European Literature

European Literature: Definition

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.

Fig. 1 - European literature began in ancient Greece.

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.

By the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, Christianity had become widespread throughout the Roman Empire, and religious morality began to make itself apparent in European texts.

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.

There was also a limited amount of secular prose and poetry produced across Europe. Drama also regained popularity, particularly towards the end of the Middle Ages.

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.

Fig. 2 - The Renaissance began in Italy in the 14th Century.

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

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

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

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.

In European literature, many sub-movements among Postmodern authors, such as the Theatre of the Absurd, developed in reaction to the senselessness of World War II. The Irish playwright Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is often cited as one of the most important figures in the Theatre of the Absurd movement, with his modern classic Waiting for Godot (1953) capturing the essential themes of existentialism and the meaninglessness of life.

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. Naming them all would be next to impossible in a single article, but some examples include in the following:

• Sophocles (Greece; 495-406 BCE)
• 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)
• Gustave Flaubert (French; 1821-1880)
• 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

There are important examples of European literature from every period of European history.

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)

Key Characteristics of European Literature

European literature is a diverse body of work that spans many countries, cultures, and languages. However, it does share certain characteristics that make it a unified body of work and set it apart from literature belonging to other parts of the world.

Primarily, European literature shares a common heritage. Nearly all forms of European literature can be traced back to the writings of the classical Greek and Roman periods. The literary forms still present in Europe to this day, such as poetry, fictional prose, drama, history, biography, etc., were established by Greek and Roman writers and then dispersed throughout the continent by the Roman Empire and Christianity.

The widespread reach of the Roman Empire and later of the Roman Catholic Church lent a degree of religious and cultural continuity to the many European countries reflected in the region’s literature.

The Contribution of European Literature

The importance of the European literary tradition cannot be overstated. The continent has produced some of the world’s most widely-read and influential writers and includes the literature of many significant cultures and languages. Writers such as Voltaire, Shakespeare, Hugo, Tolstoy, and Woolf have all offered insights into European history and culture while also at times questioning European views and philosophy as they developed over time.

Additionally, when European colonization began in earnest in the 15th century, European literary traditions were exported around the world and played a key role in transforming the literature of colonized countries. However, many indigenous literary traditions were lost to colonialism as a consequence. Post-colonial literature produced by writers such as Doris Lessing, Chinua Achebe, and Jean Rhys all critique the effects of European colonialism on language, culture, and literature in previously colonised countries. Achebe is especially known for defending his use of the English Language in his novels.

Today, there is hardly a writer alive that has not been influenced by some work of European literature including those who seek to critique or parody many European Literary traditions and topics.