About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Ancient literature

Encyclopedia : A : AN : ANC : Ancient literature

History of Literature
Ancient literature
Indian literature
Sanskrit literature
Chinese literature
Greek literature
Latin literature
Tamil literature (Sangam Literature)
Arabic literature
Persian literature
Pahlavi literature
The History of literature begins with the history of writing, in Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, although the oldest literary texts that have come down to us date to a full millennium after the invention of writing, to the late 3rd millennium BC. The earliest literary authors known by name are Ptahhotep and Enheduanna, dating to ca. the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, respectively.

Texts handed down by oral tradition may predate their fixation in written form by several centuries, or, in extreme cases, even millennia. Classical Antiquity is usually considered to begin with Homer, in the 8th century BC. Many older literary texts are known, but often difficult to date. This includes the texts in the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch being traditionally dated to the 15th century BC, while modern scholarship puts it to the 10th century BC at the very earliest. A very early example is the so called Egyptian Book of the Dead which was eventually written down in the Papyrus of Ani in approximately 250 BC but probably dates from about the 18th century BC.

Contents

List of ancient texts

History of Literature

Early Literature
Early Indian literature
Indian literature * Sanskrit literature
Chinese literature
Greek literature
Latin literature
Persian literature
Pahlavi literature * Persian literature
The Medieval Period
Matter of Rome * Matter of France * Matter of Britain * Medieval literature * Arabic literature * 13th century in literature * 14th century in literature
European Renaissance Literature
European Renaissance Literature * 15th century in literature
The early modern period
16th century in literature * 17th century in literature
European literature in the 18th century
1700s * 1710s * 1720s * 1730s * 1740s * 1750s * 1760s * 1770s * 1780s * 1790s * 1900s
Modern Literature, 19th century
1800s * 1810s * 1820s * 1830s * 1840s * 1850s * 1860s * 1870s * 1880s * 1890s * 1900s
Modern Literature, 20th century
Modernism
Structuralism * Deconstruction * Poststructuralism * Postmodernism * Post-Colonialism * Hypertext fiction
1900s * 1910s * 1920s * 1930s * 1940s * 1950s * 1960s * 1970s * 1980s * 1990s * 2000s
Modern Literature in Europe
Modern Literature in the Americas
Argentine literature * * Canadian literature * * * * Mexican literature * * Literature of the United States
Australasian Literature
Australian literature * New Zealand literature
Modern Asian Literature
Pakistani literature * Tamil literature * Hindi literature * Urdu literature * Indian writing in English * Bengali literature * Marathi literature * Malayalam literature * Japanese literature * Vietnamese literature
African Literature
South African literature
Other topics
History of theater * History of science fiction * History of ideas * Intellectual history *

Classical Antiquity

See also Ancient Greek literature, Latin literature.

See also

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: