Library: Naugatuck Valley ENG 2520 British Literature to 1798: Background Information & Reference Sources

Online Reference Books

Online Reference Books

Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Entries by more than 200 authorities covering all of British literature.
Dictionary of Shakespeare
A comprehensive dictionary that covers the plays, poems, characters and background to Shakespeare's works. The dictionary also includes terms used in the theatre and stagecraft, as well as historical references and details on the Elizabethan historical and social period.
Shakespeare's Theatre: A Dictionary of His Stage Context
Reviews current knowledge of the character and operation of theatres in Shakespeare's time...
Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature
This reference book is a comprehensive guide to medieval literature. While the volume is devoted primarily to the literature of medieval England, its multicultural scope also encompasses Islamic, Mongolian, Celtic, Hispanic, Italian, Russian, and Germanic works
The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English
An authoritative and international survey of world literature in English. The Guide covers everything from Old English to Contemporary Writing from all over the English-speaking world. It covers poems, novels, literary journals and plays.
The Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature
The key attractions are entries on writers, entries on individual works, Biblical and mythological characters and events, literary and critical terms and movements, and entries describing historical, cultural and social events.

Old English & Middle English

Beowulf: Topic Page
An anonymous Old English epic poem in alliterative verse, believed to have been composed in the 8th century AD.
Old English: Topic Page
General name for the range of dialects spoken by Germanic settlers in England between the 5th and 12th centuries AD, also known as Anglo-Saxon. MORE
Middle English: Topic Page
Period of the English language from about 1050 to 1550. MORE
Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1340 - 1400): Topic Page
English poet. The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, reveals his knowledge of human nature and his stylistic variety, from the sophisticated and subtly humorous to the simple and bawdy.
Sir Thomas Malory (c.1410 - 1471)
From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
The legend of King Arthur remains alive in English literature today largely because of the work of Malory, who shaped it into what is sometimes seen as the first novel in English, published by William CAXTON in 1485 as Le Morte d’Arthur (wr. ca. 1470).
Sir Thomas More (1478 - 1535): Topic Page
Born in London on 7 February 1478, and executed on Tower Hill in the same city on 6 July 1535.

Elizabethan & Jacobean Periods

Elizabethan Literature
From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
The principal characteristics of Elizabethan literature are its diversity and inventiveness, which were spread across not only the already traditional forms of poetry and drama, but the less securely established one of prose fiction.
Jacobean Era: Topic Page
Style in the arts, influential upon architecture and furniture as well as literature, during the reign of James I (1603-25) in England.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616): Topic Page
English dramatist and poet, b. Stratford-on-Avon. He is widely considered the greatest playwright who ever lived.

Mid-Seventeenth Century

Restoration Literature
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
Prose, poetry, and drama written in English in Britain during the Restoration (the period when the monarchy, in the person of Charles II, was re-established after the English Civil War and the fall of the Protectorate in 1660).
John Locke
Locke was born on 29 August 1632 at Wrington, Somerset, into a Puritan family of the minor gentry. He died on 28 October 1704 at Oates in Essex...
John Bunyan (1628 -1688): Topic Page
English preacher and writer, noted particularly for his allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (1678).
John Milton (1608 - 1674): Topic Page
English poet. His early works, notably L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (1632), the masque Comus (1634), and the elegy Lycidas (1637), show the influence of his Christian humanist education and his love of Italian Renaissance poetry.