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EUROPEAN
LITERATURE
EUROPEAN LITERATURE
 European literature refers to
the literature of Europe.
 European literature includes literature in many
languages; among the most important of the
modern written works are those in English,
Spanish, French, Dutch, Polish, German, Italian,
Modern Greek, Czech, Russian, Bosnian and
works by the Scandinavians and Irish
 Also known as Western Literature.
EUROPEAN LITERATURE

PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE

 Renaissance Period – 1485- 1680.
 Enlightenment Period– 1650- 1800.

 Romanticism Period – 1798 – 1870.

 Realism Period– 1820-1920.

 Victorian Period – 1837- 1901.

 Modernism Period– 1910 – 1965.

 Post-Modernism Period– 1965- Present.

Renaissance Period – (1485- 1680)
 Renaissance was a fervent period of European
cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth”
following the Middle Ages.
 Generally described as taking place from the 14th
century to the 17th century.
 Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical
philosophy, literature and art.
 Some of the greatest thinkers, authors, statesmen,
scientists and artists in human history thrived
during this era.
Major Writers of the Renaissance Period

John Milton (1608-1674)

 William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

 John Milton (1608-1674)
•Born: 9 December 1608, Bread
City of London, United Kingdom
•Died: 8 November 1674, Bunhill
Row, London, United Kingdom
•was an English poet, polemicist,
man of letters, and civil servant
for the Commonwealth of England
under its Council of State and
later under Oliver Cromwell.
•He wrote at a time of religious
flux and political upheaval, and is
best known for his epic poem
Paradise Lost, written in blank
verse.
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 William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

•Born: April 1564, Stratford-upon-

Avon, United Kingdom
• Died: 23 April 1616, Stratford-upon-
Avon, United Kingdom
• was an English poet, playwright, and
actor, widely regarded as the greatest
writer in the English language and the
world's greatest dramatist.
• He is often called England's national
poet and the "Bard of Avon".
• By the early Seventeenth
Century, Shakespeare had begun to
write plays in the genre of tragedy.
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PLAYS
 Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)

•Born: 1552, London, United Kingdom

•Died: 13 January 1599, London, United
Kingdom
•was an English poet best known for The
Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical
allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and
Elizabeth I.
•He is recognized as one of the premier
craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse.
•is often considered one of the greatest poets
in the English language.
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Enlightenment Period– (1650- 1800)

 the great 'Age of Reason' is defined as

the period of rigorous scientific, political and
philosophical discourse that characterised.
 European society during the 'long' 18th
century: from the late 17th century to the
ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.
 was a late 17th- and 18th-century intellectual
movement emphasizing reason, individualism,
skepticism, and science.
Major Writers of the Enlightenment

 William Congreve (1670-1729)

 Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

 Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

 William Congreve (1670-1729)

Born: 24 January 1670, Bardsey, United

Kingdom
Died:19 January 1729, London, United
Kingdom
was an English playwright and poet of
the Restoration period. He is known for
his clever, satirical dialogue and influence
on the comedy of manners style of that
period.
He was also a minor political figure in the
British Whig Party.
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Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

Born: 5 October
1713, Langres,France
Diede: 31 July 1784, Paris, France
was a French philosopher, art critic,
and writer, best known for serving
as co-founder, chief editor, and
contributor to the Encyclopédie
along with Jean le Rond
d'Alembert.
He was a prominent figure during
the Enlightenment.
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 Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Born: 17 January 1706, Milk Street,

Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died: 17 April 1790, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, United States
was an American polymath and one of
the Founding Fathers of the United
States.
was a leading author, printer, political
theorist, politician, Freemason,
postmaster, scientist, inventor, humorist,
civic activist, statesman, and diplomat.
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Romanticism Period – (1798 – 1870)

 was an artistic, literary, musical

and intellectual movement that
originated in Europe.
 The meaning of romanticism has
changed with time.
 also the Romantic era or
the Romantic period.
Major writes in Romanticism Period
 William Wordsworth (1770-2850)
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
 John Keats
William Wordsworth (1770-2850)

Born: 7 April
1770,Cockermouth, United
Kingdom
Died: 23 April 1850, Rydal
Mount, United Kingdom
was an English Romantic
poet
POEMS
POEMS
POEMS
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Born: 21 October 1772, Otterry

Saint Mary, United Kingdom
Died: 25 July 1834, Highgate,
London, United Kingdom
was an English poet, literary
critic, philosopher and
theologian.
WORKS
John Keats (1795-1821)

Born: 31 October
1795, Moorgate, City of London,
United Kingdom
Died: 23 February 1821, Rome,
Italy
was an English Romantic poet.
He was one of the main figures of
the second generation of
Romantic poets,
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Realism Period– (1820-1920)
 is a literary movement that developed in the
middle of the 19th century in France and then
spread throughout the rest of Europe to Russia,
and then overseas to the US. Realism, is all
about portraying real life.
 refers to the attempt to represent familiar and
everyday people and situations in an accurate,
unidealized manner.
Major Realist Writers

 Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850)

 Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

 George Eliot (1819-1880)

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850)

Born: 20 May
1799, Tours, France
Died: 18 August
1850, Paris, France
was a French novelist and
playwright.
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SHORT STORIES
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

Born: 11 November
1821, Moscow, Russia
Died: 9 February 1881, Saint
Petersburg, Russia
was a Russian novelist, short
story writer, essayist,
journalist and philosopher
WORKS
Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880)

Born: 22 November
1819, Nuneaton, United Kingdom
Died: 22 December 1880, Chelsea,
London, United Kingdom
known by her pen name George
Eliot
was an English novelist, poet,
journalist, translator, and one of the
leading writers
WORKS
Victorian Period – (1837- 1901)
 Victorian literature is literature written in
England during the reign of Queen Victoria, or
roughly from 1837 -1901. It is largely
characterized by the struggle of working
people and the triumph of right over wrong.
 The Victorian Era was characterized by an
extended period of peace and strict codes of
social conduct. It took place mainly during the
reign of Queen Victoria
Major Victorian writers

 Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

 Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)

 Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-

1861)
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Born: 7 February 1812, Landport,

Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Died: 9 June 1870, Gads Hill Place,
United Kingdom
•is the most famous Victorian novelist.
•was an English writer and social critic.
He created some of the world's best-
known fictional characters and is regarded
by many as the greatest novelist of the
Victorian era.
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Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855)

Born: 21 April 1816, Thornton,

United Kingdom
Died: 31 March 1855, Haworth,
United Kingdom
•was an English novelist and poet,
the eldest of the three Brontë
sisters who survived into
adulthood and whose novels
became classics of English
literature.
WORKS
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-
1861)

Born: 6 March 1806, Kelloe,

United Kingdom
Died: 29 June
1861, Florence, Italy
•was an English poet of the
Victorian era, popular in
Britain and the United States
during her lifetime.
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Modernism Period– (1910 – 1965)
 The following are characteristics of Modernism:
 Marked by a strong and intentional break with
tradition.
 This break includes a strong reaction against
established religious, political, and social views.
 Belief that the world is created in the act of
perceiving it; that is, the world is what we say it is.
 characterized by a very self-conscious break with
traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and
prose fiction.
Modernism Period– (1910 – 1965)

 that are abstract art and

expressionism.
 also include minimal art, pop art,
surrealism, cubism, and
expressionism.
Major Modernist Writers

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961)

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

Born: 8 February 1911, Worcester,

Massachusetts, United States

Died: 6 October 1979, Lewis Wharf

•was an American poet and short-story

writer.

She was Consultant in Poetry to the

Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950,
the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in
1956, the National Book Award winner in
1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt
International Prize for Literature in 1976.
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Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

Born: 3 December
1857, Berdychiv, Ukraine
Died: 3 August
1924, Bishopsbourne, United
Kingdom
was a Polish-British writer
regarded as one of the greatest
novelists to write in the English
language.
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Hilda Doolittle (1886-1961)

Born: 10 September 1886, Bethlehem,

Pennsylvania, United States
Died: 27 September 1961, Zürich,
Switzerland
•was an American poet, novelist, and
memoirist, associated with the early 20th
century avant-garde Imagist group of
poets, including Ezra Pound and Richard
Aldington.
She published under the pen name H.D.
Post-Modernism Period– (1965-
Present)
 is a broad movement that developed in the mid- to late
20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture,
and criticism, marking a departure from modernism.
 like modernism, follows most of these same ideas,
rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of
art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing
pastiche, parody, bricolage, irony, and playfulness.
 Common targets of postmodernism and critical theory
include universalist notions of objective reality, morality,
truth, human nature, reason, language, and social
progress.
Major Postmodernist writers

John Fowles (1926-2005)

William H. Gass (1924-2017)

Ihab Hassan (1925-2015)

John Fowles (1926-2005)

Born: 31 March 1926, Leigh-on-Sea,

Southend-on-Sea, United Kingdom
Died: 5 November 2005, Axminster
Hospital, Axminster, United Kingdom
•was an English novelist of international
stature, critically positioned between
modernism and postmodernism.
William H. Gass (1924-2017)

Born: 30 July 1924, Fargo,

North Dakota, United States
Died: 6 December
2017, University City, Missouri,
United States
•was an American novelist, short-
story writer, essayist, critic, and
philosophy professor.
WORKS
Ihab Hassan (1925-2015)

Born: 17 October 1925, Cairo,

Egypt
Died: 10 September
2015, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
United States
•was an Arab American literary
theorist and writer born in Egypt.
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Carlos John Mungcal