Memorise British Literature Chronology Using Mnemonics
UGC NET sometimes asks questions which require you to arrange some works in chronological order of their publication. How do you solve such chronology questions?
There are two ways. First, memorise all the major publishing dates. This sounds tedious and very time consuming. What if there was a way to memorise the chronologies without rattafication or thinking about publishing years at all? That is the second way.
Basically, if you know the relative chronology of any two or three works in the question, you can solve almost any chronology question easily. So, instead of memorising all dates, you memorise only a set number of works in order. The best way to do this is via mnemonics.
Mnemonics are a memorisation tool which converts a set of data into a sentence or a number which makes it easier to memorise.
Below are some mnemonics that we made with our students in a fun session which will help you tackle all chronology based questions.
How are the texts organised?
UGC NET asks two types of chronological questions:
- Arranging texts of a particular author in chronology,
- Arranging texts of a particular age or kind in chronology.
To address both, our mnemonics are based on both author, kind and age of the texts. That is why you will see some works repeat. Some works are also omitted because the goal is to memorise relative chronology not entirety of it.
How to memorise the mnemonics? You can use our flashcards which will help you memorise all of these in about an hour. You can find them in our Complete Revision Course
Click below for the mnemonics and the works which are covered in them. Each bold/Capital letter represents a words.
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NOTE: If you find any mistake in these lists, please send a mail to shivesh@theliteraryodyssey.com. Shakespeare chronology is taken from a reliable source, if you have seen a different source please cross check 3-4 more sources first. The Literary Odyssey LLP is not responsible for any mistakes the list of works may have since we have gathered this date from other sources