national epicstatus in England, despite being set inScandinavia. The next important landmark isthe works of the poetGeoffrey Chaucer(c. 1343–1400), especiallyThe Canterbury Tales. Thenduring TheRenaissance, especially the late 16th and early 17th centuries, major drama andpoetry was written byWilliam Shakespeare,Ben Jonson,John Donneand many others. Anothergreat poet, from later in the 17th century, wasJohn Milton(1608–74) author of theepic poemParadise Lost(1667). The late 17th and the early 18th century are particularly associated withsatire, especially in the poetry ofJohn DrydenandAlexander Pope, and the prose works ofJonathan Swift. The 18th century also saw the first British novels in the works ofDaniel Defoe,Samuel Richardson, andHenry Fielding, while the late 18th and early 19th century was theperiod of theRomantic poetsWordsworth,Coleridge,ShelleyandKeats.[citation needed]It was in theVictorian era(1837–1901) that the novel became the leadingliterary genreinEnglish,[1]dominated especially byCharles Dickens, but there were many other significantwriters, including theBrontësisters, and thenThomas Hardy, in the final decades of the 19thcentury. Americans began to produce major writers in the 19th century, including novelistHerman Melville, author ofMoby Dick(1851) and the poetsWalt WhitmanandEmilyDickinson. Another American,Henry James, was a major novelist of the late 19th and earlytwentieth century, while Polish-bornJoseph Conradwas perhaps the most important Britishnovelist of the first two decades of the 20th century.[citation needed]Irish writers were especially important in the 20th century, includingJames Joyce, and laterSamuel Beckett, both central figures in theModernistmovement. Americans, like poetsT. S.EliotandEzra Poundand novelistWilliam Faulkner, were other important modernists. In themid 20th century major writers started to appear in the various countries of the British
