European Literature

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MAP OF EUROPE

 Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of


the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the
westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia

 Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean,


to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the
Mediterranean Sea, to the southeast by the Caucasus
Mountains and the Black Sea and the waterways
connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

 To the East, Europe is generally divided from Asia by


water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and
by the Caspian Sea
EUROPEAN LITERATURE
 European Literature refers to the literatures 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
and Russian, and works by Scandinavians and Irish.

 Important classical and medieval traditions are those in


Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Medieval French, and
the Italian Tuscan dialect of the renaissance.

 In colloquial speech, European literature often is used


as a synonym for Western Culture

 European Literature is a part of world literature


RENAISSANCE
 The creation of the printing press by Johannes
Guttenberg in 1440 allowed for much of the literature
during this time to be read by a much larger audience.

 With the new wave of knowledge, many writers of this


time period drew on classical methods and styles from
the ancient greats. These included Aristotle, Homer,
Plato, and Socrates. Some Romans that were modeled
were Cicero, Horace, Sallust, and Virgil.

 Politics were often an influence on Renaissance


literature. Some writers wrote directly about politics,
and gave advice to rulers, seen by Niccolo Machiavelli’s
famous work, The Prince.

 Another source of inspiration was Christianity, which had


immense influence during this time.
IMPORTANT RENAISSANCE WORKS
 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet

 Niccolo Michiavelli, The Prince

 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

 Petrarch, Canzoniere, Trionfi

 Sir Francis Bacon, New Atlantis

 Sir Thomas More, Utopia

 John Milton, Paradise Lost

 Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus


THE ENLIGHTENMENT PERIOD
 This period in literature is marked by new emphasis on logic
and intellectualism

 Writers put more attention to useful rather than abstract


thought, and expressed desires for improving the conditions
of humanity through tolerance, freedom, and equality.

 With the reason of reason and logic, many writers began to


question the established churches of the time, and a rise of
deism was seen during this time.

 The philsophers in France during this time were important


to the period and contributed many new thoughts
characteristic of the Enlightenment.

 The rising middle class during this time made their


preferences of prose novels and short stories significant
literary genres.
THE ENLIGHTENMENT PERIOD
 This period in literature is marked by new emphasis on logic
and intellectualism

 Writers put more attention to useful rather than abstract


thought, and expressed desires for improving the
conditions of humanity through tolerance, freedom, and
equality.

 With the reason of reason and logic, many writers began to


question the established churches of the time, and a rise of
deism was seen during this time.

 The philsophes in France during this time were important to


the period and contributed many new thoughts
characteristic of the Enlightenment.

.
ROMANTICISM
 This period was a movement away from the
enlightenment focus of reason and logic, focusing
more on imagination and emotions instead.

 Key characteristics of this period include an interest


in the common man and childhood, emotions and
feelings, the awe of nature, emphasis on the
individual, myths, and the importance of the
imagination.

 Symbolism was seen as superior because they could


suggest many things instead of the direct
interpretations of allegories

 Instead of the scientific view of the universe as a


machine, romanticism saw it as organic, such as a
living tree.
ROMANTIC AUTHORS
 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

 Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads

 Friedrich Schlegel, Lucinde

 Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

 Sir Walter Scott, Tales of the Crusaders

 Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship

 Chateaubriand, Genius of Christianity

 Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind


REALISM
 The realist movement portrayed the hypocrisy,
brutality, and dullness of life for the bourgeois.

 Scientific objectivity and observation were used to


influence literature during the period of realism.

 Realism often confronted readers with the harsh


realities that life had to offer.

 This movement rejected the idealization of nature, the


poor, love, and polite society during the romantic
period and instead showed the dark side of life.

 Some writers portrayed the cruelty of the developing


industrialism in Europe during this time.
REALIST WRITERS
 Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

 Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House

 George Benard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession

 Charles Dickens, The Adventures of Oliver Twist

 Claude Bernard, Introduction to the Study of


Experimental Science

 Emile Zola, L’Assommoir

 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

 Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace


VICTORIAN PERIOD
 The Victorian Period showed a much more sober view of
idealism than the visionary view seen in Romanticism.

 The Victorian saw nature as harsh and cruel, contrasting the


kind and harmonious view during the Romantic era.

 Some focuses of this era were the middle class, reality, work,
and nations as a whole instead of the individual.

 The trinity of the Victorian period was religion, science and


morality.

 Some of the values were earnestness, respectability,


utilitarianism, and a strong emphasis on duty.

 Major ideas of this period of literature included the


glorification of war, expansion of empires, industrialism,
economic prosperity, and reform.
VICTORIAN PERIOD WRITERS
 Robert Browning

 Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

 Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

 George Eliot

 Elizabeth Barret Browning

 Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

 Thomas Hardy

 Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

 Matthew Arnold
MODERNISM
 Like the period of Realism, Modernism was also critical of
middle class society and morality, but wasn’t concerned by
social issues like Realism was.

 Modernism was characterized as having a concern for the


aesthetic and beautiful.

 Many English writers challenged the values of the Victorian


time period.

 While it arose before World War I, it would flourish after it


because of the immense turmoil and social problems it
created.

 Experimentation and individualism become virtues, while


they had been discouraged in the past.

 This period was marked by quick and unexpected shifts from


traditional ways of viewing the world.
MODERNIST WRITER
 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

 Leonard Woolf

 James Joyce, Ulysses

 Franz Kafka

 William Butler Yeats, The Tower

 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

 D. H. Lawrence

 Alfred Doblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz

 Hugo von Hofmannsthal


POSTMODERNISM
 Postmodernism developed after World War II and
utilized techniques such as fragmentation, paradox, and
questionable narrators

 This was a reaction against Enlightenment ideas that


were seen in literature from Modernism

 Postmodernism tended to stray from the neatly tied-up


ending in modernism, and celebrated chance over
craft.

 Questioning of the distinctions between low and high


culture through a jumble of various ingredients, known
as pastiche, that before wasn’t seen as appropriate for
literature

 Metafiction was also often employed to undermine the


writer’s authority
POST MODERNIST WORKS
 Vladimir Nabokov, Mother Night

 John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman

 Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow-Petushki

 Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

 George Perec, Life: A User’s Manual

 Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler

 Alasdair Gray, Lanark: A Life in Four Books

 Alan Moore, Watchmen

 Dmitry Galkovsky, The Infinite Deadlock


LITERATURES IN
DIFFERENT COUNTRY
IN EUROPE
GREECE LITERATURE
 The oldest & the most influential literature in the western
world. Ancient Greek literature become the model for all
later literature in the west, starting in Latin literature. Of the
4 world’s tragic writers, 3 are Greeks: Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, & the 4th is Shakespeare.

 Greek Literature is divided into three periods : the first two


are the Pre-Homeric and Homeric Age.

 Greek literature, body of writings in the Greek language,


with a continuous history extending from the 1st
millennium BC to the present day. From the beginning its
writers were Greeks living not only in Greece proper but
also in Asia Minor, the Aegean Islands, and Magna
Graecia (Sicily and southern Italy). Later, after the
conquests of Alexander the Great,
GREECE LITERATURE
 Greek became the common language of the eastern
Mediterranean lands and then of the Byzantine Empire.
Literature in Greek was produced not only over a much
wider area but also by those whose mother tongue was
not Greek. Even before the Turkish conquest (1453) the
area had begun to shrink again, and now it is chiefly
confined to Greece and Cyprus.

