Western literature , also known as European literature , is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe , and is shaped by the periods in which they were conceived, with each period containing prominent western authors, poets, and pieces of literature.
155-515: 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. Different literary periods held great influence on the literature of Western and European countries, with movements and political changes impacting the prose and poetry of
310-628: A canon ensured a book's preservation as the best way to retain information about a civilization. In contemporary use, the Western canon defines the best of Western culture . In the ancient world, at the Alexandrian Library , scholars coined the Greek term Hoi enkrithentes ["the admitted", "the included"] to identify the writers in the canon. Although the term is often associated with the Western canon, it can be applied to works of literature, music and art, etc. from all traditions, such as
465-615: A canon of literature is the question of authority; who should have the power to determine what works are worth reading? Charles Altieri , of the University of California, Berkeley , states that canons are "an institutional form for exposing people to a range of idealized attitudes." It is according to this notion that work may be removed from the canon over time to reflect the contextual relevance and thoughts of society. American historian Todd M. Compton argues that canons are always communal in nature; that there are limited canons for, say
620-539: A city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid 's first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer, the pre-eminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers to whom he alludes. Although
775-473: A commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary of Donatus . Servius's commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating. Even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil
930-537: A commonplace writer"). Such classification were initiated with the Greeks' ranking their cultural works, with the word canon (ancient Greek κανών, kanṓn: "measuring rod, standard"). Similarly, early Christian Church Fathers declared as canon the authoritative texts of the New Testament , preserving them given the expense of vellum and papyrus and mechanical book reproduction. Thus, being included in
1085-477: A critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked. One of the main objections to
1240-532: A district 1.9 mi (3 km) from the centre of Naples , near the Mergellina harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli . While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of pilgrimages and veneration. Through
1395-415: A few short pieces. Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as a standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature . Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all
1550-483: A form of fictional character was born named the " Byronic hero ", who is known to be rebellious in character. The Byronic hero "pervades much of his work" and Byron is considered a reflection of the character he created. Greek and Roman mythology was prevalent in the works of British Romantic poets including Byron, Keats and Shelley . However, there were poets who rejected the notion of mythological inspiration, including Coleridge, who preferred to take inspiration from
1705-461: A fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love ( Ecl . 2) and attraction toward people of any gender ( Ecl . 3). Eclogue 4 , addressed to Asinius Pollio , the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (who
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#17327650792981860-455: A general reevaluation of women's historical and academic contributions in response to the belief that women's lives and contributions have been underrepresented as areas of scholarly interest. However, in Britain and America at least women achieved major literary success from the late eighteenth century, and many major nineteenth-century British novelists were women, including Jane Austen ,
2015-672: A golden age. In addition to Bach and Beethoven, the other major figures from this period were George Frideric Handel , Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro ( Classical Latin : [ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː] ; 15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( / ˈ v ɜːr dʒ ɪ l / VUR -jil ) in English,
2170-441: A group of metaphysic literary figures, metaphysical referring to a branch of philosophy which tries to bring meaning to and explain reality using broader and larger concepts. In order to do this, the use of literary features including conceits was common, in which the writer makes obscure comparisons in order to convey a message or persuade a point. The term metaphysics was coined by poet John Dryden , and during 1779 its meaning
2325-523: A group of poets known as "revelatory poetics". The narrative which grew more prominent in English literature due to this movement towards Johannine theology incorporated an increase of spiritual themes, with "supernatural forces" and an "enchantment narrative" guiding the writings of the time. Johannine theology focused on the "divine" nature of Christ and disregards the materialistic and human aspect acknowledged in Catholic texts. It has been argued that
2480-523: A hostile view was expressed that emphasis on their importance had been an attempt by Eliot and his followers to impose a 'high Anglican and royalist literary history' on 17th-century English poetry. The American critic Yvor Winters suggested in 1939 an alternative canon of Elizabethan poetry , which would exclude the famous representatives of the Petrarchan school of poetry, represented by Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser . Winters claimed that
2635-584: A literary style labeled as magic realism , which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations. Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo (the town mainly inspired by his birthplace Aracataca ), and most of them explore the theme of solitude . On his death in April 2014, Juan Manuel Santos , the President of Colombia, described him as "the greatest Colombian who ever lived." Mario Vargas Llosa , (b. 1936)
2790-408: A literature survey class, or an English department reading list, but there is no such thing as one absolute canon of literature. Instead, there are many conflicting canons. He regards Bloom's "Western Canon" as a personal canon only. The process of defining the boundaries of the canon is endless. The philosopher John Searle has said, "In my experience there never was, in fact, a fixed 'canon'; there
2945-460: A member of the gens Magia , to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at Casalpoglio , just 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua, which led Robert Seymour Conway to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or Carpenedolo , not Pietole,
3100-484: A more simplistic vernacular compared to the common Petrarchan diction, with imagery derived mainly from God. Donne was known for the metaphysical conceits integrated in his poetry. He used themes of religion, death and love to inspire the conceits he constructed. A famous conceit is observed in his well-known poem " The Flea " in which the flea is utilised to describe the bond between Donne and his lover, explaining how just as multiple bloods are within one flea, their bond
3255-501: A narrow interpretation of the West, dominated by British and American culture, at least under contemporary circumstances, prompting demands for a more diversified canon amongst the hemisphere. A classic is a book, or any other work of art, accepted as being exemplary or noteworthy. In the second-century Roman miscellany Attic Nights , Aulus Gellius refers to writers as "classicus... scriptor, non proletarius" ("A distinguished, not
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#17327650792983410-473: A new genre of literature in 18th-century France of books of conduct for girls and unmarried women. Pieces by authors including Marie-Antoinette Lenoir, Louise d'Épinay and Anne-Thérèse de Lambert all shared the same role of shaping young French women to lead successful and progressive lives. However, this form of education for women during the 18th century has been observed to be more oppressive than empowering. The War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714) led to
3565-495: A particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan 's epic, the Bellum Civile , has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing of the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian-era poet Statius in his 12-book epic Thebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival
3720-609: A profound influence on medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity into the Renaissance , and his views were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics . In metaphysics, Aristotelianism profoundly influenced Judeo-Islamic philosophical and theological thought during the Middle Ages and continues to influence Christian theology , especially
3875-470: A refugee of the Trojan War , named Aeneas , as he struggles to fulfill his destiny. His intentions are to reach Italy, where his descendants Romulus and Remus are to found the city of Rome. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas , a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of
4030-535: A structured rhyme format; and the pastoral mode, a genre of literature which is significantly attributed to English poet Edmund Spenser , who created collections of poetry which portrays an idealistic version of rural living. Spenser has been "dubbed 'the English Virgil '" due to his influence on this particular genre. Significant texts from 16th-century early modern England were primarily religious in context and include: The Spanish Golden Age spanned over
4185-615: A student's education, such as Plato's Republic , or Dante's Divine Comedy . Such programs often focus exclusively on Western culture. Their employment of primary texts dictates an interdisciplinary approach, as most of the Great Books do not fall neatly under the prerogative of a single contemporary academic discipline. Great Books programs often include designated discussion groups as well as lectures, and have small class sizes. In general students in such programs receive an abnormally high degree of attention from their professors, as part of
4340-457: A time "when Britain was struggling to prove the value of its own visual culture". The art gave inspiration and "shaped the aesthetic" of Romantic literature for writers including the likes of author Mary Shelley . The diversity and lack of standard seen in the work of infamous Italian artists including Michelangelo and Raphael allowed Romantic writers to celebrate new forms and ways of expression. English essayist William Hazlitt articulated how
4495-579: Is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature . One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his books have sold over thirteen million copies in sixty-three languages, making him the country's best-selling writer. Pamuk is the author of novels including The White Castle , The Black Book , The New Life , My Name Is Red , Snow , The Museum of Innocence , and A Strangeness in My Mind . He
4650-547: Is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist, college professor, and recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature . Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom . Upon announcing
4805-790: Is a list of books considered to be "essential", and it can be published as a collection (such as Great Books of the Western World , Modern Library , Everyman's Library or Penguin Classics ), presented as a list with an academic's imprimatur (such as Harold Bloom 's ), or be the official reading list of a university. In The Western Canon Bloom lists "the major Western writers" as Dante Alighieri , Geoffrey Chaucer , Miguel de Cervantes , Michel de Montaigne , William Shakespeare , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , William Wordsworth , Charles Dickens , Leo Tolstoy , James Joyce and Marcel Proust . A university or college Great Books Program
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4960-525: Is a program inspired by the Great Books movement begun in the United States in the 1920s by John Erskine of Columbia University , which proposed to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. These academics and educators included Robert Hutchins , Mortimer Adler , Stringfellow Barr , Scott Buchanan , Jacques Barzun , and Alexander Meiklejohn . The view among them
5115-506: Is argued by author P. M. Oliver that the theology which was indoctrinated in the poetry of revelatory poets including John Donne was expanded on and created by the poets themselves. Prominent forms of literature which shaped and contributed to this era of Reformation include significantly structured prose and poetry, including the Spenserian stanza ; the sonnet , which is a form of poem easily distinguishable by its fourteen-line form with
5270-677: Is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas. The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown. Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic. According to
5425-401: Is inseparable. The Enlightenment era was a time of progression which spanned over the 18th century across many western countries. Upon recent years, this time of "enlightenment" was split into two degrees of progression, both a "moderate" and "radical" form, and was observed to be less harmonious across regions in its nature than previously thought. Literature has been produced to comment on
5580-403: Is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or his later biographers. A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante, identifies Andes with modern Pietole , two or three miles southeast of Mantua. The ancient biography attributed to Probus records that Andes was thirty Roman miles (about 45 kilometres or 28 miles) from Mantua. There are eight or nine references to
5735-629: Is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus , who later helped finish the Aeneid . At Maecenas's insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long dactylic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius , by Augustus . According to
5890-410: Is said to have received the toga virilis on the very day that Lucretius died. From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome. After briefly considering a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. Despite the biographers statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of
6045-433: Is said to have written a memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet. A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th through 5th century AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius. Henry Nettleship believed that the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius, but it
6200-702: Is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University , where he teaches writing and comparative literature . Born in Istanbul , Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate. He is also the recipient of numerous other literary awards. My Name Is Red won the 2002 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger , 2002 Premio Grinzane Cavour , and 2003 International Dublin Literary Award . Octavio Paz Lozano (1914–1998)
