The Evolution of Literature:

The art of writing is an ancient art, that presents itself in early Sumerian texts, and Egyptian
hieroglyphs, dating from around 3200 years BC. These texts, along with Chinese logs, are however
not considered to be 'Literature'; Merely necessary record-keeping. The earliest forms of what we
know as Literature, would most likely be Chinese texts, such as Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and The
Analects of Confucius, in about 600 BC. Classical Greek and Latin Literature is also another
starting point for literature. Homer's plays, the Iliad and the Odyssey, dated from 800 BC are
understood to be the start of Western Literature. Aeschylus then introduced the idea of dialogue
between characters, and essentially created 'drama', while Sophocles and Euripides played with the
notions of irony and challenging the social norms, respectively. Philosophy began to merge with
Literature through the works of Plato and Aristotle, in around 340 BC. Latin literature contributed
the idea of satire, with Horace using it as a tool for argument, while Juvenal used it as a weapon.
This short history of early literature led to the period known as Medieval literature.

The fall of the Western Roman Empire marked the beginning of Medieval Literature. Many of the
Greek and Roman (Latin) literary techniques and styles were snubbed by the Europeans following
the decline of the Roman Empire. What was born from this was a huge literary focus on the issues
of faith and religion. There were some secular works, even some works by women, notably the nuns
Clare of Assisi, Bridget of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena, the mystical artists Julian of Norwich
and Hildegard of Bingen, not forgetting the authors Marie de France, and Christine de Pizan, who
focused on secular works, however these were far outnumbered by the male written, faith-based
literature typical of Medieval times.

Medieval books were generally copied by hand, and illustrated by monks, which meant that in
western and central Europe, literature was in Latin, the language of the Western Roman Church,
while the eastern parts of Europe tended more towards Greek and Old Church Slavonic, influenced
by the Eastern Roman Church. Notable works of the time include Historia Regum Britanniae, a
fictional story rooted in Arthurian Legends, written by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Le Morte D'Arthur
by Sir Thomas Malory, and Beowolf by Anonymous, among many others. Key writers of the time
include Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, Dante, Venerable Bede, John Wycliffe, and Thomas
Aquinas.

The start of the Renaissance didn't really mark a change in the type of literature being written, more
a change in its accessibility. Johan Guttenburg invented the printing press, which enabled literature
to be printed easily, cheaply, and in much higher quantities, than ever before. This birth of mass
literature allowed writers to publish texts in the local language, rather than classical Greek or Latin
dialects, which widened the reading audience, and promoted the Renaissance ideas. The ability to
create so much literature meant that different areas diverted from the norm, and a number of
different minor categories formed during the Renaissance. These included Elizabethan literature,
French, Italian, and Spanish literature.

The Italian Renaissance (1280-1600), rediscovered ancient Greek and Roman theatre, which
allowed the development of a new era of drama, diverging from the mystery and miracle stories of
the Medieval times. Renaissance literature and poetry were greatly influenced by developing
science and philosophy. A key philosophy in the time was Renaissance Humanism: An philosophy
that saw man as being able to think for himself, and good by nature, which sparred with the
Christian view of man as the original sinner, needing redemption. These ideas led to the questioning
of God and spirituality, and the purpose of man. Artists, scientists and writers of the time allowed
themselves to think beyond God and faith, spawning a new wave of ideologies and beliefs pushed
in cultural works. Key works of the time include The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the works
of Petrarch, and the translations and works of Boccaccio.
The Spanish Renaissance (beginning 1492), thought along the lines of the Italian notion of
humanism, and produced two schools of poetry: the Salmantine and the Sevillian. The Salmantine
school typically uses concise language, simple expression, realistic themes, and short verse. The
Sevillian school used extremely polished language, focused on documentation and meditation, as
opposed to observation of nature, used long, complex verses, and was filled with grandiloquent
language. The Sevillian school bridged the gap between itself and the Baroque style, and eventually
focussed on the ideas of love, nature, pagan mythology, and the feminine beauty.