 Of the literature of ancient Greece only a relatively small


proportion survives. Yet it remains important, not only
because much of it is of supreme quality but also because
until the mid-19th century the greater part of the literature
of the Western world was produced by writers who were
familiar with the Greek tradition, either directly or through
the medium of Latin, who were conscious that the forms
they used were mostly of Greek invention, and who took
for granted in their readers some familiarity
with Classical literature.
ROME LITERATURE
 The history of Roman literature begins around the 3rd
century BC. It reached its “Golden Age” during the
rule of Augustus and the early part of the Roman
Empire. The Romans wrote a lot of poetry and history.
They also wrote letters and made a lot of formal
speeches

 Roman literature are practical rather than imaginative


because the Romans are more of a doer and less of a
thinker. Their objectives for writing literature were to
promote the designs of the state and to render a man
useful to his country and not to give pleasure or to
promote art.

 The earliest written literature was Historical prose.


ROME LITERATURE
 Satire was the dominant form of Roman literature . It
was used to attack the weaknesses and evil in society.

 Virgil was regarded as the greatest of the Roman


writers. His masterpiece is Aenied, the epic of Rome.

 Latin was the main language used for writing during


Ancient Rome. Greek was also a popular language
because it was used by so many people in the eastern
portion of the Roman Empire.
ROMANIAN LITERATURE
 Romanian literature, body of writings in
the Romanian language, the development of which is
paralleled by a rich folklore—lyric, epic, dramatic,
and didactic—that continued into modern times.

 The earliest translations into Romanian were from


Slavonic and consisted of interlinear verses or
interpolations in 15th-century religious texts. From the
same period date the so-called rhotacizing texts,
preserved in 16th-century copies, which were written
in Maramureş, in northern Transylvania, probably
under the impetus of the Hussite movement. These
include the Psalter of Şcheia and the Codex of
Voroneƫ, which contains the Acts of the Apostles and
the Psalter of Voroneƫ.
ROMANIAN LITERATURE
 Most Romanian literature of the 18th century presents a
picture of social oppression and decadence under Ottoman
rule. A rich secular and apocryphal literature circulated in
manuscript, but there was no progress in comparison with
that of the past. In Moldavia a new cultural centre arose at
Rădăuƫi. The principal achievements of the century were
the Minei (“Lives of the Saints”) of 1776–80 and 1807–15
(each in 12 volumes, published in Râmnicu Vâlcea and in
the monastery of Neamƫ, respectively), whose rich and lucid
language put them alongside the Bible of 1688.

 Lyric poetry was cultivated toward the end of the century in


love songs (1769–99), in the tradition of the ancient Greek
poet Anacreon, by Alecu Văcărescu. Alecu’s
father, Ienăchiƫă, a moralist poet, also wrote the first
Romanian grammar, while his son Iancu, the father of
Romanian poetry, overshadowed his predecessors with his
poems. The fourth poet of the Văcărescu family was Nicolae.
The lyric tradition was carried on in Walachia by B.P.
SPAIN LITERATURE
 Spanish literature, the body of literary works
produced in Spain. Such works fall into three major
language divisions: Castilian, Catalan, and Galician.
This article provides a brief historical account of each
of these three literatures and examines the emergence
of major genres.

 Spanish literature generally refers to literature written


in Spanish language within the territory that presently
constitutes the Kingdom of Spain .

 By 711, when the Muslim invasion of the Iberian


Peninsula began, Latin spoken there had begun its
transformation into Romance. Tenth-century glosses to
Latin texts in manuscripts belonging to the
monasteries of San Millán de la Cogolla and Silos, in
north-central Spain, contain traces of a vernacular
already substantially developed. The earliest texts
in Mozarabic (the Romance dialect of Spaniards living
under the Muslims) were recovered from Hebrew and
from Arabic muwashshaḥs (poems in strophic form,
with subjects such as panegyrics on love)

 The literature of Spanish America is an important


branch of Spanish Literature, with its own particular
characteristics dating back to the earliest year’s of
Spain’s coquest of the Americas
The rise of heroic poetry
 The earliest surviving monument of Spanish literature, and
one of its most distinctive masterpieces, is the Cantar de
mío Cid (“Song of My Cid”; also called Poema de mío Cid),
an epic poem of the mid-12th century (the existing
manuscript is an imperfect copy of 1307). It tells of the fall
from and restoration to royal favour of a Castilian
noble, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, known as the Cid (derived
from the Arabic title sidi, “lord”).