6355-473: Is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas's emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus. The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus; and Book 6 apparently caused
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6510-456: Is the site of Andes. E. K. Rand defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that Egnazio 's 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from Bobbio Abbey which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading. Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that
6665-545: Is transmitted chiefly in vitae ('lives') of the poet prefixed to commentaries on his work by Probus , Donatus , and Servius . The life given by Donatus is generally considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work of Suetonius on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used this source for the poet's life in his commentary on Terence , where Suetonius is explicitly credited. The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements. Varius
6820-722: The Divine Comedy . Dante also mentions Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia , as one of the four regulati poetae along with Ovid , Lucan and Statius (ii, vi, 7). The Renaissance saw a number of authors inspired to write epic in Virgil's wake: Edmund Spenser called himself the English Virgil; Paradise Lost was influenced by the example of the Aeneid ; and later artists influenced by Virgil include Berlioz and Hermann Broch . The legend of "Virgil in his basket" arose in
6975-621: The Lyrical Ballads is claimed to have "marked the beginning of the Romantic Movement". There was known to be two waves of British Romantic authors; Coleridge and Wordsworth were grouped into the first wave, while a more radical and "aggressive" second wave of authors included the likes of George Gordon Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley . Due to the adamant aggression of Byron in his poetic works which advocated for an anti-violence revolution and world in which equality existed,
7130-478: The gens to which Vergil belonged, gens Vergilia , in inscriptions from Northern Italy . Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from Verona , and one in an inscription from Calvisano , a votive offering to the Matronae (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia. A tomb erected by
7285-632: The Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses , the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as
7440-525: The Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres, such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the Aeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the Odyssey as a model while the last six were connected to the Iliad . Book 1 (at
7595-466: The Bible to produce significantly religious-inspired works. British 19th-century Romanticism developed literature which focused on the "self-organisation of living beings, their growth and adaption into their environments and the creative spark that inspired the physical system to perform complex functions". There are observed close ties between medicine , a concept which was experiencing innovation during
7750-634: The Brontë family , Elizabeth Gaskell , and George Eliot . There were also three major female poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson . In the twentieth century there were also many major female writers, including Katherine Mansfield , Dorothy Richardson , Virginia Woolf , Eudora Welty , and Marianne Moore . Notable female writers in France include Colette , Simone de Beauvoir , Marguerite Yourcenar , Nathalie Sarraute , Marguerite Duras and Françoise Sagan . Much of
7905-627: The Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. Bernard Knox ) Martial reports that Silius Italicus annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and Pliny the Younger says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" ( Epistulae 3.7.8). The structure known as Virgil's tomb is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ( grotta vecchia ) in Piedigrotta ,
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#17327650792988060-586: The Catalepton , consists of fourteen short poems, some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD. The Eclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic (that is, "pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus , which were written in dactylic hexameter . While some readers have identified
8215-578: The Chinese classics . With regard to books, what makes a book "classic" has concerned various authors, from Mark Twain to Italo Calvino , and questions such as "Why Read the Classics?", and "What Is a Classic?" have been considered by others, including T. S. Eliot , Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve , Michael Dirda , and Ezra Pound . The terms "classic book" and Western canon are closely related concepts, but are not necessarily synonymous. A "canon"
8370-508: The Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work, and is regarded as one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature ( T. S. Eliot referred to it as 'the classic of all Europe'). The work (modelled after Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey ) chronicles
8525-452: The Middle Ages , and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of the Power of Women literary topos , demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he
8680-511: The Middle East , and South America. Writers from Africa, Turkey, China, Egypt, Peru, and Colombia, Japan, etc., have received Nobel prizes since the late 1960s. Writers from Asia and Africa have also been nominated for, and also won, the Booker prize in recent years. Susan Hardy Aitken argues that the Western canon has maintained itself by excluding and marginalising women, whilst idealising
8835-831: The Neoplatonism of the Early Church and the scholastic tradition of the Roman Catholic Church . Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as "The First Teacher" ( Arabic : المعلم الأول ). His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics . The vast body of Christian philosophy is typically represented on reading lists mainly by Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas . The academic canon of early modern philosophy generally includes Descartes , Spinoza , Leibniz , Locke , Berkeley , Hume , and Kant . Major philosophers of
8990-548: The Pope and move away from the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church . Johannine literature, being "hymnic, densely troped and symbolic, structured, inspired", became the inspiration for many poets of the period. A group of poets bloomed from this reformation, the rejection of the Pope and moving away from Roman Catholic Church. Amongst these were the most significant John Donne , George Herbert and Thomas Traherne , and constituted
9145-421: The Renaissance include Niccolò Machiavelli , Michel de Montaigne , Pico della Mirandola , Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno , Marsilio Ficino and Gemistos Plethon . The seventeenth century was important for philosophy, and the major figures were Francis Bacon , Thomas Hobbes , René Descartes , Blaise Pascal , Baruch Spinoza , John Locke and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz . Major philosophers of
