EUROPEAN

LITERATURE
EUROPE
 EUROPE
• Europe is the second smallest continent in the world.
• It has over 40 countries, 44 of which are sovereign states.
• The world's largest country by area, Russia, spans across both Europe and
Asia.

• Here are the famous landmarks in Europe:

• Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
• La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
• Colosseum, Rome, Italy
• The Acropolis of Athens, Athens, Greece
• Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy
• The most commonly spoken languages in Europe are:
• Russian- is the most commonly spoken language in
Europe
• German
• French
• Italian
• English
 European Literature
• European literature is a broad term covering the literary
works produced in Europe, spanning many centuries,
languages, and genres. It includes some of the world's
oldest literary traditions, from the epic poetry of ancient
Greece and Rome to the modernist and postmodernist
movements of the 20th century. Known for its rich
diversity and profound influence on world literature,
European literature has been the source of numerous
stylistic innovations, narrative forms, and philosophical
ideas.
 A History of European Literature
European literature can be divided into various periods based
on stylistic, thematic, and cultural shifts. These include:

• The Classical period (c. 8th century BC to AD 5th century),

• Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries),
• Renaissance (14th to 17th centuries),
• Enlightenment (17th to 18th centuries),
• Romanticism (18th to 19th centuries),
• Modernism (late 19th to mid-20th centuries), and
• Postmodernism (mid-20th century onwards).
• Each period is marked by distinct literary
styles, themes, and genres that reflect the
historical and cultural contexts of the
times. European literature began in
ancient Greece nearly three thousand
years ago and followed the twists and
turns of European history.
 The Classical Period
• Literary activity has existed in Europe since ancient times,
with the societies of the ancient Greeks and Romans
generally considered the birthplace of Western literary
tradition.
• The earliest surviving European works from this period are
the classical Greek epic poems the Iliad and the
Odyssey, dating from the 8th century BCE and attributed
to the poet Homer (c. 8th century BCE). Nearly 3,000 years
later, modern audiences still read these works, significantly
influencing European literature.
• By the time the Romans conquered Greece in the 2nd century
BCE, the major categories of literature that we know
today, including drama, poetry, prose fiction, history,
philosophy, and biography, were already well established.
Many of these were divided into genres with clearly defined
rules and conventions, such as comedy and tragedy in
drama.
• Ancient Roman writers working in Latin began to emulate
Greek style, structure, and subject matter in their own work.
Over the centuries, the Romans began to find their own voice
and step away from mere imitations of Greek literature,
particularly in the fields of poetry and comic theatre.
 The Middle Ages
• The fall of the Roman Empire in 467 CE marked a turning
point in the history of European literature. The Roman
Catholic Church had spread throughout Europe thanks to
the reach of the Roman Empire, and the Church remained
the primary intellectual institution of the Medieval period.
Because of this, many of the surviving texts from the
Middle Ages are religious in nature, including hymns,
theological writings, and so-called mystery plays, which
usually depicted Biblical stories.
• In addition to religious texts, the Middle Ages also produced
secular literature, although in smaller quantities. Many of
these texts, such as the Welsh Y Gododdin (7th-11th
century) and the Old English Beowulf (700-1000 AD) were
based on myths or histories that had been recounted
orally for centuries but were finally written down during
the Middle Ages. Oftentimes, these stories were altered by
the Christian scholars who transcribed them. They added
Christian influences that would not have been present in the
original story's oral tradition, thus altering the historical record
that remains of these ancient pieces of literature.
 The Renaissance
• The Renaissance saw an explosion of artistic and cultural
activity emerging from years of plague, famine, and political
instability that marked the late Middle Ages. Beginning in
Italy in the 14th century and slowly spreading across Europe,
numerous discoveries in science, astrology, and geography
brought sweeping changes to society. A growing interest in
humanist philosophy caused intellectuals to revisit the
classical works of antiquity. The texts of the ancient Greeks
and Romans, largely forgotten during the Middle Ages, began
to inspire a new generation of European writers.
• Around 1440, the German goldsmith Johannes
Gutenberg invented the printing press, allowing literature
to be reproduced and distributed on a previously
unimaginable scale. Poetry flourished in France with the
Pléiade group, and the Spanish Miguel de Cervantes
(1547-1616) wrote Don Quixote (1605), widely considered
the first example of the modern novel.
• Drama was also a significant literary form during the
Renaissance, particularly in Elizabethan England,
where William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was busy
establishing himself as one of the greatest English-
language writers of all time with plays that are still
widely read and performed today, such as Romeo and
Juliet (1597) and Hamlet (1599-1601).
 The Enlightenment and Romanticism
• Romanticism was a literary movement that emphasized
individuality and strong emotions, idealized nature, and
explored universal themes such as love and loss.