 The beginnings of prose

 A major influence on prose was exercised by Arabic.


Oriental learning entered Christian Spain with the capture
(1085) of Toledo from the Muslims, and the city became a
centre of translation from Oriental languages. An
anonymous translation from Arabic (1251) of the beast
fable Kalīlah wa Dimnah exemplifies early storytelling in
Spanish. A romance of the Seven Sages, the Sendebar, was
translated likewise through Arabic, with other collections of
Eastern stories.

 Learned narrative poetry

 The mester de clerecía (“craft of the clergy”) was a new


poetic mode, indebted to France and the monasteries
and presupposing literate readers. It adapted the
French alexandrine in the “fourfold way”—i.e., 14-
syllable lines used in four-line monorhyme stanzas—and
treated religious, didactic, or pseudohistorical matter.
During the 13th century, Gonzalo de Berceo, Spain’s
earliest poet known by name, wrote rhymed vernacular
chronicles of saints’ lives, the miracles of the Virgin, and
other devotional themes with ingenuous candour,
accumulating picturesque and affectionately observed
popular detail.
UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
 Written Ukrainian literature began with
Christianization and the introduction of Old Church
Slavonic as a liturgical and literary language. The
literary heritage of the Ukrainian people in the early
period, from the 11th to the 13th centuries, is that
of Kievan Rus; sermons, tales, and lives of the saints
were the major genres. After the Mongol destruction
of Kievan Rus in the 13th century, literary activity in
Ukraine declined. A revival began in the 14th century
and was spurred further in the 16th century with the
introduction of printing, the Reformation ferment, and
the advance of the Counter-Reformation into Polish-
dominated Ukrainian lands.
 The Ukrainian vernacular gradually became more
prominent in writings in the 16th century, but this
process was set back in the 17th and 18th centuries,
when many Ukrainian authors wrote in Russian or
Polish. At the end of the 18th century, modern literary
Ukrainian finally emerged out of
the colloquial Ukrainian tongue.

 Nineteenth-century Ukrainian writers greatly


contributed to the reawakening of Ukrainian
national consciousness under the Russian Empire.
The classicist poet and playwright Ivan
Kotlyarevsky may be considered the first modern
Ukrainian author. In his work Eneyida (1798), he
transformed the heroes of Virgil’s Aeneid into
Ukrainian Cossacks. Classicist prose appeared only
with Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s
novel Marusya (1834).
BELGIAN LITERATURE
 Belgian literature, the body of written works produced
by Belgians and written in Flemish, which is equivalent
to the Standard Dutch (Netherlandic) language of the
Netherlands, and in Standard French, which are the two
main divisions of literature by language of Belgium. A
lesser-known literature of Belgium,Walloon literature, is
written in local dialects of French and Latin origin that
are spoken in Wallonia (the provinces of Hainaut, Liège,
Namur, Luxembourg, and Walloon Brabant). Flemish
literature is often discussed with Dutch literature and
Belgium’s French-language literature with other French
literature. The French-, Flemish-, and Walloon-language
literatures of Belgium are discussed in this article.
FLEMISH LITERATURE
 Flemish literature is literature from Flanders,
historically a region comprising parts of present-day
Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

 Until the early 19th century, this literature was regarded


as an integral part of Dutch literature. After Belgium
became independent from the Netherlands in 1830,
the term Flemish literature acquired a narrower
meaning and refers to the Dutch language literature
produced in Belgium.