9300-414: The Renaissance of the 12th century , Alexander Neckham placed the "divine" Aeneid on his standard arts curriculum, and Dido became the romantic heroine of the age. Monks like Maiolus of Cluny might repudiate what they called "the luxurious eloquence of Virgil", but they could not deny the power of his appeal. Dante presents Virgil as his guide through Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in
9455-587: The Semanario de Salamanca and the Diario de Madrid [ es ] . Numerous women who contributed to the Spanish Enlightenment period include poet Margarita Hickey , author Frasquita Larrea , and poet María Gertrudis Hore . During the 18th century, Russia was experiencing expansions in military and geographical control, a key facet of the Enlightenment period. This is reflected in
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#17327650792989610-516: The Western hemisphere , such works having achieved the status of classics . Recent discussions upon the matter emphasise cultural diversity within the canon. The canons of music and visual arts have been broadened to encompass often overlooked periods, whilst recent media like cinema grapple with a precarious position. Criticism arises, with some viewing changes as prioritising activism over aesthetic values, often associated with critical theory, as well as postmodernism . Another critique highlights
9765-474: The golem may have been inspired by Virgilian legends about the poet's apocryphal power to bring inanimate objects to life. Possibly as early as the second century AD, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and were used for divination . In what became known as the Sortes Vergilianae ("Virgilian Lots"), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions. In
9920-483: The humanities ). Knox used the intentionally "provocative" title "The Oldest Dead White European Males" as the title of his lecture and his subsequent book of the same name, in both of which Knox defended the continuing relevance of classical culture to modern society. Defenders maintain that those who undermine the canon do so out of primarily political interests, and that such criticisms are misguided and/or disingenuous. As John Searle , Professor of Philosophy at
10075-589: The neoclassical movement of the 18th century through drama and poetic forms of literature. Only until the 20th century, however, was the Spanish Enlightenment period properly acknowledged by scholars, with past research regarding the Spanish Enlightenment period as a "time of foreign imitation". The Spanish Enlightenment held impact on women in Spain, with more women publishing literature, becoming members as well as subscribers to publications including
10230-603: The neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna , it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus 's neoteric circle. According to the Catalepton , he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro in Naples. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana , but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One,
10385-488: The toga virilis, suggest that his father was in fact a wealthy equestrian landowner. He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his social aloofness. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began
10540-468: The wider African diaspora of writers in Britain, France, Latin America, and Africa. This correlated largely with the shift in social and political views during the civil rights movement in the United States. The first global recognition came in 1950 when Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Chinua Achebe 's novel Things Fall Apart helped draw attention to African literature . Nigerian Wole Soyinka
10695-482: The 12th century, starting around Naples but eventually spreading widely throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a great magician . Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings themselves. Virgil's legacy in medieval Wales was such that the Welsh version of his name, Fferyllt or Pheryllt , became
10850-429: The 17th century was the use of metaphysical conceits , in which the poet uses "unorthodox language" to describe a relatable concept. It is beneficial when trying to bring light to concepts that are difficult to explain with more common imagery. John Donne was a prominent metaphysical poet of the 17th century. Donne's poetry explored the pleasures of life through strong use of conceits and emotive language. Donne adopted
11005-485: The 1990s the concept of the Western canon was vehemently condemned, just as earlier Modern Library lists had been criticized as "too American," Modern Library responded by preparing new lists of "100 Best Novels" and "100 Best Nonfiction" compiled by famous writers, and later compiled lists nominated by book purchasers and readers. Some intellectuals have championed a "high conservative modernism" that insists that universal truths exist, and have opposed approaches that deny
11160-530: The 19th century, and Romantic English literature. British Romanticism also had influences from 13th-/16th-century Italian art as a consequence of British artists who resided in Italy during the time of Bonaparte's invasion dealing paintings to London clients from medieval to the High Renaissance Italian periods. The exposure to these artworks influenced British literature and culture during
11315-478: The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy said it had been given to Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Many philosophers today agree that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "The safest general characterization of
11470-484: The Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus , and who committed suicide in 26 BC. The tone of the Georgics wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions, but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading
11625-602: The Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller . He is best known to Western readers for his 1987 novel Red Sorghum Clan , of which the Red Sorghum and Sorghum Wine volumes were later adapted for the film Red Sorghum . In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". Orhan Pamuk (b. 1952)
11780-618: The European intellectual filter. This view of African-American literature as a tool in the struggle for African-American political and cultural liberation has been stated for decades, most famously by W. E. B. Du Bois . Since the 1960s the Western literary canon has been expanded to include writers from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This is reflected in the Nobel Prizes awarded in literature. Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972)
11935-693: The European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato ." Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy , the European Renaissance , and the Age of Enlightenment . Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens . He is widely considered
12090-821: The French control over Spain. This influenced their cultural identity and, therefore, the Enlightenment period held an impact on Spanish literature in the 18th century. The court of Madrid during the 18th century saw an increase in influence from the French and the Italian, with literary influences derived increasingly from authors during the English Enlightenment period. English authors who are stated to hold influence on Spanish "Ilustrados" include John Locke , Edmund Burke , Edward Young and Thomas Hobbes . New takes on literature began to emerge during this time, led by poets including Ignacio de Luzán Claramunt and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos , who contributed greatly to
