• Objectives

• At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• name some writers and their literary works under
European Literature, and
• analyze a few selected literary works representative of
the literature it belongs.
• What are some literary pieces included in European
Literature?
Who are some of the major writers in each literature?
What important works did they produce?
European Literature, also called Western
Literature, refers to literature in the Indo-
European languages including Latin, Greek,
the Romance languages, and Russian. It is
considered as the largest body of literature in
the world.
• Latin Literature
• Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE–43 BCE) was the
greatest Roman orator. The first part of the Golden
Age of Latin Literature (70 BC–AD 18) is named
after him, the Ciceronian period (70–43 BC). Using
Latin as a literary medium, he was able to express
abstract and complicated thoughts clearly in his
speeches. One of his well-known speeches is Pro
Cluentio.
• Virgil (70 BCE–19 BCE), the greatest Roman poet,
was known for Aeneid, an epic poem. He wrote it
during the Augustan Age (43 BC–AD 18), the
second part of the Golden Age.
• Greek Literature
• Homer is known for the The Iliad and the The
Odyssey. These epics are about the heroic
achievements of Achilles and Odysseus,
respectively.
• Sophocles (496 BC–406 BC) was a tragic
playwright. He was known for Oedipus the
King, which marks the highest level of
achievement of Greek drama.
• Italian Literature
• Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch (1304–
1374) perfected the Italian sonnet, a
major influence on European poetry.
Written in the vernacular, his sonnets
were published in the Canzoniere.
• Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) is
known for Decameron, a classic Italian
masterpiece. The stories were written in
the vernacular.
• Spanish Literature
• Two well-known Spanish writers of Siglo De Oro
(1500–1681) are Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616)
and Lope de Vega (1562–1635).
• Miguel de Cervantes was known for his novel Don
Quixote, one of the most widely read works of
Western Literature. Its titular character’s name is
the origin of the word “quixotic,” meaning hopeful
or romantic in a way that is not practical.
• Lope de Vega, an outstanding dramatist, wrote as
many as 1800 plays during his lifetime, including
cloak and sword drama, which are plays of upper
middle class manners and intrigue.
• French Literature
• Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880), a novelist, was
a major influence on the realist school. His
masterpiece, Madame Bovary (1857), marked
the beginning of a new age of realism.
• Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) is
considered as the greatest French short story
writer. A Naturalist, he wrote objective stories
which present a real “slice of life.”
• Russian Literature
• Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) is known for his
novels War and Peace (1865–1869) and Anna
Karenina (1875–1877). A master of realistic
fiction, he is considered as one of the world’s
greatest novelists.
• Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) is a master of
the modern short story and a Russian
playwright. His works such as, "The Bet" and
"The Misfortune" reveal his clinical approach
to ordinary life.
1. CHARACTERS TRAITS
1. 6.
2. 7.
3. 8.
4. 9.
5. 10

2. GODS/GODESSES ROLE/S TO THE CHARACTERS

1. 6.
2. 7.
3. 8.
4. 9.
5. 10

3. What is the plot of the story?