 It remains a part of a Dutch-language literature


BRITISH LITERATURE

 British literature is literature from the United


Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Isle of
Man, and Channel Islands. This article covers British
literature in the English language. Anglo-Saxon (Old
English) literature is included, and there is some
discussion of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature,
where literature in these languages relate to the early
development of the English language and literature.
There is also some brief discussion of major figures
who wrote in Scots, but the main discussion is in the
various Scottish literature articles.
 The article Literature in the other languages of Britain
focuses on the literatures written in the other
languages that are, and have been, used in Britain.
There are also articles on these various literatures:
Latin literature in Britain, Anglo-Norman, Cornish,
Guernésiais, Jèrriais, Latin, Manx, Scottish Gaelic,
Welsh, etc.

 Irish writers have played an important part in the


development of literature in England and Scotland,
but though the whole of Ireland was politically part of
the United Kingdom between January 1801 and
December 1922, it can be controversial to describe
Irish literature as British. For some this includes works
by authors from Northern Ireland.
LITERATURE OF MOLDOVA
 Literature of Moldova comprises the literature of the
principality of Moldavia, the later trans-
Prut Moldavia, Bessarabia, the Moldavian Autonomous
Soviet Socialist Republic, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist
Republic, and the modern Republic of Moldova,
irrespective of the language

 Although there has been considerable controversy


over linguistic identity in Moldova, the Moldovan and
Romanian languages are virtually identical and share a
common literary history.[1]Moldovan literature,
therefore, has considerable overlap with Romanian
literature.
 The creation of Moldovan written literature was
preceded by a rich folklore that emerged in the 10th
and 11th centuries CE: calendrical and family ritual
poetry (Plugusorul), fairy tales, heroic epics
(Hydra, Toma Alimos, The Knight Gruia Grozovan, Mihul
Kopilul, Codreanu, Corbea), historical songs (Duca
Vode, Buzhor, Tobultok), folk legends, proverbs,
popular sayings, lyrical songs, ballads (The Sun and
the Moon, The Rich Man and the Pauper, Dolca)

 The greatest achievement of Moldovan epic-lyric


pastoral poetry is the ballad Mioriţa, various versions
of which were found across Romania. The national
struggle against the Ottoman occupation is reflected
in the ballad The Well of Frost, which was popular not
only in the Moldovan principality but also in Wallachia
POLISH LITERATURE
 Polish literature, body of writings in Polish, one of
the Slavic languages. The Polish
national literature holds an exceptional position
in Poland. Over the centuries it has mirrored the
turbulent events of Polish history and at times
sustained the nation’s cultural and political identity.

 Poland acquired a literary language in Latin when it


became a Christian land in the 10th century.
When Mieszko I, prince of Poland, accepted
Christianity in 966, he invited Roman Catholic priests
from western Europe to build churches and
monasteries as religious and cultural centres. In these
centres Latin was the official language of the church,
and it eventually became the language of early Polish
literature.
Religious writings

 As in other European countries, Latin was at first the


only literary language of Poland, and early works
included saints’ lives, annals, and chronicles written
by monks and priests. The most important of these
works are the Chronicon, which was compiled about
1113 by a Benedictine known only as Gallus
Anonymous, and the Annales seu cronicae incliti regni
Poloniae, brought up to 1480 by Jan Długosz,
archbishop of Lwów. These two works parallel similar
achievements in western Europe.


CROATIAN LITERATURE
 Croatian literature refers to literary works attributed
to the medieval and modern culture of
the Croats, Croatia and the Croatian language.
Besides the modern language whose shape and
orthography was standardized in the late 19th
century, it also covers the oldest works produced
within the modern borders of Croatia, written
in Church Slavonic and Medieval Latin, as well as
vernacular works written
in Čakavian and Kajkavian dialects.

 Croatian medieval prose is similar to other European


medieval literature of the time. The oldest testaments
to Croatian literacy are dated to the 11th and 12th
centuries, and Croatian medieval literature lasts until
the middle of the 16th century
CROATIAN LITERATURE
 Some elements of medieval forms can be found
even in 18th century Croatian literature, which
means that their influence had been stronger in
Croatia than in the rest of Europe.

