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The HyperTexts
English Poetry Timeline
This is a chronology of English poetry, from the earliest Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman poetry, to the present day. All dates are AD. Some dates are approximations or educated guesses. This page is a work in progress, so please revisit it from time to time to see how far we've come! You can click on any hyperlinked poem title to read the poem or an excerpt and learn more about its history, context and writer(s).
Anglo-Saxon Period (499-1066)
The most ancient Old English poetry is actually Anglo-Saxon, which is heavily Germanic. The Angles and Saxons were Germanic tribes who relocated to England. (The name England derives from "Angle Land.") The Anglo-Saxon era ends with the Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. From that day forward, Anglo-Norman and Latin poetry would dominate until the resurrection of "more English" poetry with the pens of poets like Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard. The defining Anglo-Saxon poems includeCaedmon's Hymn, Bede'sDeath Song , Wulf and EadwacerandBeowulf.
499 Anglo-Saxons invade England
537 Battle of Camlan; possible death of King Arthur
658Caedmon's Hymn, the first English poem still extant today, marks the beginning of what came to be known as English poetry
673 Birth of Bede, the scholar/poet/historian who came to be known as the Venerable Bede and Good Bede
680 Possible earliest date for the composition ofBeowulf
700 Cynewulf pens four Anglo-Saxon poems:Christ II,Elene,The Fates of the ApostlesandJuliana;runic extracts fromThe Dream of the Roodare carved on the Ruthwell Cross
735 Bede'sDeath Song
800 Cynewulf writes and signs four Anglo-Saxon poems:Christ II,Elene,The Fates of the ApostlesandJuliana
871 King Alfred the Great unites the Anglo-Saxons, defeats the Danes and becomes the first king of a united England
900 Deor, a scop, is writing poems such asDeor's Lament
924 King Athelstan reigns; he takes the title "King of all Britain" after defeating an alliance of Scots, Celts, Danes and Vikings
937 King Athelstan's victory at the battle of Brunanburh is celebrated by a poem in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle
950 Four early poetry manuscripts:Junius,theVercelli Book, theExeter BookandBeowulf;possible first extant English poem written by a woman isWulf and Eadwacer;another such contender isThe Wife's Lament;other notable poems includeThe Seafarer, The Wanderer, The Husband's Message, The Phoenix, WidsithandThe Ruin
978 King Ethelred the Unready reigns; he loses battles with the Danes, pays Danegeld and eventually flees to Normandy
991 The Battle of Maldon, a poem about a battle between the English and Danes that took place in 991
1016 King Cnut (Canute) rules Denmark, Norway, England and parts of Sweden, but when he dies his huge empire disintegrates
1028 Birth of William of Normandy, also known as William the Bastard
1042 King Edward the Confessor reigns; he promises the throne of England to William of Normandy (soon to be known as the Conqueror)
1066 William the Conqueror defeats Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, becomes King William I; end of the Anglo-Saxon era
Anglo-Norman or Middle English Period (1066-1332)
During the Anglo-Norman era the English people and their language were subjugated to their conquerors, who preferred Latin and French poetry. But the conquerors had no answer for the attractions of Geoffrey Chaucer, who by 1362 was writing poetry in a rough-but-still-usually-understandable version of early modern English.
1085 William I orders extensive surveys of his English holdings, recorded in theDomesday Book
1086 William I notifies the Pope that England owes no allegiance to Rome, the first of many British rifts with the Vatican
1087 William II reigns
1095 First Crusade
1100 Henry I reigns; Layamon writesBrut, a 32,000-line poem
1154 Henry II reigns
1155 Wace's Anglo-NormanRoman de Brut
1160 Walter Map, Anglo-Latin poet, is writing poems; Thomas of Britain's Anglo-NormanTristan
1162 Henry II has Thomas a Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, assassinated
1172 Wace's Anglo-NormanRoman de Rou
1189 Richard I, akaRichard Cur de Lion ("Richard the Lionheart") reigns; he joins the Third Crusade; his brother John acts as regent
1195 Richard I returns to England briefly, but soon is off again to fight in France
1199 King John reigns after Richard I dies in France
1215 TheMagna Carta,drafted in French, forces King John to grant liberties and rights to Englishmen in return for taxation
1216 Henry III reigns
1200 How Long the Night
1230 Guillaume de Lorris writesRoman de la Rose
1250 Nicholas of Guildford writesThe Owl and the Nightingale
1265 Birth of Dante Alighieri; Simon de Montfort summons the first directly-elected English Parliament
1272 Edward I ("Longshanks") reigns, is crowned upon his return from the Ninth Crusade
1275 Jean de Meun extendsRoman de la Rose
1296 Edward I defeats the Scots, seizes the throne of Scotland, removes the Stone of Scone to Westminster
1300 Dame Sirith, the earliest English fabliau; also the romancesGuy of WarwickandBevis of Hampton
1306 Robert Bruce is crowned King of Scotland; Edward I dies on his way north to invade Scotland
1307 Edward II reigns; Dante'sDivina Commedia("Divine Comedy")
1314 Robert Bruce defeats Edward II; lyricsAlysounandLenten ys come with love to toune("Let us come with love to town")
1325 Cursor Mundi, a verse history of the world; births of poets John Gower and William Langland
1327 Edward III reigns
1332 English replaces French in Parliament and courts of law, heralding the end of the Anglo-Norman era
Medieval or Chaucerian Period (1332-1486)
Chaucer made the English vernacular popular in much the same way that Dante made the Italian vernacular popular and Martin Luther made the German vernacular popular. But English poetry was to shape-shift yet again with the appearance of Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, both born in the first decade of the sixteenth century.
1340 Birth of Geoffrey Chaucer
1348 The Black Death kills one-third of the population of England
1350 Boccaccio'sDecameron
1352 WynnereandWastoure
1356 Edward III's eldest son, the Black Prince (also named Edward), is victorious in France; England controls most of southwest France
1362 Chaucer is writing poems in English
1368 Chaucer'sThe Book of the Duchessmemorializes the death of John of Gaunt's wife Blanche
1376 Edward III and the Black Prince die within a year of each other; John Gower'sMirour de l'OmmeorSpeculum Meditantis
1377 Richard III reigns; William Langland'sPiers Plowman
1380 Works of the so-called Gawain poet, includingPearl, Patience, CleannessandSir Gawain and the Green Knight;John Wyclif translates the Bible into English
1381 The poll tax leads to the Peasants Revolt; Watt Tyler and John Ball march on London; Chaucer'sTroilus and Criseyde
1382 Richard III promises to repeal the poll taxes, but returning rebels are executed; John Wycliffe translates theBibleinto English
1387 Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales
1388 Scots defeat Henry Hotspur at the Battle of Otterburn
1399 Richard III is deposed and dies of starvation in captivity; King Henry IV returns from exile in France to reign
1400 The alliterativeMorte Arthure("Death of Arthur"); the death of Chaucer leavesCanterbury Talesunfinished
1401 Owain Glyndwr leads Welsh revolt against English rule; his treaty with France compounds England's troubles
1406 James I of Scotland, while captive in England, writesThe Kingis Quair
1412 John Lydgate'sTroy Book
1413 King Henry V reigns
1415 Henry V attacks France in order to win back lost English territories there; he captures Harfleur and wins the battle of Agincourt; he or his son are in the line of succession to become King of France
1422 Henry VI reigns as King of England and France, but is only eight months old; regents are appointed
1426 John Lydgate'sThe Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, a translation of Guillaume de Deguileville'sPleringe
1429 Joan of Arc, a young French peasant girl, begins her campaign to drive the English from France with considerable support and success
1431 Joan of Arc is burned at the stake as a witch; Henry VI is crowned King of France in Paris
1440 Eton College is founded and provides free education to 70 scholars
1453 England loses all its French possession except Calais and the Channel Islands, ending the Hundred Years' War; the Wars of the Roses begin almost immediately, with the houses of York and Lancaster pitted violently against each other
1460 Henry VI is captured by Yorkists but is freed by an army raised by his wife Margaret; births of the poets John Skelton and William Dunbar
1461 Henry VI and Margaret are defeated, flee to Scotland; Edward, the son of Richard of York, declares himself King Edward IV
1464 Henry VI is captured and brought to the Tower of London
1469 Edward IV is defeated, flees to Flanders; Henry VI is restored to the throne
1471 Edward IV returns to England, defeats Margaret's army; Henry VI is stabbed to death in the Tower of London
1473 William Caxton prints the first typeset English book, his translation of the history of Troy
1477 William Caxton prints Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales
1483 Edward IV dies; his son Edward V reigns briefly but is declared illegitimate and is probably murdered in the Tower of London; Richard III declares himself King
1485 Henry Tudor lands in Wales, then defeats and kills Richard III, becoming King Henry VII
1486 Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York, uniting the houses of Lancaster and York and cementing the Tudor dynasty; the Wars of the Roses end
Tudor and Elizabethan Period (1486-1620)
The Tudor era saw the introduction of the sonnet and blank verse, both of which were based on iambic pentameter. The poetry of Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard may mark the beginning of modern English poetry. The era ended with the deaths of Queen Elizabeth and William Shakespeare in the first decade of the seventeenth century.
1491 Birth of Henry Tudor (Henry VIII)
1492 Columbus discovers the Americas; John Skelton made Laureate by the University of Louvain
1503 Birth of Thomas Wyatt, perhaps the first modern English poet; William Dunbar'sThe Thrissill and the RoisandSweet Rose of Virtue
1507 William Dunbar'sThe Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis, The Goldyn Targe,Lament for the MakarisandThe Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen
1509 King Henry VIII reigns; birth of Henry Howard, poet and first cousin of Anne Boleyn
1517 Martin Luther publishes his 95 theses against the Roman Catholic Church, starting the Protestant Reformation
1521 Pope Leo X declares King Henry VIII theFidei Defensoror Defender of the Faith, in honor of Henry's bookDefense of the Seven Sacraments,which attacked Luther's theology and was dedicated to Leo X
1527 Henry VIII seeks the Pope's permission to divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon but is refused, creating a huge rift and leading to Henry's "divorce" from the Roman Catholic Church
1533 Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn in defiance of Rome and many of his own bishops and advisors, including Thomas More, his former Chancellor; Pope Clement VII excommunicates Henry; Henry soon declares himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England
1534 Around this time, Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard introduce the English sonnet, modeled after the Petrarchan sonnet
1535 Sir Thomas More is executed after refusing to recognize Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church of England; Thomas Cromwell is made Vicar-General and begins to seize the Church's lands and other holdings; first complete English translation of theBibleby Miles Coverdale
1536 Anne Boleyn is beheaded; Henry VIII marries his third wife, Jane Seymour; Thomas Wyatt, imprisoned in the Tower of London for his alleged affair with Anne Boleyn, may have written his great poemsWhoso List to HuntandThey Flee from Mearound this time
1537 Jane Seymour dies giving birth to Prince Edward (later Edward VI); Henry Howard develops blank verse in his translation of theAeneid
1539 The abbots of Colchester, Glastonbury and Reading are executed for treason as Henry VIII continues to acquire Church holdings
1540 Henry VIII marries his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, in January but the marriage is annulled in July; Thomas Cromwell is executed for treason; Henry marries his fifth wife, Catherine Howard
1542 Catherine Howard is executed for treason; James V of Scotland dies and is succeeded by his six-day-old daughter Mary (later, Mary Queen of Scots)
1543 Henry VIII marries the twice-widowed Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife
1547 Henry Howard is decapitated on the order of Henry VIII, who dies the same year; King Edward VI reigns at age nine, but is sickly
1552 Birth of Edmund Spencer, perhaps the first great English Romantic poet and precursor of Shelley, Keats, et al
1553 Edward VI dies of tuberculosis; his will appoints Lady Jane Grey as his successor but his sister Mary deposes her and reigns as Queen Mary I
1554 Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger leads a revolt to depose Mary I, who was Catholic and considering a marriage to the Catholic Philip of Spain; the revolt is crushed and Wyatt and Lady Jane Grey are executed; Mary's sister Elizabeth is sent to the Tower of London; Mary marries Philip of Spain
1555 "Bloody Mary" begins her brutal persecution of Protestants; she has 283 religious dissenters killed, most of them burned at the stake, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer
1557 Tottel's Miscellany,perhaps the first modern English poetry publication,includes poems by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard
1558 Mary I dies childless; Queen Elizabeth I reigns; Protestant reforms are reinstituted but Elizabeth is not as bloody as her sister Mary
1563 John FoxesThe Book of Martyrs, about religious persecutions, is published
1564 Birth of William Shakespeare, generally considered the greatest English poet and playwright (and also a talented songwriter)
1565 Sir Walter Raleigh, a poet and explorer, brings potatoes and tobacco from the New World
1566 Isabella Whitney'sThe Copy of a Letter
1568 Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England and is imprisoned by Elizabeth
1572 Births of poets John Donne and Ben Jonson
1579 Edmund Spenser'sShepheardes Calender;Sir Philip Sidney'sOld ArcadiaandDefence of PoetryorAn Apologie for Poetrie
1582 Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway
1584 Sir Walter Raleigh founds the first American colony and names it Virginia after Elizabeth (the Virgin Queen)
1585 James VI of Scotland writesEssays of a Prentice in the Arte of Poesie, citing the poems of Alexander Montgomerie
1586 Chidiock Tichborne is hanged, castrated, and disemboweled for treason; the great elegy he wrote to himself while awaiting death in the Tower of London is now known asTichborne's Elegy
1587 Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed at Fotheringhay Castle on charges of treason
1588 A Spanish Armada of 130 ships sailing against England is defeated by bad weather and the English fleet under admirals Francis Drake and John Hawkins; the resulting English dominance of the seas greatly enhances the prospects of the British Empire
1590 Shakespeare'sRomeo and JulietandA Midsummer Night's Dream;Edmund Spencer'sThe Faerie Queene
1591 Sir Philip Sidney'sAstrophel and Stella
1591 John Donne is writing satires, elegies, songs and sonnets
1593 Shakespeare'sVenus and Adonis;the poet/playwrightChristopher Marlowe is murdered, perhaps assassinated, at age 29
1594 Shakespeare is a member of the Lord Chamberlain's men
1595 The poet Robert Southwell is hanged, drawn and quartered
1597 Francis Bacon'sEssays;John Dowland'sThe First Booke of Songes or Ayres
1597 George Chapman's translation of Homer'sIlliad
1598 Shakespeare acts in Ben Jonson's playSejanus
1599 The Globe Theater opens for business in London; Christopher Marlowe'sThe Passionate Shepherd to his Loveis answered by Sir Walter Raleigh'sThe Nymph's Reply
1600 The East India Company is founded; Thomas Nashe's poemA Litany in the Time of Plague
1601 The first performance of Shakespeare'sHamlet; Thomas Campion's poemsMy Sweetest LesbiaandWhen to Her Lute Corinna Sings
1603 Death of Queen Elizabeth I; James VI of Scotland becomes King James I of England, Scotland, and Ireland; Sir Walter Raleigh is sent to the Tower of London
1604 Shakespeare is granted a coat of arms; James I becomes a patron of Shakespeare's acting company
1606 John Donne'sSong,The Sunne RisingandThe Cannonizationare written around this time, are published two years after his death, in 1633
1608 Birth of the English poet John Milton; Donne writes hisHoly Sonnets
1609 Shakespeare completes hisSonnets
1610 Galileo says the earth moves around the sun, comes close to losing his life to the Roman Catholic Church, will spend his last days under house arrest
1611 TheKing James Bibleis published; it says the earth is immovable with fixed foundations
1612 Heretics are burned at the stake in England for the last time
1613 The Globe Theatre burns during a performance of Shakespeare'sHenry VIII
1616 Death of William Shakespeare; Ben Jonson'sWorksincludingOn My First SonandSong: To Celia; George Chapman's translation of Homer'sIliadandOdyssey
1618 Sir Walter Raleigh fails in his last expedition to find El Dorado and upon his return to England is executed for alleged treason; he writes his great poemThe Liewhile incarcerated in the Tower of London
The Cavalier Era
The Cavalier Era is marked by poems that praise the virtues of war, chivalry, state, God, church and religion. Far greater poets to come (i.e., John Milton, William Blake, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, A. E. Housman, Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, et al) were more realistic, and dissenters.
1620 The Pilgrims set sail for America in the Mayflower; they land at Cape Cod and found the New Plymouthcolony
1628 Ann Dudley marries, becoming Anne Bradstreet, then sails to America in 1630
1633 George Herbert'sRedemption, Virtue, The Collar, The Pulley, The Temple
1638 Sir John Suckling'sSong: Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
1640 Thomas Carew'sA Song, To My Inconstant Mistress
1645 Edmund Waller'sSong: Go, Lovely Rose; On a Girdle
1646 Richard Crashaw'sOn the Baptized Ethiopian(one of the first English language poems to express the idea of racial equality)
1648 Robert Herrick'sDelight in Disorder; To Daffodils; Upon Julia's Clothes; To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
1649 Richard Lovelace'sTo Lucasta, Going to the Wars; To Althea, from Prison; To Amaratha, That She Would Dishevel Her Hair
1650 Anne Bradstreet'sThe Vanity of All Worldly Things(perhaps the first notable poem by an American poet); her bookThe Tenth Museis the first poetry collection published by an English woman
1655 Henry Vaughan'sRegeneration, The Retreat
1659 James Shirley'sThe Glories of Our Blood and State;Sir John Suckling'sOut Upon It!
The Miltonian Era
John Milton stands out as the first great Romantic, anti-establishment poet: a powerful voice of strong dissent against the status quo. While he claimed to "justify the ways of God to man," as William Blake pointed out, Milton actually spoke for the rebellious angels, and made Romantic heroes of Satan, Adam and Eve.
1645 John Milton'sL'Allegro, Il Penseroso, On Shakespeare, How Soon Hath Time
1660 John Miltonbriefly jailed after copies of his books were burned by the public executioner; he was pardoned in December
1667 John Milton'sParadise Lostis published
1671 John Milton'sParadise Regainedis published
1673 John Milton'sMethought I Saw,When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
The Metaphysical Era
The metaphysical poets seemed to over-value wit and extravagant, strained "conceits." As a result, the poems of the era's major poets, John Dryden and Alexander Pope, may strike modern readers as being fanciful, boring and overly didactic. If they were trying to emulate John Donne, it seems they lacked his passionate warmth and as a result their poems failed to be moving, the test of true poetry.
1681 Andrew Marvell'sTo His Coy Mistress
1682 John Dryden'sMac Flecknoe
1709 Alexander Pope'sAn Essay on Criticism
1712 Alexander Pope'sThe Rape of the Lock
1733 Alexander Pope'sAn Essay on Man
1743 Alexander Pope'sThe Dunciad
1749 Samuel Johnson'sThe Vanity of Human Wishes
The Romantic Era
The Romantic Movement brought a sea change in to the world of art, poetry, literature and other creative endeavors. The writers and artists of the Romantic Movement created work that celebrated nature, individuality and (one might suggest) heresy. Emotion, imagination, and independent thinking are three elements commonly found in Romanticism.
1712 Birth of the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, who believed in the value of the individual and his/her capacity for good.
1716 Birth of the English poet Thomas Gray.
1750 Rousseau becomes famous for hisDiscourse on the Arts and Sciences.
1751 Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard" is one of the greatest poems in the English language: it validates the value of Everyman, a major Romantic theme.
1752 Birth of the English poet Thomas Chatterton, called the "marvellous boy" by William Wordsworth. Wordsworth named Chatterton one of his primary influences even though he died at age seventeen.
1755 Rousseau has a significant article on political economy published inDiderot's landmarkEncyclopdie.
1757 Birth of the English poet William Blake, perhaps the greatest of the English Romantic poets; Edmund Burke'sPhilosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful
1759 Birth of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, generally considered to be the greatest Scottish poet of all time; Christopher Smart's "Jubilate Agno"
1760 The beginning of the Industrial Revolution, a significant influence on the artists and writers of the Romantic Movement.
1761 Rousseau's novelJulie, or the New Heloiseis published. It contains rhapsodic descriptions of nature and becomes an immense success.
1762 Rousseau'sEmile, or on Educationis published. Because it denies original sin and divine revelation, both Catholic and Protestant authorities take offense.
1770 Birth of the English poet William Wordsworth; Oliver Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village" is published; death by suicide of Thomas Chatterton, the "marvellous boy," at age seventeen.
1772 Birth of the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
1773 Phyllis Wheatley'sPoemsis the first book of poetry by an Afro-American slave.
1774 Birth of the English poet Robert Southey; William Cowper's "Lines Written During a Period of Insanity" is written.
1778 Rousseau dies.
1782 Rousseau'sConfessionsis published posthumously.
1783 Blake'sPoetical Sketches.
1786 Robert Burns has the poems "To a Mouse," "A Winter Night" and "To a Mountain Daisy"published.
1787 The poem "An Evening Walk"by William Wordsworth is published.
1788 Birth of the English poet George Gordon, Lord Byron.
1789 Start of the French Revolution. The upheavals in France greatly influenced the artists and writers of the Romantic Movement. William Blake'sSongs of Innocenceis published; the poems include "The Lamb," "Holy Thursday" and "The Little Black Boy."
1792 Birth of the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
1793 Birth of the English poet John Clare.
1794 Blake'sSongs of Experienceis published; the poems include "The Sick Rose," "London" and "The Tyger."
1795 Birth of the English poet John Keats.
1796 Robert Burns dies.
1797 Robert Southey's poem "Winter"is published.
1797 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin is born in England; Samuel Taylor Coleridge writesThe Rime of the Ancient MarinerandKubla Khan.
1798 Lyrical Ballads,written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, is published. This poetry collection becomes the foundational text of the Romantic Movement.
1805 Sir Walter Scott'sThe Lay of the Last Minstrel.
1807 Thomas Moore'sIrish Melodies.
1814 Oxford University expels Percy Bysshe Shelley for writing a tract on the necessity of atheism.
1814 Lord Byron's poem"She Walks in Beauty (Like the Night)"is published.
1814 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin marries Percy Bysshe Shelley.
1816 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's "Christabel."
1817 William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis"
1818 The poem "Endymion" by John Keatsis published.
1818 The novelFrankensteinby Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is published. It is a landmark Gothic/Romantic work.
1819 John Keats publishes his famous poems"Ode to a Grecian Urn"and"Ode to a Nightingale."
1819 "Don Juan"by Lord Byron is published.
1820 Percy Bysshe Shelley's poems"To a Skylark,""Ode to the West Wind" and "Prometheus Unbound"are published.
1821 John Keats dies at age twenty-five.
1822 Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns in a boating accident at age thirty.
1824 Lord Byron dies at age thirty-six, due to complications related to a fever.
1827 Edgar Allan Poe'sTamarlane and Other Poems.
1830 Alfred, Lord Tennyson publishes "The Kraken" and other lyrical poems.
1832 John Clare's poem"Remembrances"is published.
1835 John Clare's poem "Evening" is published.
The Victorian Era
1837 Queen Victoria takes the throne of the United Kingdom, heralding the decline Romanticism and the rise of much more staid Victorianism.
1839 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow'sVoices of the Night.
1842 Robert Browning'sDramatic Lyrics, including "My Last Duchess."
1846 Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning are married: poetry's first "super couple." Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and Anne Bronte publish a joint collection of poems.
1847 Tennyson publishes "Tears, Idle Tears." Longfellow publishes "Evangeline."
1850 Tennyson publishes "In Memoriam" and is made Poet Laureate.
1854 Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade."
Early Modernism
1861 The Confederates attack Fort Sumter, starting the Civil War.
1862 Emily Dickinson's "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" is published; hers is one of the first voices of modernism.
1865 Walt Whitman publishes his elegy for Abraham Lincoln, "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd." His was another uniquely modern voice.
1867 Matthew Arnold's magnificent "Dover Beach," one of the first great poems of modernism.
1871 Lewis Carroll'sThrough the Looking Glass.
1881 Oscar Wilde's poems are published; he and Whitman were among the first gay poets to "come out" publicly.
1884 Mark Twain'sHuckleberry Finntakes a strong stand against racism and slavery. Huck says he would rather go to hell then turn in his friend Jim, the escaped slave.
1889 William Butler Yeats publishesThe Wanderings of Oisin.He would become a leading poet of modernism.
1890 Emily Dickinson's poems are published posthumously.
1896 A. E. Housman'sA Shropshire Lad. Gay and an atheist, Housman was one of the strongest voices of early modernism.
1898 Thomas Hardy'sWessex Poems. Oscar Wilde'sThe Ballad of Reading Gaol.
1899 Ernest Dowson'sDecorations: in Verse and Prose. Dowson would be a major influence on T. S. Eliot, and thus on modernism.
Modernism
1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright fly the first airplane.
1905 Albert Einstein reveals his Special Theory of Relativity.
1907 James Joyce'sChamber Music.
1908 Ezra Pound'sA Lume Spento.
1910 "Memphis Blues" composed.
1912 Harriet Munroe founds the literary journalPoetry, is influenced by Pound. The Titanic sinks.
1913 D. H. Lawrence'sLove Poems.
1915 T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
1917 The U.S. enters World War I, begins to dominate international affairs.
1918 Wilfred Owen writes his graphic anti-war poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est." He dies just before the armistice.
1920 Women's suffrage adopted in the U.S.
1922 T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland."
1923 Wallace Stevens'sHarmonium. Yeats wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1924 Robert Frost wins the Pulitzer Prize.
1925 E. E. Cummings receives the Dial Award.
1926 Langston Hughes'The Weary Blues.
1928 Edward Arlington Robinson wins the Pulitzer Prize.
1930 Hart Crane'sThe Bridge.
1934 Adolf Hitler becomes dictator of Germany.
The HyperTexts