Western literature

Not to be confused with Western fiction.

History of literature
Bronze Age literature
Sumerian Egyptian Akkadian Sanskrit
Classical literatures
Chinese Greek Hebrew Latin Pahlavi Pali Prakrit Syriac Tamil
Early Medieval literature
Matter of Rome Matter of France Matter of Britain Byzantine literature Kannada literature Persian literature Turkish
Medieval literature
Old English Middle English Arabic Byzantine Catalan Dutch French German Indian Old Irish Italian Japanese Kannada Nepal Bhasa Norse Persian Telugu Turkish Welsh
Early Modern literature
Renaissance literature Baroque literature
Modern literature
18th century 19th century 20th century 21st century

Western literature refers to the literature written in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth. Western literature is considered one of the defining elements of Western civilization.

The best of Western literature is considered to be the Western Canon. The list of works in the Western Canon varies according to the critic's opinions on Western culture and the relative importance of its defining characteristics.

Western literature includes literature in many languages:

• American literature
• Catalan literature
• Czech literature
• Danish literature
• Dutch literature
• English literature
• German literature
• Greek literature
• French literature
• Irish literature
• Italian literature
• Latin literature
• Polish literature
• Portuguese literature
• Spanish literature
• Welsh literature

See also

• Persian literature in Western culture