Western literature, also known as European literature, refers to the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, including the ones belonging to the Indo-European language family as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque, Hungarian, and so forth. Western literature is considered one of the defining elements of Western civilization. The best of Western literature is considered to be the Western Canon. The list of works in the Western Canon varies according to the critic’s opinions on Western culture and the relative importance of its defining characteristics. Western literature includes literature in many languages: American literature Australian literature Brazilian literature British literature Canadian literature Catalan literature Czech literature Danish literature Dutch literature English literature German literature Greek literature – (Ancient Greek literature) Hungarian literature Finnish literature French literature Irish literature Italian literature Latin literature Norwegian literature Polish literature Portuguese literature Russian literature Serbian literature Spanish literature Swedish literature Ukrainian literature Welsh literature