 . Early Croatian literature was inscribed on stone


tablets, hand-written on manuscripts, and printed in
books. A special segment of Croatian medieval
literature is written in Latin. The first works on
hagiography and the history of the Church were
written in the Dalmatian coastal cities
(Split, Zadar, Trogir, Osor, Dubrovnik, Kotor), for
example the "Splitski evanđelistar" (6th–7th
century) and other liturgical and non-liturgical
works
IRISH LITERATURE
 Irish literature, the body of written works produced
by the Irish. This article discusses Irish literature
written in English from about 1690; its history is closely
linked with that of English literature. Irish-language
literature is treated separately under Celtic literature.

 After the literatures of Greek and Latin, literature in


Irish is the oldest literature in Europe, dating from the
4th or 5th century CE. The presence of a “dual
tradition” in Irish writing has been important in
shaping and inflecting the material written in English,
the language of Ireland’scolonizers. Irish writing is,
despite its unique national and linguistic
characteristics, inevitably intertwined with English
literature, and this relationship has led frequently to
the absorption of Irish writers and texts into the canon
of English literature. Many of the best-known Irish
authors lived and worked for long periods in exile,
often in England, and this too has contributed to a
sense of instability in the development of a canon
defined as uniquely Irish

 But during the 20th century—particularly after the


partition and partial independence of Ireland in
1920–22—scholars reclaimed these writers and
their works for Ireland. This shift can be seen in the
changing use of the term Anglo-Irish literature,
which at one time referred to the whole body of
Irish writing in English but is now used to describe
literature produced by, and usually about, members
of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy of the 18th
century
NORWEGIAN LITERATURE
 The roots of Norwegian literature reach back more
than 1,000 years into the pagan Norse past. In its
evolution Norwegian literature was closely
intertwined with Icelandic literature and with Danish
literature.

 Only after the separation of Norway from Denmark in


1814 is it possible to point to a literature that is
unambiguously Norwegian. This article focuses on
literature produced from the 16th century onward by
writers of Norwegian birth in Bokmål (Dano-
Norwegian; also called Riksmål) and, later, Nynorsk
(New Norwegian)
 Norwegian literature and Icelandic literature are
often indistinguishable in their earliest forms, both
are discussed together under Icelandic literature.
Writers of Norwegian birth who produced works in
Danish are discussed both in this article and
under Danish literature.
SLOVAK LITERATURE
 Slovak literature, the body of literature produced in
the Slovak language. Until the 18th century there was
no systematic attempt to establish a literary language
on the basis of the Slovak dialects, which, though
closely related to Czech, had developed a separate
identity from the early Middle Ages. The decline of
literary Czech in the early 18th century, however,
generated an increase of local colouring in
devotional texts in Slovakia. Shortly after, Anton
Bernolák produced a grammar (1790) and dictionary
(1825–27) of the Slovak language and codified its
literary usage.

 . In an era of reviving national consciousness, this


language was taken up by a number of writers, above
all Ján Hollý, who used Slovak to produce lyrics,
idylls, and national epics. Jozef Ignác
Bajza’s novel René (1783–85), using Slovakized Czech,
also had a strong impact. In the early 19th century,
literary Slovak was greatly refined by the linguist and
patriot L’udovít Štúr.

 The beginnings of Slovak dramaappeared in the


comedies of Ján Palárik in the 1850s and ’60s, and
the novel matured in the work of Martin Kukučín. In
the period before World War I,
the lyric poet Hviezdoslav(Pavol Országh) enriched
the language with original works and numerous
translations. Another notable poet was Ivan
Krasko (the pseudonym of Ján Botto), whose
volumes of verse, Nox et solitudo(1909)
and Verše (1912), were among the finest
achievements of Slovak literature.
FINNISH LITERATURE
 Finnish literature refers to literature written
in Finland. During the European early Middle Ages,
the earliest text in a Finnic language is the unique
thirteenth-century Birch bark letter no.
292 from Novgorod. The text was written in Cyrillic
and represented a dialect of Finnic language spoken
in Russian Olonets region. The earliest texts in
Finland were written in Swedish or Latin during the
Finnish Middle Age (ca. 1200–1523). Finnish-
language literature was slowly developing from the
16th century onwards, after written Finnish was
established by the Bishop and
Finnish Lutheran reformer Mikael Agricola (1510–
1557). He translated the New Testament into Finnish in
1548.
 After becoming a part of Russian Empire in early 19-
th century the rise in education and nationalism
promoted public interest to folklore in Finland and
resulted in increase of literary activity in Finnish
language. Most of the significant works of the era,
written in Swedish or increasingly in Finnish,
revolved around achieving or maintaining a strong
Finnish identity.

