French Lit. La Fontaine Musset Ronsard Rouget de Lisle Verlaine Villon
Balzac Bernardin de Saint-Pierre Chateaubriand Daudet Dumas Fénelon Feuillet French Lit. Hugo Laboulaye Le Sage Maupassant Perrault Zola
French Lit. Guizot Michelet Taine Voltaire
=German Literature.= Depth of thought and forceful expression, which are in part responsible for the complex character of the national style as opposed to the clarity of the French. Owing to the unsettled condition of Germany for many centuries, the arts in general, and literature especially, did not begin to flourish to a noteworthy degree until the eighteenth century. While Luther was the first great author to use the language in its present form, it was not until two centuries later that the next eminent writers, Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, appeared, whose work marks the highest point in the history of German letters.
Arndt German Lit. Goethe Heine Schneckenburger Uhland
=Italian Literature.= Emotional and imaginative rather than reflective, and therefore at its best in the brilliant and exuberant era of the Renaissance, which first came into full bloom in Italy.
Dante Jacopone Michelangelo Petrarch Tasso
=Spanish Literature.= Marked by the dignity that is the predominating characteristic of the nation. Just as Spain has had but one brief period when she was supreme among the European nations, so she has produced but one supreme author, Cervantes. Her literature, for the most part, and notably at the present day, is imitative, behind rather than ahead of the times.
=Scandinavian Literature.= Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are nations of the same race; their history, literature, and civilization are inseparably associated. Climate, racial character, historical developments, and other causes have combined to retard the growth of their literature. Apart from the sagas little of universal interest appeared until the nineteenth century, in which Ibsen created a sensation with his dramas of relentless criticism of the vanity and pettiness of life in the prosperous, democratic society of Norway.
=Russian Literature.= In some respects more closely related to the East than to the West, and hampered by despotism until the twentieth century, Russia produced nothing of value until a century ago. The novelists mentioned below then began a series of vivid pictures of the struggle for freedom, knowledge, and civilization as opposed to tyranny, universal ignorance, and barbarism. Their work has a strong national flavor, coupled with a youthful energy and an enthusiasm for the mission of enlightenment that recalls the spirit of the Renaissance and its zeal for discovery and progress.