12245-463: The Latin word for 'wand' ( uirga ), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the Middle Ages . There is also a possibility that virg- is meant to evoke the Latin virgo ('virgin'); this would be a reference to the fourth Eclogue , which has a history of Christian, and specifically Messianic , interpretations . Virgil spent his boyhood in Cremona until his 15th year (55 BC), when he
12400-659: The Native or Plain Style anti-Petrarchan movement had been undervalued and argued that George Gascoigne (1525–1577) "deserves to be ranked […] among the six or seven greatest lyric poets of the century, and perhaps higher". Towards the end of the 20th century the established canon was increasingly disputed. In the twentieth century there was a general reassessment of the literary canon , including women's writing , post-colonial literatures , gay and lesbian literature , writing by racialized minorities, working people's writing, and
12555-552: The Rutulians; Book 10, the death of Evander's young son Pallas ; and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The Aeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus's city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas's defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus's soul lamenting as it flees to
12710-718: The Souls of Today's Students (1987), argues that moral degradation results from ignorance of the great classics that shaped Western culture. Bloom further comments: "But one thing is certain: wherever the Great Books make up a central part of the curriculum, the students are excited and satisfied." His book was widely cited by some intellectuals for its argument that the classics contained universal truths and timeless values which were being ignored by cultural relativists . Classicist Bernard Knox made direct reference to this topic when he delivered his 1992 Jefferson Lecture (the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in
12865-593: The University of California, Berkeley, has written: There is a certain irony in this [i.e., politicized objections to the canon] in that earlier student generations, my own for example, found the critical tradition that runs from Socrates through the Federalist Papers , through the writings of Mill and Marx , down to the twentieth century, to be liberating from the stuffy conventions of traditional American politics and pieties. Precisely by inculcating
13020-577: The ancient vitae , Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the Ides of October in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul ( northern Italy , added to Italy proper during his lifetime). The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an apparitor named Magius, whose daughter he married. According to Phocas and Probus,
13175-473: The attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as his motives in the composition of the Eclogues . This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues . In Eclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom but offers no indisputable evidence of
13330-466: The author, Spinoza , rejected the Jewish and Christian religions for their lack of depth in teaching. Spinoza discussed higher levels of philosophy in his treatise, which he suggested was only understood by elitists. This text is one of many during this period which attributed to the increasing "anti-religious" support during the time of Enlightenment. Although the book held great influence, other writers of
13485-493: The authors who considered themselves Romantics only created two-dimensional imitations of the works of German Romantic authors. The poetry of the Romantic era of Italy was focused greatly on the motif of nature. Romantic poets drew inspiration from ancient Greek and Latin poetry and mythology , while poets of this time period also sought to create a sense of unity within the country with their writings. Political disunity
13640-403: The beloved Laus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an epyllion which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus and the story of Orpheus ' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that
13795-700: The best in the Spanish language , he was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature . García Márquez started as a journalist, and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is best known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing
13950-510: The celebrities of human history in The House of Fame (1486–7), describing him as standing on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere ("on a pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in the Divine Comedy , in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory , Dante pays tribute to Virgil with the words tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore ( Inf. I.86–7) ("thou art alone
14105-480: The central figures of the British renaissance canon remain, Edmund Spenser , Sir Philip Sidney , Christopher Marlowe , William Shakespeare , Ben Jonson , and John Donne . Spenser , Donne , and Jonson were major influences on 17th-century poetry. However, poet John Dryden condemned aspects of the metaphysical poets in his criticism. In the 18th century Metaphysical poetry fell into further disrepute, while
14260-425: The child was meant to be has been subject to debate). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus ; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus . Virgil in his Eclogues is credited with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and with setting
14415-455: The claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture." African-American writers were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States. Some scholars assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity." This means that, in American society, literary acceptance has traditionally been intimately tied in with
14570-424: The core of canon music and remains mostly unchanged to our days. It integrates a huge body of works starting from the 17th century and are reproduced on an ensemble of all acoustic musical instruments that were common in that century's Europe. The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to distinctly canonize the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Ludwig van Beethoven as
14725-443: The course of the 16th century and was a time of development and acceleration in the arts and literature in Spain. This acceleration of poetry , drama and prose forms of literature was partly due to the increase in contact that Spain gained to other European nations including Italy. During this time, a prominent Spanish poet arose named Garcilaso de la Vega . He utilised literary devices seen in foreign nations within his work, and
14880-568: The course of the 1920s, Eliot did much to establish the importance of the metaphysical school, both through his critical writing and by applying their method in his own work. However, by 1961 A. Alvarez was commenting that "it may perhaps be a little late in the day to be writing about the Metaphysicals. The great vogue for Donne passed with the passing of the Anglo-American experimental movement in modern poetry." Two decades later,
15035-419: The cultural productions of historically marginalized groups. This reassessment has resulted in a whole scale expansion of what is considered "literature", and genres hitherto not regarded as "literary", such as children's writing, journals, letters, travel writing, and many others are now the subjects of scholarly interest. The Western literary canon has also expanded to include the literature of Asia, Africa,
15190-525: The curriculum at the University of Chicago . University president Robert Maynard Hutchins and his collaborator Mortimer Adler developed a program that offered reading lists, books, and organizational strategies for reading clubs to the general public. An earlier attempt had been made in 1909 by Harvard University president Charles W. Eliot , with the Harvard Classics , a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature. Eliot's view
15345-426: The development of 19th-century British Romanticism . These revolutions birthed a new genre of authors and poets who used their literature to convey their distaste for authority. This is seen in the works of poet and artist William Blake , who used primarily philosophical and biblical themes in his poetry, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth , also known as the " Lake Poets ", whose literature including
15500-581: The different versions of "Enlightenment" that spawned across Europe during the 18th century. Henry Farnham stated in his book The Enlightenment in America that the "Moderate Enlightenment […] preaches balance, order and religious compromise", whereas the "Revolutionary Enlightenment" attempted to "construct a new heaven and earth out of the destruction of the old". Significant texts which shaped this literary period include Tractatus Theologico-Politicus , an anonymously published treatise in Amsterdam in which
15655-496: The divine Aeneid , but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps." Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers in Silius Italicus . With almost every line of his epic Punica , Silius references Virgil. Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Fourth Eclogue – widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ – Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have
15810-476: The early modern era , had a distinct Biblical influence which only began to be rejected during the Enlightenment period of the 18th century. European poetry during the 17th century tended to meditate on or reference the scriptures and teachings of the Bible , an example being orator George Herbert 's "The Holy Scriptures (II)", in which Herbert relies heavily on biblical ligatures to create his sonnets . The Jacobean period of 17th-century England gave birth to
15965-451: The early period of feminist literary scholarship was given over to the rediscovery and reclamation of texts written by women. Virago Press began to publish its large list of 19th and early 20th-century novels in 1975 and became one of the first commercial presses to join in the project of reclamation. In the twentieth century, the Western literary canon started to include African writers not only from African-American writers , but also from
16120-907: The eighteenth century include George Berkeley , Montesquieu , Voltaire , David Hume , Giambattista Vico , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Denis Diderot , Immanuel Kant , Edmund Burke and Jeremy Bentham . Important nineteenth century philosophers include Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), Giuseppe Mazzini , Arthur Schopenhauer , Auguste Comte , Søren Kierkegaard , Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels and Friedrich Nietzsche . Major twentieth century figures include Henri Bergson , Edmund Husserl , Bertrand Russell , Martin Heidegger , Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jean-Paul Sartre , Simone de Beauvoir , and Simone Weil , Michel Foucault , Pierre Bourdieu , Jacques Derrida and Jürgen Habermas . A porous distinction between analytic and continental approaches emerged during this period. Classical music forms
16275-501: The emperor's sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly skepticism, it has served as a basis for later art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar 's Virgil Reading the Aeneid . Some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC. As a result, the text of the Aeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However,
16430-637: The existence of universal truths. Yale University Professor of Humanities and famous literary critic Harold Bloom also argued strongly in favor of the canon, in his 1994 book The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages , and in general the canon remains as a represented idea in many institutions. Allan Bloom (no relation), in his highly influential The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished
16585-576: The fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, funeral games are celebrated for Aeneas's father Anchises , who had died a year before. On reaching Cumae , in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl , who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son. Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to
16740-679: The first contemporary writers of Arabic literature , along with Tawfiq el-Hakim , to explore themes of existentialism . He published 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films. Kenzaburō Ōe (1935–2023) was a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature . His novels, short stories, and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory , deal with political, social, and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons , nuclear power , social non-conformism , and existentialism . Ōe
16895-511: The head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno , Aeneas's enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage , which historically was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido , welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of
17050-470: The hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics ) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial. After defeating the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar in the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and
17205-730: The interest in Elizabethan poetry was rekindled through the scholarship of Thomas Warton and others. However, the canon of Renaissance poetry was formed in the Victorian period with anthologies like Palgrave's Golden Treasury . In the twentieth century T. S. Eliot and Yvor Winters were two literary critics who were especially concerned with revising the canon of renaissance English literature. Eliot, for example, championed poet Sir John Davies in an article in The Times Literary Supplement in 1926. During
17360-483: The lack of restriction, and ample artistic liberty and freedom seen through the artworks of Raphael inspired poets of the Romantic era. Michelangelo's artworks, which "embodied the sublime", were reflected in the literature of Dante and Shakespeare , with constant analogies being made at the time comparing the two. Western canon The Western canon is the embodiment of high-culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly cherished across
17515-427: The latter spelling spread to the modern European languages. This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar Poliziano had shown Vergilius to be the original spelling. Today, the anglicisations Vergil and Virgil are both considered acceptable. There is some speculation that the spelling Virgilius might have arisen due to a pun, since virg- carries an echo of
17670-459: The literature of the time period. Satire and the panegyric had influenced the development of Russian literature as seen in the Russian literary figures of the time including Feofan Prokopovich , Kantemir, Derzhavin and Karamzin . Spanish literature of the 18th century, apart from being influenced by the Enlightenment period, was influenced by the literary concept of the " sublime ". The "sublime"
17825-536: The magical abilities of a seer; the Sortes Vergilianae , the process of using Virgil's poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian , and continued into the Middle Ages. In a similar vein Macrobius in the Saturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer. Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius ,
