Europe in Literature

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the origin of the idea of Europe and its identity in relation to literature. It attempts to show that, before being a cultural, economic or political reality, Europe was a literary concept, whose origins are closely linked to the literary theories of the Romantics, particularly the German Romantics. The links between the idea of Europe and literature also associate Europe with the birth of comparative literature. But at the same time, the notion of World Literature, even if it has a Eurocentric background in Goethe and his successors, calls for the poet to transcend Europe and become a citizen of the world.