History of Literature
Around 4,000 years ago, the first stories to be written down came
in the form of poems such as Mesopotamia’s The Epic of Gilgamesh and India’s Mahabharata, which were based on oral traditions. Rhyme, rhythm, and meter
were essential aids to memory in songs and oral accounts, so it is unsurprising that the first texts made use of familiar poetic devices. Many early written texts were religious, and sacred texts such
as the Bible and the Koran tell the stories of early histories, and have influenced writing for centuries. The form of literature that became Greek drama used a narrative balladlike form and introduced characters with individual voices, choruses of commentary, and the distinct categories of comedy and tragedy that continue to be used today. The collections of stories that make up the Arabic One Thousand and One Nights have multiple origins, but this prose fiction, written in plain speech, makes use of techniques that eventually became a mainstay in modern novels, such as framing (which introduces stories within the framework of another story), foreshadowing, and the inclusion of repetitive themes.
Although the vast medieval era was studded with secular highlights such as the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and tales of chivalric romance, it was dominated in the West by religious texts in Latin and Greek. During the Renaissance, the joint energies of new philosophical investigation and sheer invention opened the door to literary innovation. The driving force behind the Renaissance was the production of new translations of ancient Greek and Roman texts which freed scholars from the dogma of the church. A humanist program of education which incorporated philosophy, grammar, history, and languages was built
on the wisdom of the ancients. The Bible was translated into vernacular speech, enabling Christians to commune directly with their God. Gutenberg’s printing press brought books into the lives of ordinary people, and authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio made everyday life the subject of literature. By the early 17th century, Miguel de Cervantes and Daniel Defoe had given the world what many scholars consider to be the first novels, and the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays was published.
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