17980-445: The most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition . Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher . His writings cover many subjects – including physics , biology , zoology , metaphysics , logic , ethics , aesthetics , rhetoric , linguistics , politics and government—and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy . Aristotle's views on physical science had
18135-569: The muse and recounts Aeneas's arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia , daughter of King Latinus . Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus , the king of the Rutulians , who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata , Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander , who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on
18290-582: The name of Virgil's mother was Magia Polla. The cognomen of Virgil's maternal family, Magius, and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name ( Magi ) in Servius' life from the genitive magi of the noun magus ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician himself. Analysis of his name has led some to believe that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation
18445-466: The nineteenth century, the supposed tomb regularly attracted travellers on the Grand Tour , and it still draws visitors today. According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five years old and later went to Cremona , Milan , and finally Rome to study rhetoric , medicine , and astronomy , which he would abandon for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to
18600-491: The one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology , or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars ; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus's victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in 31 BC. A further focus of study
18755-414: The one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th Century, T. S. Eliot famously began a lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him." Biographical information about Virgil
18910-450: The only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e. not a complete line of dactylic hexameter ). Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these metrically incomplete lines for dramatic effect. Other alleged imperfections are subject to scholarly debate. The works of Virgil almost from the moment of their publication revolutionized Latin poetry . The Eclogues , Georgics , and above all
19065-501: The overall aim of fostering a community of learning. Over 100 institutions of higher learning, mostly in the United States, offer some version of a Great Books Program as an option for students. For much of the 20th century, the Modern Library provided a larger convenient list of the Western canon. The list numbered more than 300 items by the 1950s, by authors from Aristotle to Albert Camus, and has continued to grow. When in
19220-483: The period. The 16th Century is known for the creation of Renaissance literature, while the 17th century was influenced by both Baroque and Jacobean forms. The 18th century progressed into a period known as the Enlightenment Era for many western countries. This period of military and political advancement influenced the style of literature created by French, Russian and Spanish literary figures. The 19th century
19375-458: The poem be burned , instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible. After his death at Brundisium according to Donatus, or at Taranto according to some late manuscripts of Servius, Virgil's remains were transported to Naples , where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph that he himself composed: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces ; " Mantua gave me life,
19530-549: The poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god ( Ecl . 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, Ecl . 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues ( Ecl . 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from works of fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought. The ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with
19685-417: The reader into the mind of the speaker. The Romantic era for literature was at its pinnacle during the 19th century and was a period which influenced western literature. Italian writers of the 19th century, including the likes of Leopardi and Alessandro Manzoni , detested being grouped into a "category" of writing. Therefore, Italy was home to many isolated literary figures, with no unambiguous meaning for
19840-589: The reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles." Other studies claim that today's consideration for ancient Andes should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of Castel Goffredo . By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spelling Vergilius had been changed to Virgilius , and then
19995-477: The sack of Troy , the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in symbolic anticipation of
20150-533: The sense of "national redemption" is reflected heavily in the works of Italian Romantics, including Ugo Foscolo , who wrote the story The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis , in which a man was forced to commit suicide due to the political persecutions of his country. Historical events including the European Revolution , within which the French revolution is claimed to be most significant, contributed to
20305-458: The stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus , Nemesianus and later writers. The ostensible theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod 's Works and Days and several works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on: Well-known passages include
20460-436: The supposed biographic incident. Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC), Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas , Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace , in whose poetry he
20615-691: The term "Romanticism" itself. This was explained in the writings of Pietro Borsieri, in which he depicted the term Romanticism as being a literary movement that was self-defined by the writers. Contrastingly, it was noted by writers of the time, including Giuseppe Acerbi , how Italian Romantics were merely mimicking the trends seen in foreign nations in a hasty way which lacked the depth of foreign writers. Authors including Ludovico di Breme , Ermes Visconti [ it ] and Giovanni Berchet did classify themselves as Romantics, however they were critiqued by others, including Gina Martegiani, who wrote in her essay "Il Romanticismo Italiano Non Esiste" of 1908 that
20770-409: The time rejected Spinoza's views, including theologian Lambert van Valthuysen. The time of enlightenment and advancement meant that both sacred and secular authors were pushing women to be at a higher level of literary knowledgeability. France was attempting to improve the education of young women and therefore have this be seen as a reflection of the advancement of society. This led to the emergence of
20925-628: The tradition, Virgil traveled to the senatorial province of Achaea in Greece in about 19 BC to revise the Aeneid . After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara . After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Apulia on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca , to disregard Virgil's own wish that
21080-485: The underworld. Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas,
