Themes in European Literature

[ElissaDido]

Hey there,

I'd like to ask for ideas for a good theme for a reading list on European Literature (Continental Europe) spanning from the Classical Period up to 20th century. I'm having a hard time thinking of a good theme (and I won't do women's role in literature). Please and thank you. :yawnb:

[SleepyWitch]

how about men's role in literature, then? ;)
how many novels/plays/etc are you going to read?

[ElissaDido]

Heh, can't do men's role. I need 20 books, actually. I've been thinking of heroes and heroisms but it's kinda hard... any other suggestions? :)

[thom]

The grail legends?

[kiki1982]

Becoming of age (bildungsroman)
love
politics, society criticism
travel stories

It's quite difficult to find a theme across literature as a whole... Mostly it just limits itself to a certain period... the grale legends are a good example, though.

[JBI]

Manners, Love, Innocence, Religion, Freedom, The role of the Aristocracy.

[johann cruyff]

Well,what exactly do you mean by Classical period?

Anyway,here's a brief overview of the themes from the Middle Ages onwards:

Middle Age - mostly hagiographies,very little literature that is not somehow connected with the Church;

Humanism and Renaissance - ridding of the religious shackles,turning the attention away from God to man(hence Humanism).Important writers are Dante Alighieri,Ludovico Ariosto,Torquato Tasso,Francois Rabelais,Giovanni Boccaccio,William Shakespeare,Francesco Petrarca,Cervantes etc.

Baroque,Classicism - not much progress here.Writers look back to the Ancient times in search of their role models.Mostly dramas are written.Nicola Boileau-Despreaux writes Poetica and lays down the "rules" of writing.You may be interested in the works of Moliere or Jean Racine,maybe Gongora as well.

Enlightenment - satire becomes the main genre.Check out Voltaire(Candide,a must read!),Mary Wollstonecraft,Rousseau etc. The written word pretty much focuses on society,politics,philosophy.

Romanticism - introspection,turning to your inner self,getting in touch with your inner world in comparison to others etc.The most important writer is Goethe(Faust,The Sorrows of Young Werther).Also check out Victor Hugo,Edgar Allan Poe,Pushkin,Lermontov,Nathaniel Hawthorne,Novalis,Stendhal...There are many poets in Romanticism.

Realism - well,this is where it really gets interesting.The problem of "individual vs society" becomes apparent,the political and economical situation is also very interesting.The concepts of God and atheism are under the limelight again.Bildungsroman becomes very important.Important writers are Dostoevsky,Tolstoy,Gogol,Turgenev,Dickens,Balzac,Z ola and many more.The Brothers Karamazov is a must read,amongst many other great novels.The novel becomes the main tool of the trade.

Modern Literature - "starts" in 1857 with the publication of Madame Bovary(Flaubert) and Les Fleurs du mal(Baudelaire).Literature turns to the individual once again.Philosophy becomes very important.Writers such as Kafka,Hesse,Camus,Sartre,Orwell,Gide,Andrić,Selimo vić,Krleža,Knut Hamsun,Sholokhov,Bulgakov,Nabokov,Verlaine,Valery, ,Fitzgerald,Karel Čapek,Hemingway are all important(there are many,many more).Drama makes a big comeback with the Theatre of the Absurd - Pirandello,Brecht,Beckett,Ionesco.Literature is heavily influenced by the two World Wars.

Postmodern Literature - we're still in it.It is characterized by abandoning usual forms and norms in writing.Some writers are Borges,Marques(magical realism),Lorca,Octavio Paz,Danilo Kiš,Umberto Eco,Heller,Pamuk,Fo,Murakami...

Hope this helps a bit.It's just a quick view over the past couple of centuries,but it should help you in finding some recurring themes.

[thom]

'the muse?'

[JBI]

According to Lionel Trilling, since the 16th century one of the most important themes in European literature is Sincerity, and later Authenticity.

[Oomoo]

Well,what exactly do you mean by Classical period?

Anyway,here's a brief overview of the themes from the Middle Ages onwards:

Middle Age - mostly hagiographies,very little literature that is not somehow connected with the Church;

Humanism and Renaissance - ridding of the religious shackles,turning the attention away from God to man(hence Humanism).Important writers are Dante Alighieri,Ludovico Ariosto,Torquato Tasso,Francois Rabelais,Giovanni Boccaccio,William Shakespeare,Francesco Petrarca,Cervantes etc.

