Great Books: Index by Period and Culture:
Western Literature, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque (7th-17th C)

Periods and Nationalities

8th C

English (British Isles)

• Beowulf

Greek

• John Damascene, St

Celtic

• Early Irish Epic

9th C

English (British Isles)

• Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

Germanic

• Poetic Edda

11th C

Eastern Christian

• Sasuntsi Davith

Latin

• Gaunilo
• Anselm, St

French

• La Chanson de Roland

12th C

Greek

• Comnena, Anna

Latin

• Abelard, Pierre and Héloïse
• Hildegard of Bingen

Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan

• Cantar de Mio Cid

French

• Songs of the Provencal Troubadors
• Chrétien de Troyes

Germanic

• Nibelungenlied
• Wolfram von Eschenbach
• Snorri Sturluson

13th C

Eastern Christian

• Rustaveli, Shota

Latin

• Thomas Aquinas, St
• Jacobus de Varagine

Italian

• Polo, Marco
• Dante Alighieri

French

• Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun
• Queste del Saint Graal

Germanic

• Snorri Sturluson
• Gottfried von Strassburg
• Laxdæla Saga (Saga of the People of Laxardal)

14th C

English (British Isles)

• Chaucer, Geoffrey

Italian

• Petrarch
• Boccaccio, Giovanni
• Christine de Pizan

Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan

• Ruiz, Juan (Archpriest of Hita)

French

• Froissart, Jean

Celtic

• Mabinogion

Germanic

• Njal's Saga

15th C

English (British Isles)

• Malory, Thomas
• English and Scottish Popular Ballad
• Dunbar, William
• Skelton, John

Latin

• Thomas à Kempis

Italian

• Boiardo, Matteo Maria
• Leonardo da Vinci

Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan

• Manrique, Jorge
• Vicente, Gil

French

• Villon
• Commynes, Philippe de

16th C

English (British Isles)

• Wyatt, Sir Thomas
• Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of
• Gilbert, William
• Spenser, Edmund
• Sidney, Sir Philip
• Raleigh, Sir Walter
• Marlowe, Christopher
• Nashe, Thomas

Latin

• Erasmus, Desiderius
• Copernicus
• More, St./Sir Thomas
• Calvin, John
• Viete, Francois

Italian

• Machiavelli, Niccolò
• Ariosto, Ludovico
• Michelangelo Buonarroti
• Castiglione, Baldassare
• Guicciardini, Francesco
• Cellini, Benvenuto
• Vasari, Giorgio
• Stampa, Gaspara
• Tasso, Torquato
• Bruno, Giordano

Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan

• Rojas, Fernando de
• San Pedro, Diego de
• Portuguese Voyages (1498-1663)
• Teresa of Avila, St. (Teresa de Jesús)
• Camões, Luís Vaz de
• Ferreira, Antònio
• Leon, Fray Luis de
• Luis de León, Fray
• John of the Cross, St. (Juan de la Cruz)
• Cervantes de Saavedra, Miguel de
• Lazarillo de Tormes

French

• Rabelais, François
• Marguerite de Navarre
• Scève, Maurice
• Du Bellay, Joachim
• Ronsard, Pierre de
• Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de
• Garnier, Robert
• Aubigné, Agrippa d'

Germanic

• Luther, Martin

17th C

English (British Isles)

• Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke
• Kyd, Thomas
• Chapman, George
• Bacon, Francis
• Daniel, Samuel
• Drayton, Michael
• Shakespeare, William
• Campion, Thomas
• Donne, John
• Jonson, Ben
• Tourneur, Cyril
• Marston, John
• Burton, Robert
• Webster, John
• Beaumont, Francis, and John Fletcher
• Middleton, Thomas and William Rowley
• Massinger, Philip
• Ford, John
• Hobbes, Thomas
• Herrick, Robert
• Herbert, George
• Walton, Izaak
• Carew, Thomas
• Browne, Sir Thomas
• Milton, John
• Crashaw, Richard
• Butler, Samuel
• Taylor, Jeremy
• Lovelace, Richard
• Marvell, Andrew
• Vaughan, Henry
• Aubrey, John
• Bunyan, John
• Dryden, John
• Locke, John
• Pepys, Samuel
• Etherege, Sir George
• Traherne, Thomas
• Behn, Aphra
• Wycherley, William
• Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of
• Otway, Thomas

Latin

• Kepler, Johannes
• Harvey, William
• Spinoza, Baruch

Italian

• Campanella, Tomasso
• Galileo Galilei

Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan

• Góngora, Luis de
• Vega, Lope de
• Vélez de Guevara, Luis
• Quevedo y Villegas, Francisco Gómez
• Molina, Tirso de
• Calderón de la Barca, Pedro
• Juana Ines de la Cruz, Sister

French

• Descartes, René
• Corneille, Pierre
• La Rochefoucauld, François, duc de
• La Fontaine, Jean de
• Molière
• Pascal, Blaise
• Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne
• Huygens, Christiaan
• La Fayette, Madame de
• Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas
• Racine

Germanic

• Rembrandt van Rijn
• Grimmelshausen, Johann Jakob Christoffel von

Anthologies and Auxiliary Reading

Anthologies, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque

Latin

• Mediaeval Latin Lyrics
• Penguin Book of Latin Verse

Celtic

• Celtic Miscellany

Various, Western

• Medieval Literature in Translation
• Protestant Reformation

Auxiliary Reading, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque

• Adams, Henry. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
• Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society
• Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century
• Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II
• Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages
• Gibbon, Edward. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Gowing, Lawrence. Vermeer
• Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution
• Huizinga, Johan. The Waning of the Middle Ages
• Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary
• Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error
• Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. The Peasants of Languedoc
• Panofsky, Erwin. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance
• Rosenberg, Jakob. Rembrandt: Life and Work
• Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades
• Scholem, Gershom. Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah
• Tawney, R. H.. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
• Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England
• Yates, Frances. The Art of Memory

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Updated: December 25, 2013