• During the Enlightenment, the volume of printed material

significantly increased across Europe. Society placed
greater importance on reason, individuality, and
education.
• Accordingly, science and philosophy heightened, and great
thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John
Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-
1778) produced some of the Enlightenment period’s
most influential texts. Works like Hobbes' The Elements
of Law, Natural and Politic (1640), Locke's An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding (1689), and
Rousseau's The Social Contract (1762) remain some of
the most influential texts in the canon of Western
philosophy.
• By the end of the 18th century, however, European writers
began to reject the rationalism of the Enlightenment in
favor of sentimentality and imagination. Starting in
Germany in the late 1700s and emphasizing individual
expression in art and individual rights in politics,
Romanticism had become Europe’s dominant literary and
artistic movement by the beginning of the 19th century.
• Romantic writers such as Victor Hugo (1802-1885),
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), and William
Blake (1757-1827) emphasized the power of emotions,
the beauty of nature, and importance of giving the
imagination free rein. Works like Hugo's Les Miserables
(1862) and Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience
(1794) are frequently studied to understand the cultural,
morally philosophical, theological, and social views of
the early-to-mid nineteenth century, with texts like Les
Miserables important for critiquing French politics after
the French Revolution.
 Realism
• Realism was a literary movement beginning in the mid-
19th century where authors sought to depict life as
realistically as possible.
• By the mid-19th century, Realism had overtaken
Romanticism as authors rejected idealization in favor of a
realistic, if often bleak, depiction of everyday life. First
published in 1856, Madame Bovary by the French
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) is generally seen as the
herald of this new literary movement.
• Intensely focused on the mundane details and
dissatisfactions of Madame Bovary’s bourgeois life, the
novel marked a sharp contrast from the sweeping
romanticization and idealism of the Romantic period.
• Authors across Europe, including Leo Tolstoy (1828-
1910), Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), and Charles Dickens
(1812-1870) followed Flaubert’s example, using
literature to depict daily life and critique society and
middle-class morality.
 Modernism
• Modernism was a literary movement of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Authors were inspired to break away
from past literary conventions and play with their work’s
form, style, and structure.
• Towards the end of the 19th century, Realism gave way to
Modernism, a literary movement that continued the Realist
tradition of social critique but focused on the form and style of
writing instead of plot and content. This resulted in a variety of
new narrative techniques, including stream-of-consciousness
narration, non-linear storylines, and multiple viewpoints.
• Writers like James Joyce (1882-1941), Franz Kafka
(1883-1924), and Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) set a
prescient for experimentation that would carry on into
the 21st century. Modernist writers also explored the
effects of Industrialisation, war, and new technologies
on society.
 Famous modernist texts include:

• Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899)

• T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland (1922)
• James Joyce's Ulysses (1920)
• Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party" (1922)
• Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (1922
English Trans.)
• Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925)
 Postmodernism and Contemporary
Literature
• The end of World War II in 1945 generally marks the start
of the Postmodern period and the beginning of the
contemporary era. Postmodern authors used techniques
like intertextuality, parody, and metafiction to continue and
expand the literary experimentation that began with
Modernism.
• Intertextuality is a literary convention where an author
uses various techniques, including quotes, allusions, and
more, to refer to and connect their text to another.