21235-473: The very power dynamics which perpetrated such evils as racial discrimination. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the African diaspora , African-American literature broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and patriarchal power." In producing their own literature, African Americans were able to establish their own literary traditions devoid of
21390-421: The works of European men. Where women's work is introduced it can be considered inappropriately rather than recognising the importance of their work; a work's greatness is judged against socially situated factors which exclude women, whilst being portrayed as an intellectual approach. The feminist movement produced both feminist fiction and non-fiction and created new interest in women's writing. It also prompted
21545-464: The writings of Saint John the Evangelist, which was considered an integral part of Johannine theology, coincided with Pauline theology during the early modern era to hold influence over the English literature of the time. Author Paul Cefalu claims this form of "high Christology" was seen in the writings of John Donne, when he states that the "Gospel of Saint John containes all Divinity". However, it
21700-401: Was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read. Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature . He is regarded as one of
21855-402: Was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize , the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature , and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature . Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) was a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter, and journalist. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century and one of
22010-726: Was a master poet – Saint Augustine , for example, confessing how he had wept at reading the death of Dido. The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include manuscripts from late antiquity such as the Vergilius Augusteus , the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus . Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death". In
22165-623: Was able to, therefore, replace the stanza forms originally used in Spain with Italian meters and stanza forms. The poet was influenced by Petrarchan imagery and the works of Virgil , and was used as inspiration by subsequent poets of the time. Garcilaso integrated a variety of mythological allusions into his works, in which he took inspiration from the Italian Renaissance of the mid-16th century. Prose and poetic literature within western regions, most prominently in England during
22320-628: Was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period . He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature : the Eclogues (or Bucolics ), the Georgics , and the epic Aeneid . A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana , were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of
22475-474: Was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world , where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today". Guan Moye (b. 1955), better known by the pen name "Mo Yan", is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. Donald Morrison of the U.S. news magazine TIME referred to him as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers ", and Jim Leach called him
22630-448: Was extended to represent a group of poets of the time, then called " metaphysical poets ". Major poets of the time included John Donne , Andrew Marvell and George Herbert . These poets used wit and high intellectual standards while drawing from nature to reveal insights about emotion and rejected the romantic attributes of the Elizabethan period to birth a more analytical and introspective form of writing. A common literary device during
22785-456: Was known as the Romantic era, in which the style of writing was influenced by the political issues of the century, and differed from the previous classicist form. Western literature includes written works in many languages: Early modern England was the time of reformation, in which a " Protestant aesthetic" was developed, while the Church of England attempted to separate their notoriety with
22940-542: Was prevalent in 19th-century Italy, reflected in the Risorgimento . After the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799, the term "Risorgimento" was used in the context of a movement of "national redemption" as stated by Antonio Gramsci . The one facet which held Italy together during this time of political disunity was the poetry and writings of the time period, as suggested by Berchet. The desire for freedom and
23095-548: Was rather a certain set of tentative judgments about what had importance and quality. Such judgments are always subject to revision, and in fact they were constantly being revised." One of the notable attempts at compiling an authoritative canon for literature in the English-speaking world was the Great Books of the Western World program. This program, developed in the middle third of the 20th century, grew out of
23250-561: Was such that it inspired legends associating him with magic and prophecy. From at least the 3rd century, Christian thinkers interpreted Eclogue 4 , which describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age, as a prediction of Jesus's birth . In consequence, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level to the Hebrew prophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity. Relatedly, The Jewish Encyclopedia argues that medieval legends about
23405-428: Was that the emphasis on narrow specialization in American colleges had harmed the quality of higher education by failing to expose students to the important products of Western civilization and thought. The essential component of such programs is a high degree of engagement with primary texts, called the Great Books. The curricula of Great Books programs often follow a canon of texts considered more or less essential to
23560-427: Was the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1986, and American Toni Morrison was the first African-American woman to win, in 1993. Some early Afro-American writers were inspired to defy ubiquitous racial prejudice by proving themselves equal to European American authors. As Henry Louis Gates Jr., has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute
23715-413: Was the linkage between Spanish Neoclassical poetry and Romantic poetry prevalent during the 18th century, and was a concept of literary, rhetorical and philosophical value. Longinus described the literary devices that the sublime creates as those that allowed the reader to experience something similar to the speaker. He had created a style of language that was not used to persuade, but merely to transport
23870-466: Was the same as that of Scottish philosopher and historian Thomas Carlyle : "The true University of these days is a Collection of Books". ("The Hero as Man of Letters", 1840) The canon of Renaissance English poetry of the 16th and early 17th century has always been in some form of flux and towards the end of the 20th century the established canon was criticised, especially by those who wished to expand it to include, for example, more women writers. However,
24025-415: Was to sneak into at night by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was hoisted only halfway up the wall and then left trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that of Phyllis riding Aristotle . Among other artists depicting the scene, Lucas van Leyden made a woodcut and later an engraving . In the Middle Ages, Virgil's reputation
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