Baroque,Classicism - not much progress here.Writers look back to the Ancient times in search of their role models.Mostly dramas are written.Nicola Boileau-Despreaux writes Poetica and lays down the "rules" of writing.You may be interested in the works of Moliere or Jean Racine,maybe Gongora as well.

Enlightenment - satire becomes the main genre.Check out Voltaire(Candide,a must read!),Mary Wollstonecraft,Rousseau etc. The written word pretty much focuses on society,politics,philosophy.

Romanticism - introspection,turning to your inner self,getting in touch with your inner world in comparison to others etc.The most important writer is Goethe(Faust,The Sorrows of Young Werther).Also check out Victor Hugo,Edgar Allan Poe,Pushkin,Lermontov,Nathaniel Hawthorne,Novalis,Stendhal...There are many poets in Romanticism.

Realism - well,this is where it really gets interesting.The problem of "individual vs society" becomes apparent,the political and economical situation is also very interesting.The concepts of God and atheism are under the limelight again.Bildungsroman becomes very important.Important writers are Dostoevsky,Tolstoy,Gogol,Turgenev,Dickens,Balzac,Z ola and many more.The Brothers Karamazov is a must read,amongst many other great novels.The novel becomes the main tool of the trade.

Modern Literature - "starts" in 1857 with the publication of Madame Bovary(Flaubert) and Les Fleurs du mal(Baudelaire).Literature turns to the individual once again.Philosophy becomes very important.Writers such as Kafka,Hesse,Camus,Sartre,Orwell,Gide,Andrić,Selimo vić,Krleža,Knut Hamsun,Sholokhov,Bulgakov,Nabokov,Verlaine,Valery, ,Fitzgerald,Karel Čapek,Hemingway are all important(there are many,many more).Drama makes a big comeback with the Theatre of the Absurd - Pirandello,Brecht,Beckett,Ionesco.Literature is heavily influenced by the two World Wars.

Postmodern Literature - we're still in it.It is characterized by abandoning usual forms and norms in writing.Some writers are Borges,Marques(magical realism),Lorca,Octavio Paz,Danilo Kiš,Umberto Eco,Heller,Pamuk,Fo,Murakami...

Hope this helps a bit.It's just a quick view over the past couple of centuries,but it should help you in finding some recurring themes.

Wow, this post is SO inaccurate ...

[johann cruyff]

Wow, this post is SO inaccurate ...

Well,I've stated that it's just a very quick overview,and not a reference point.But,please,I'd appreciate any constructive criticism(well,the topic creator would,but I'm also interested).Where did I go terribly wrong?

[Oomoo]

Postmodernist literature is not only about abandoning norms of writing. This definition applies just as well to modernism, and is highly problematical; it does not say anything, in fact. Not to mention there is nothing post modern about Marques or magical realism.

Modernist literature did not start with the publication of Madame Bovary. Madame Bovary is, in fact, the peak of Realist fiction. To say that philosophy becomes important (as opposed to the novels of Dostoevsky!?) and that literature becomes individualist makes little sense. Plus, you have not mentioned the three forerunners of modernism: Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner.

etc, etc...

[SleepyWitch]

@Oomoo... well... I don't know the details of all these novels, but isn't all this periodization business a little arbitrary anyway? as in, there's lots of agreement as to when one period started and another one began and as to what 'movement' a particular book belongs to?

[Oomoo]

There is always something arbitrary about narrative chronologies, and they don't start at a specific date and hour, but no, literary genres make sense. It's not a binary classification - Woolf's work has post modern elements, and Tolstoy's has some modernist, and so on - but you can definitely point out at conceptual and thematic similarities between the literature of a specific period.

[miss_chau]

How about the idea of courtship? From one time period to another, from one country to another, and depending on the circumstances (political, social), courtship is portrayed differently.

Bildunsroman (coming of age) is a very common one, probably because it's easier to discuss.

[Etienne]

Middle Age - mostly hagiographies,very little literature that is not somehow connected with the Church;

That is a very ignorant statement. First, you put Dante and Boccacio in the next category, while they are medieval writers. Then there is authors like Chaucer, Malory, Villon, Petrarch for example, then there is Beowulf, Niebelungs, Chanson de Roland, Roman de la Rose, la Farce de Renart, etc.

The fact that medieval works might not be as popular doesn't mean that they didn't exist or that the quality was not high.

[sharpie]

british empiricism
french rationalism
german idealism

[johann cruyff]

Postmodernist literature is not only about abandoning norms of writing. This definition applies just as well to modernism, and is highly problematical; it does not say anything, in fact. Not to mention there is nothing post modern about Marques or magical realism.

