Western literature, also known as European literature,[1] is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family[1] as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque and Hungarian. 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 written works in many languages:
- Argentine literature
- American literature
- Australian literature
- Brazilian literature
- British literature
- Canadian literature
- Catalan literature
- Croatian literature
- Czech literature
- Danish literature
- Dutch literature
- English literature
- Estonian literature
- German literature
- Greek literature
- Hungarian literature
- Finnish literature
- French literature
- Icelandic literature
- Irish literature
- Italian literature
- Latin literature
- Latin American literature
- Latvian literature
- Lithuanian literature
- New Zealand literature
- Norwegian literature
- Polish literature
- Portuguese literature
- Romanian literature
- Russian literature
- Spanish literature
- Swedish literature
- Welsh literature
See also
References
- ^ a b "Western literature". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 19 May 2014.