• Parody is an exaggerated imitation of a work or style for

comedic effect and to mock or draw attention to specific
elements of a text.

• Metafiction is a literary technique where the author

draws attention to the constructed nature of the text itself.
 Authors of European Literature
• European literature includes some of the best-known authors in the world,
responsible for creating some of humanity’s greatest literary achievements.

• Sophocles (Greece; 495-406 BCE) • Gustave Flaubert (French; 1821-

• Dante Alighieri (Italy; 1265-1321)
• Miguel de Cervantes (Spain; 1547-
1616)
• William Shakespeare (England; 1564-
1616)
• William Blake (England; 1757-1827)
• Victor Hugo (French; 1802-1885)
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Germany; 1749-1832)
1880)
• Henrik Ibsen (Norway; 1828-1906)
• Leo Tolstoy (Russia; 1828-1910)
• Charles Dickens (England; 1812-
1870)
• James Joyce (Ireland; 1882-1941)
• Franz Kafka (Prague; 1883-1924)
• Virginia Woolf (England; 1882-1941)
 Classic Works of European Literature
Classical Greek and Roman Literature
Many works of literature from ancient Greece and Rome are still
widely read.

• The Iliad (c. 8th century BCE) by Homer

• The Odyssey (c. 8th century BCE) by Homer
• Medea (431 BCE) by Euripides (480-406 BCE)
• Metamorphoses (8th century CE) by Ovid (43 BCE-17/18 CE)
 Literature from the Middle Ages
The Church largely controlled European literature from the
Middle Ages; however, there are also some examples of secular
writings.
• Beowulf (c. 1000 CE) by Anonymous
• The Divine Comedy (1320) by Dante Alighieri (Italy; 1265-
1321)
• The Canterbury Tales (1392) by Geoffrey Chaucer (England; c.
1340s-1400)
• Everyman (1510) by Anonymous
 Literature from the Renaissance
The Renaissance represented a renewed interest in the
literature of antiquity and individual expression in art.
• Praise of Folly (1509) by Desiderius Erasmus (The
Netherlands; 1466-1536)
• Romeo and Juliet (1597) by William Shakespeare (England;
1564-1616)
• Don Quixote (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes (Spain; 1547-
1616)
• Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton (England; 1608-1674)
 Literature from the Enlightenment and
Romanticism
Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the rationalism of the
Enlightenment gradually faded into the sentimentality of
Romanticism.
• Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe (England; c. 1660-
1731)
• Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley (England; 1797-1851)
• Faust (1829) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Germany;
1749-1832)
• Les Miserables (1862) by Victor Hugo (France; 1802-1885)
 Realist Literature
By the mid-19th century, European writers had adopted Realism
to depict the mundanity of daily life in literature.

• Madame Bovary (1856) by Gustave Flaubert (France; 1821-

1880)
• A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles Dickens (England;
1812-1870)
• A Doll’s House (1879) by Henrik Ibsen (Norway; 1828-1906)
• War and Peace (1869) by Leo Tolstoy (Russia; 1828-1910)
 Modernist Literature
Modernism followed the literary movement of Realism in Europe
and represented an emphasis on form and structure in place of
plot and content.

• The Metamorphosis (1915) by Franz Kafka (Prague; 1883-

1924)
• Ulysses (1920) by James Joyce (Ireland; 1882-1941)
• Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by Virginia Woolf (England; 1882-1941)
• The Stranger (1942) by Albert Camus (France; 1913-1960)
 Postmodernist Literature
Postmodernist authors continued and expanded upon the
experimental tendencies that began during the Modernist
movement.
• Waiting for Godot (1953) by Samuel Beckett (Ireland; 1906-1989)
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) by John Fowles
(England; 1926-2005)
• If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979) by Italo Calvino (Italy; 1923-
1985)
• Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) by Umberto Eco (Italy; 1932-2016)