Yes,I completely acknowledge that.That is why I stated that he was a representative of magical realism in the original post.


Modernist literature did not start with the publication of Madame Bovary. Madame Bovary is, in fact, the peak of Realist fiction. To say that philosophy becomes important (as opposed to the novels of Dostoevsky!?) and that literature becomes individualist makes little sense. Plus, you have not mentioned the three forerunners of modernism: Joyce, Woolf and Faulkner.

etc, etc...

The peak of Realism,and also one of the first novels with elements of modern literature.
My bad with Dostoevsky,I didn't want it to sound like there's no philosophy in his works,that was supposed to be a mere generalization of the 20th century,since philosophy does play a bigger role than in Realism.
And you're absolutely right,I omitted some of the biggest names in Faulkner,Joyce and Woolf.Now that I think of it,I also forgot to mention Proust!:crash: My mistake.


That is a very ignorant statement. First, you put Dante and Boccacio in the next category, while they are medieval writers. Then there is authors like Chaucer, Malory, Villon, Petrarch for example, then there is Beowulf, Niebelungs, Chanson de Roland, Roman de la Rose, la Farce de Renart, etc.

The fact that medieval works might not be as popular doesn't mean that they didn't exist or that the quality was not high.

I didn't say that they didn't exist,I just said there is very little important literature.I mentioned Dante,Boccaccio and Petrarca as representatives of Humanism,didn't I?As far as I know,the 13th and especially 14th century are already Humanism and Renaissance,particularly in Italy.It could be that I'm terribly wrong?

Anyway,I hope the thread creator doesn't think I intentionally made any of these mistakes,and I thank Oomoo and Etienne for pointing out some of my mistakes.

[Oomoo]

Every literary genre has technical and thematic aspects that mirror each other; these, in turn, are influenced by the historical, social and political characteristics of the era. If I were to point out at one aspect of Modernism, for example, it would be the concern with the inner world and subjectivity - thus stream of consciousness writing. This is prominent in the works of Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner and Proust. Another aspect of Modernism is the destruction and uncertainty, following the events of WWI: Kafka and Woolf explore such themes of hopeless, alienated individuals in the face of mass industrial society.

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are realist writers to an extent, but to call them to peak of Realism and Flaubert who came before the peak of Modernism is simply to be mistaken. Tolstoy/Dostoevsky created the bridge for Modernist literature: the latter explored existential themes which were crucial for the 20th century, and the former innovated the inner monologue and his view of war are definitely modernist.

In short, you're not completely mistaken, but simply inaccurate. Literary genres are hard to define in entire articles, and like you say, there's something arbitrary about them. The best way is to point out at examples and let the reader see the similarities for himself.

[Kafka's Crow]

Rick Roderick defines the foundations of modernism on three major factors:

Friedrich Nietzsche
Sigmund Freud
Carl Marx

Like all definitions, this definitions is very incomplete but gives a sufficient enough starting point. Borders are always porous and arbitrary.
Nietzche's iconoclasm was foreshadowed by many in literature from Aeschylus onwards. The various versions of the Faust legend could also fall in this category, so do Laureamont, Byron and many other Romantics.

What Freud gave us as in surrealism and dream landscape was already a major theme in world literature, be it dream-like transformation in Ovid's Metamorphosis or the medieval Arab specialists in interpretations of dreams or Lautreamont's Les Chants de Maldoror.

Depiction of working classes were already present in major arts and literature be it van Gogh's Potato Eaters or in The Shoemakers Holiday by Thomas Dekker, a contemporary of William Shakespeare or in various tales in the Arabian Nights.

You can hear Rick's extremely enjoyable lectures here:
http://larshjo.tihlde.org/roderick/

All lectures are well worth downloading. They will change your perception of streight-talking Texans forever.

Years ago I read a book by Wallace Gray (back in early 90s) called From Homer to Joyce. According to Gray all Western Literature is about 'homecoming' with Homer being the great grand father of our literature. He throws light on this theme in various texts from Homeric epics up to Ulysses. Gray died recently but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed this book at that time. I would have completely disagreed with this interpretation now but as a young man, embarking on my first Masters course, I was literally 'set alight' by this book. Rest in peace Wallace Gray!

[Erichtho]

Why not make Europa herself your theme?
The myth of her abduction has left many traces in literature, from the ancient Greeks (e.g. Aischylos' Carians/Europa, Moschos Europa) and the Romans (e.g. Horace, Ovid) throughout the centuries (e.g. G. Boccaccio's On Famous Women, Louis Bouilhet: Europa, G.E. Lessing Auf die Europa, Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin: Europa) to modern literature (e.g. Arnold Zweig An Europa)...

