Western literature
Western literature, also known as European literature,[1] is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family[1] as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque and Hungarian. Western literature is considered one of the defining elements of Western civilization.
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The best of Western literature is considered to be the Western canon. The list of works in the Western canon varies according to the critic's opinions on Western culture and the relative importance of its defining characteristics.
Different literary periods held great influence on the literature of Western and European countries, with movements and political changes impacting the prose and poetry of the period. The 17th century was influenced by both Baroque and Jacobean forms of literature, which progressed into the 18th century, which was also known as the Enlightenment Era for many western countries. This period of military and political advancement influenced the style of literature created by French, Russian and Spanish literary figures.[2] The 19th century was known as the Romantic era, in which the style of writing differed from the previous classicist form.
Western literature includes written works in many languages:
- Albanian literature
- American literature
- Argentine literature
- Australian literature
- Austrian literature
- Basque literature
- Belarusian literature
- Belgian literature
- Bosnian literature
- Brazilian literature
- British literature
- Bulgarian literature
- Canadian literature
- Catalan literature
- Croatian literature
- Colombian literature
- Cypriot literature
- Czech literature
- Danish literature
- Dutch literature
- English literature
- Estonian literature
- Finnish literature
- French literature
- Gaelic literature
- German literature
- Greek literature
- Hungarian literature
- Icelandic literature
- Irish literature
- Italian literature
- Kashubian literature
- Latin literature
- Latin American literature
- Latvian literature
- Lithuanian literature
- Macedonian literature
- Maltese literature
- Mexican literature
- New Zealand literature
- Northern Irish literature
- Norwegian literature
- Polish literature
- Portuguese literature
- Romanian literature
- Russian literature
- Scottish literature
- Serbian literature
- Slovak literature
- Slovene literature
- Sorbian literature
- Spanish literature
- Swedish literature
- Swiss literature
- Ukrainian literature
- Welsh literature
- Yiddish literature
References
- "Western literature". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
- Zorin, Andrei (1998). "Faced with a Difficult Test". Russian Studies in Literature. 35: 28–30 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
External links
- Media related to European literature at Wikimedia Commons