A Brief History of the English Language and Literature Part 24

Edward VI. ascends the throne, 1547.

Mary Tudor ascends the throne, 1553.

+1550+

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. +1552-1618+. Courtier; statesman; sailor; coloniser; historian.

+History of the World+ (1614), written during the author's imprisonment in the Tower of London.

Cranmer burnt 1556.

RICHARD HOOKER. +1553-1600+. English clergyman; Master of the Temple; Rector of Bos...o...b.., in the diocese of Salisbury.

+Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity+ (1594). This book is an eloquent defence of the Church of England. The writer, from his excellent judgment, is generally called "the judicious Hooker."

Elizabeth ascends the throne, 1558.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. +1554-1586+. Courtier; general; romance-writer.

+Arcadia+, a romance (1580). +Defence of Poesie+, published after his death (in 1595). +Sonnets+.

+1560+

FRANCIS BACON. +1561-1626+. Viscount St Albans; Lord High Chancellor of England; lawyer; philosopher; essayist.

+Essays+ (1597); +Advancement of Learning+ (1605); +Novum Organum+ (1620); and other works on methods of inquiry into nature.

Hawkins begins slave trade in 1562.

Rizzio murdered, 1566.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. +1564-1616+. Actor; owner of theatre; play-writer; poet. Born and died at Stratford-on-Avon.

Thirty-seven plays. His greatest +tragedies+ are _Hamlet_, _Lear_, and _Oth.e.l.lo_. His best +comedies+ are _Midsummer Night's Dream_, _The Merchant of Venice_, and _As You Like It_. His best +historical plays+ are _Julius Caesar_ and _Richard III_. Many _minor poems_-- chiefly +sonnets+. He wrote no prose.

Marlowe, Dekker, Chapman, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford, Webster, Ben Johnson, and other dramatists, were contemporaries of Shakspeare.

+1570+

BEN JONSON. +1574-1637+. Dramatist; poet; prose-writer.

+Tragedies+ and +comedies+. Best plays: _Volpone or the Fox_; _Every Man in his Humour_.

Drake sails round the world, 1577.

Execution of Mary Queen of Scots, 1578.

+1580+

WILLIAM DRUMMOND ("of Hawthornden"). +1585-1649+. Scottish poet; friend of Ben Jonson.

+Sonnets+ and +poems+.

Raleigh in Virginia, 1584.

Babington's Plot, 1586.

Spanish Armada, 1588.

+1590+

THOMAS HOBBES. +1588-1679+. Philosopher; prose-writer; translator of Homer.

+The Leviathan+ (1651), a work on politics and moral philosophy.

Battle of Ivry, 1590.

+1600+

SIR THOMAS BROWNE. +1605-1682+. Physician at Norwich.

+Religio Medici+ (= "The Religion of a Physician"); +Urn-Burial+; and other prose works.

Australia discovered, 1601.

James I. ascends the throne in 1603.

JOHN MILTON. +1608-1674+. Student; political writer; poet; Foreign (or "Latin") Secretary to Cromwell. Became blind from over-work in +1654+.

_Minor Poems_; +Paradise Lost+; +Paradise Regained+; +Samson Agonistes+. Many prose works, the best being +Areopagitica+, a speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.

Hampton Court Conference for translation of Bible, 1604-11.

Gunpowder Plot, 1605.

+1610+

SAMUEL BUTLER. +1612-1680+. Literary man; secretary to the Earl of Carbery.

+Hudibras+, a mock-heroic poem, written to ridicule the Puritan and Parliamentarian party.

Execution of Raleigh, 1618.

JEREMY TAYLOR. +1613-1667+. English clergyman; Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland.

+Holy Living+ and +Holy Dying+ (1649); and a number of other religious books.

+1620+

JOHN BUNYAN. +1628-1688+. Tinker and traveling preacher.

+The Pilgrim's Progress+ (1678); the +Holy War+; and other religious works.

Charles I. ascends the throne in 1625.

Pet.i.tion of Right, 1628.

+1630+

JOHN DRYDEN. +1631-1700+. Poet-Laureate and Historiographer-Royal; playwright; poet; prose-writer.

+Annus Mirabilis+ (= "The Wonderful Year," 1665-66, on the Plague and the Fire of London); +Absalom and Achitophel+ (1681), a poem on political parties; +Hind and Panther+ (1687), a religious poem. He also wrote many plays, some odes and a translation of Virgil's +aeneid+. His prose consists chiefly of prefaces and introductions to his poems.

No Parliament from 1629-40.

Scottish National Covenant, 1638.

+1640+

Long Parliament, 1640-53.

Marston Moor, 1644.

Execution of Charles I., 1649.