If you search a bit, I'm sure you will find many more examples. Just look at this excerpt from Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor:

Act V, Scene V. Another part of the Park.

Enter FALSTAFF disguised as Herne
FALSTAFF
The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute
draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me!
Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love
set on thy horns. O powerful love! that, in some
respects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man
a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love
of Leda. O omnipotent Love! how near the god drew
to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in
the form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault! And
then another fault in the semblance of a fowl; think
on 't, Jove; a foul fault! When gods have hot
backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a
Windsor stag; and the fattest, I think, i' the
forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can
blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes here? my
doe?

[aabbcc]

(...) From Homer to Joyce. According to Gray all Western Literature is about 'homecoming' with Homer being the great grand father of our literature. He throws light on this theme in various texts from Homeric epics up to Ulysses. (...)

I was about to suggest the concept of 'homecoming' and 'odusseia', I believe it to be an excellent theme to write about, though I have not read Gray's work you mentioned (I intend to). ;) It is certainly one of the most important leitmotives in European literature.

Another good choice could be the concept of "tragic" and its development throughout the time. You could select the element of "tragic hero" from the ancient Greek plays (Oedipus as the most 'representative' one, though you could select, say, Antigone as well), and then see how it evolves in literature and whether it is still "tragic". There are a plethora of good essays on the concept of "tragic" (Schiller, Scheler are the ones to come to my mind now) too; or you can study the metamorphosis of classical tragedy into the theatre of absurd throughout the time.

Another thing coming to my mind now is the concept of the law - from Antigone in which there is a conflict between 'natural' law [burying her brother] and nomos, to Jozef K. where the issue of guilt and law is represented in very surreal, anxious time of the XX cent, and the hell of bureaucracy which becomes purpose for itself.

[kiki1982]

That is a very ignorant statement. First, you put Dante and Boccacio in the next category, while they are medieval writers. Then there is authors like Chaucer, Malory, Villon, Petrarch for example, then there is Beowulf, Niebelungs, Chanson de Roland, Roman de la Rose, la Farce de Renart, etc.

The fact that medieval works might not be as popular doesn't mean that they didn't exist or that the quality was not high.


It is not because Dante's Divina Commedia and Boccacio's Decamerone were written in a time that we see as 'The Middle Ages', that they are really stories of that time. It is probably better, indeed to put them in the category of Renaissance/Humanism, because both books were a renewal. You absolutely cannot put them in the same category as Beowulf, Chanson de Roland etc. In Italy the Renaissance started actually a lot earlier than in the rest of Europe. Dante and Boccacio wrote in a time of renewal towards Renaissance. The Divina Commedia, Decamerone are not simply medieval works, far from. Even Chaucer cannot be considered as simply medieval, as he used English to write in and used Boccacio's structure to tell the stories.

Furthermore, medieval works are difficult to understand, sometimes. You are right about them not being all the time hagiographies and connected with the church. That depends on the time they were written in. But the themes and messages in there are totally different from themes and messages in modern literature. Mostly they are about morality, if they are not hagiographies.
The term 'medieval' is also very wide and usually is used for everything not roman/after the romans or greeks and before the renaissance... Beowulf, Chanson de Roland and Roman de la rose are not even written in the same times. Beowulf being a pre-christian germanic story, Chanson de Roland being a story of the 12th century and Roman de la rose from the 13th century. Eventhough Renart is from the same time as Chanson de Roland (12th century) they are different: Roland is rather 'a good christian' fighting the muslims (to direct violence from society to the people that 'deserve' it) and Renart is a typical medieval moralising story, not directly this time, but doing it in a covered up way, putting a miror in front of society. Thus asking everyone to be good.

Of course medieval works have great qualities, but it's very difficult to study them in connection with the rest of literature, unless someone based his/her book on it. They are quirky and are usually studied apart. Renaissance literature comes closer to modern themes, because the writers went back to the classics who wrote more universally, as they didn't have the church to tell them what to write, and they wrote for pleasure, not moralising. Some plays actually made you think (catharsis), like the ones of Seneca, but they didn't have an explicit message, unlike medieval books/plays.

If you would like to involve non-classic/medieval things in that paper, you could of course use a theme that also occurs in medieval/non-classical literature. For example the epic tale (Beowulf, Niebelungenlied, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Parsifal, King Arthur, The three Musketeers, Oliver Twist, The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, Marquéz, Harry Potter etc), love, other religions apart from christianity/philosophy, man/woman relationships,...