as his initial attempt to found a new theatrical genre, the heroic tragedy. Although George Villiers' The Rehearsal, a vicious satire of heroic tragedy, brought a quick end to the form, Dryden still managed to produce a number of successful works in this genre including The Indian Emperor (1665) and Secret Love (1667) which mixed heroic tragedy with contemporary comedy.

Daniel defoe

1660 Born in London in 1660; son of a tallow-chandler

1666 Witnessed both Plague and Great Fire of 1666

1667 Educated first at Dorking, then at Morton's Academy for Dissenters, Newington Green; to become a Presbyterian Minister

1684 Married Mary Tuffley insufficient to keep him from bankruptcy; later jailed for debt

1685 Fighting briefly in the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion

1688 Supporter of William of Orange in the �Glorious' Revolution

1702 Wrote The Shortest Way with Dissenters Fined, put in the pillory and then jailed at Newgate Prison. Intervention by a Tory minister, Robert Harley, secured his release. Defoe served next eleven years as a secret agent and political journalist. Wrote over 500 books, pamplets and journals on politics, crime, religion, geography, marriage, psychology and the supernatural.

1719 publish  Robinson Crusoe

1722 Wrote Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year and Roxana followed shortly after.

1731 Died

            + Ulysses(1922)

            + Dubliners

            + A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man (1916)

             + Finnegans Wake (1939)

             + Work in Progress