European literature - maps and diagrams - from the beginning to the 21th century

 

Ancient Greece and Rome (c. 8th century BCE - 5th century CE)

• Key Figures: Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Ovid
• Influences: Mythology, philosophy, epic poetry, tragedy, comedy

Medieval Europe (c. 5th century - 15th century)

• Key Figures: Beowulf, Chrétien de Troyes, Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer
• Influences: Chivalry, religion, courtly love, allegory

Renaissance (c. 14th - 17th century)

• Key Figures: William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Molière
• Influences: Humanism, classicism, realism, satire

Enlightenment (c. 17th - 18th century)

• Key Figures: Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Johnson
• Influences: Reason, logic, satire, social criticism

Romanticism (c. 18th - 19th century)

• Key Figures: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Victor Hugo
• Influences: Nature, emotion, imagination, rebellion  

Realism (c. 1830s - 1900s)

• Key Figures: Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen
• Influences: Social commentary, observation, everyday life

Modernism (c. 1890s - 1940s)

• Key Figures: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust
• Influences: Experimentation, fragmentation, subjectivity, urban life

Postmodernism (c. 1940s - present)

• Key Figures: Samuel Beckett, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Margaret Atwood
• Influences: Intertextuality, irony, parody, globalization

Recommended Resources

• Online Databases:
  • WorldCat: https://search.worldcat.org/
  • Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/
• Books:
  • The Norton Anthology of World Literature
  • A History of Western Literature by David Daiches
  • The Penguin Atlas of European Literature
• Visual Aids:
  • Literary Maps: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/news/2023/oct/european-literary-map-london
  • Interactive Timelines: https://www.britannica.com/question/What-are-the-periods-of-American-literature
  • Author Portraits: https://www.artofmanliness.com/about-2/

By exploring these resources, you can gain a deeper understanding of the rich tapestry of European literature and its evolution over time.