 Thousands of folk poems were collected in


the Suomen kansan vanhat runot ('The Ancient Poems
of the Finnish People'). The most famous poetry
collection is the Kalevala, published in 1835. The
first novel published in Finnish was Seven
Brothers (1870) by Aleksis Kivi (1834–1872). The
book Meek Heritage (1919) by Frans Eemil
Sillanpää (1888–1964) made him the first
Finnish Nobel Prize winner.
DANISH LITERATURE
 Danish literature, a subset of Scandinavian literature,
stretches back to the Middle Ages. The earliest
preserved texts from Denmark are runic
inscriptions on memorial stones and other objects,
some of which contain short poems in alliterative
verse. In the late 12th century Saxo
Grammaticus wrote Gesta Danorum.

 During the 16th century, the Lutheran


Reformation came to Denmark. During this
era, Christiern Pedersen translated the New
Testament into Danish and Thomas Kingo composed
hymns. Fine poetry was created in the early 17th
century by Anders Arrebo (1587–1637). The
challenges faced during Denmark's absolute
monarchy in 1660 are chronicled
in Jammersminde(Remembered Woes) by Leonora
Christina of the Blue Tower. Ludvig Holberg (1684–
1754), influenced by the ideas of
the Enlightenmentand Humanism, is considered the
founder of modern Danish and Norwegian literature.

 Neoclassical poetry, drama, and the essay flourished


during the 18th century influenced by French and
English trends. German influence is seen in the verse
of the leading poets of the late 18th century such
as Johannes Ewald and Jens Baggesen. Other 18th
century writers include the hymn writer Hans Adolph
Brorson and the satirical poet Johan Herman Wessel.
BULGARIAN LITERATURE
 body of writings in the Bulgarian language. Its
origin is closely linked to Christianization of the
Slavs beginning with Khan (Tsar) Boris I’sadoption
in 864 of the Eastern Orthodox rather than Latin faith
for his court and people. This political decision,
combined with geographical proximity
to Byzantium, determined a key role for Bulgarian in
the Balkan development of a first Slavic written
language and its corpus of ecclesiastical writings
known as Old Bulgarian literature.

 . In this Golden, or Old Bulgarian,


period, medievalBulgarian culture aspired to rival
even the “Imperial City” (called Tsarigrad by the
Slavs), Constantinople itself, as suggested by John
the Exarch in
his Shestodnev (“Hexameron”; i.e., “Six Days [of
Creation]”). Tsar Simeon’s own name is closely linked
with work on his Simeonov sbornik (“Simeon’s
Collection [of Gospel Commentaries]”) and with
the Zlatostruy (“Golden Stream”), the first Slavic
version from the Greek of St. John Chrysostom. The
predominant role played in this early
Slavic literature by translating from (and so
Slavicizing) the Greek reflects the determination of
these Bulgarian writers to promote the Slav dialectand
to convey, in structure and lexicon, all the
complexities and sophistication of Byzantine thought.


SWISS LITERATURE
 properly, the writings in the only language peculiar
to Switzerland, the Rhaeto-Romanic dialect known as
Romansh, though broadly it includes all works written
by Swiss nationals in any of the three other languages
of their country: German, French, and Italian, or the
Swiss dialect forms of any one of them. It also should
be noted that the earliest literature produced in
Switzerland was written in Latin.

 Serbian literature developed primarily from the 12th


century, producing such religious works as
the illuminated Miroslav Gospel, biblical stories,
and hagiographies. During the Middle Ages, the
strong Serbian state that encompassedmost of the
Balkans fostered literary and translation production
by highly educated priests in numerous monasteries.
Though mostly replicating Byzantine literary genres,
Serbian literature also developed its
own indigenous genre of the biographies of Serbian
rulers.

 After the Turkish occupation of Serbia in 1459, written


literature declined, but oral literature of epicpoems,
songs, tales, proverbs, and other forms, which would
for the most part be gathered and written down in the
19th century, continued to flourish in rural areas.

 The most important representative of the


Enlightenment period was Dositej Obradović, whose
writings greatly influenced Serbian literary
development. A man of great learning and a polyglot
who spent most of his life traveling through Europe
and Asia Minor, Obradović wrote
a captivating autobiography, Život i priključenija Dimitr
AUSTRIAN LITERATURE
 Austrian literature is the literature written in Austria,
which is mostly, but not exclusively, written in
the German language. Some scholars speak about
Austrian literature in a strict sense from the year 1806
on when Francis II disbanded the Holy Roman
Empireand established the Austrian Empire. A more
liberal definition incorporates all the literary works
written on the territory of today's and historical
Austria, especially when it comes to authors who
wrote in German.

 From the 19th century onward, Austria contributed


some of the greatest names in modern literature. It
was the home of novelists / short-story
writers Adalbert Stifter, Arthur Schnitzler, Franz
Werfel, Stefan Zweig, Franz Kafka, Thomas
Bernhard, Joseph Roth, or Robert Musil, of poets Georg
Trakl, Rose Ausländer, Franz Grillparzer, Rainer Maria
Rilke or Paul Celan.

 Famous contemporary playwrights and novelists


are Elfriede Jelinekand Peter Handke, well-known
essayists are Robert Menasse and Karl-Markus Gauß.
Yet, it is hard to speak of an Austrian literature prior
to that period. In the early 18th century, Lady Mary
Wortly Montague, whilst visiting Vienna, was stunned
to meet no writers at all. For all of Austria's
contributions to architecture, and having one of the
most hallowed musical traditions in Europe, no
Austrian literature made it to the classical canon until
the 19th century.
Reflection
 I learned that Europe has a lot of literature, and
they have different traditions and culture in
writing their literary texts in every country. In their
literary text, they have different languages like
among the most important of the modern written
works are those in English, Spanish, French, Dutch,
Polish, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Czech and
Russian, and works by Scandinavians and Irish.
and their writing depends on their time period.
There are different time periods in Europe:
Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romanticism,
Victorian Period etc.

~ Mohammad Rehan B. Said


Reflection
 I learn the literature of other countries especially the
topic that we choose the European countries, during
the research about their literature we read and slightly
understand their culture especially Spain because I
really favorite Spanish people I’m interested of them, I
learned the cultures, traditions, and other way of their
living. We know and I know the people that part of
their ancient history

~ Jeward E. Continedo
Reflection
 These topics are slightly interesting, I
enjoy it maybe searching their literature
is fun because after we put in our power
point, I read then I got some ideas what
their literature. I’ve got an additional
knowledge during making of this project
~ Mark Calago
Reflection
 I learned there are concepts of European literature
in their writing style, and there is a time division of
European literature and they have also many
traditions like classical and medieval traditions are
those in Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Norse, Medieval
French, and the Italian Tuscan dialect of the
renaissance. In every time period, there is another
genre of a literary texts and many writing style that
have created by Europeans.

~ Mark Maraasin
REFLECTION
 I learned that the European literature was also
known in the world as western culture and it is the
literature written in the context of western culture in
the languages of Europe as several geographically
or historically related languages. The list of works
in the western canon varies according to the critics
opinion on western culture and the relative
important of its defining characteristics

~ Landir E. Tupaz

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