The French Renaissance (1494-1600), included four distinct types of literature: poetry, long prose
fiction, the short story, and theatre. The poetry often focussed on the Horace idea of Carpe Diem
(Seize the day), while long prose fiction still focused on the chivalrous stories of the Middle Ages.
The short story form was the most abundant of literature in the French Renaissance. The Italian
author Boccaccio published a compilation of short stories called the Decameron, which had a huge
impact on French writers. Marguerite of Navarre, who was central in a progressive literary circle,
began to write her own version of the compilation, and although it was never completed, it remains
a masterpiece of the French Renaissance. The newly written theatre of the time was mostly
humanist tragedy, and took on three forms: Biblical tragedy, which re-enacted the stories of the
Bible, Ancient tragedy, which were taken from ancient myths or history, and Contemporary tragedy,
which dealt with the recent events of the civil wars.

Elizabethan literature is the works written in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-
1603). Elizabethan literature saw the rise of drama, with plays such as Gorboduc by Sackville &
Norton, and The Spanish Tragedy by Kyd, though it is no mystery that the symbol of Elizabethan
literature is the poet and playwright William Shakespeare. Other important authors of the time
include Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Christopher Marlowe, who has been said to have had the
ability to rival, if not surpass the talent of Shakespeare, had it not been for his death aged 29, in a
tavern brawl. The key themes of Elizabethan drama were revenge, sensationalism, melodrama, and
vengeance, which were repeated over and over in almost every text to come from this movement.

The Romantic period was the next great movement in the literary world, beginning in the late 18th
Century, and spanning almost every country in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. A
rebellion against the science and logic of the Renaissance Enlightenment, Romanticism focused on
the emotion, psychology and passion of the natural world. A sense of nationalism was strong in the
Romantic period, and many authors returned to the myths and native folklore of their country, and
the ideas of the Medieval literature. The work The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe was one of the earlier examples of Romantic literature, focusing on the story of a
young, sensitive artist. The French and American Revolutions in the late 18th century propelled the
ideas of freedom, liberty and national pride into the spotlight of Romantic literature.

British Romantic writers include William Wordsworth, William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley,
and John Keats, who wrote of religious fervour, nature, and the emotional response to beauty.
American romantics such as Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne focused
on the Gothic ideas of beauty and nature, while James Fennimore Cooper wrote tales of the
American frontier and the Native Americans, exploring the nationalist ideals of Romanticism.

The dawn of the Victorian era saw the novel become the main form of English literature. It forms a
link between the Romantic movement and the Modernist period, and encompasses a range of
writers and focuses. The start of the Victorian era saw a focus on the portrait of difficult lives filled
with hard work, love, perseverance, and luck, with virtue winning out in the end. Authors such as
Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, the Bronte Sisters, and Mary Ann Evans (pseudonym George
Eliot) wrote in this style, encompassing all the ideals of the time. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Robert Lewis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Lewis Carrol's Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland, and R.M. Ballantyne's array of children's works, all are key works in the
Victorian idea and creation of 'childhood', which saw children gaining an education, and not
working.

The Victorian ideas of the portrait of life bridged the gap between Romanticism and Modernism.
The disaster that was World War I, led the people to believe that the government had failed them
and lied to them, leading to the creation of the Modernist movement. They established a strong and
intentional break with tradition and rebelled against established religions, and political and social
views. Modernists created a new era that held the beliefs that the world is created in the way we
perceive it, that all things are relative, there is no connection to be held with the past, and dealt with
alienation, despair and loss. They followed on with the Victorian faith in the individual, with a
celebration of the inner strength, and belief in the unordered catastrophe of life, while concerning
themselves with the mysteries of the sub-concious.

European modernists included James Joyce, who wrote Ulysses in which the accepted norms in
relation to plot, setting and characters, are disregarded, Virginia Woolf, who explores the stream of
consciousness in To The Lighthouse, and Aldous Huxley whose Brave New World explores the
dangers and nature of modern society. The American modernists are part of a group called 'The Lost
Generation”, who explore the fall of society following World War I, and the effects that the war has
on a person. Notable writers involved in this include Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John
Dos Passos, Hart Crane, and Sherwood Anderson.

Post-Modernist literature evolved following World War II, and will often satirise the Modernist
notion of finding meaning in a chaotic world: turning it into a parody of the modernist quest for
meaning. Modernist literature has playful element, however post-modernists aim to show that the
chaos is infinite and overwhelming, and that the only way to survive is to play among the chaos.
Key texts include The Cannibal by John Hawkes, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Slaughterhouse-
Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick.