Poet

Writer · 1564 – 1616

William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist.

• Hamlet
• Romeo and Juliet

Poet · b. 800 BC

Homer was the legendary ancient Greek poet to whom the great epics the Iliad and the Odyssey are attributed, foundational works of Western literature.

• The Iliad
• The Odyssey

Poet · 1265 – 1321

Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet of the late Middle Ages whose masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, is considered one of the greatest works of world literature and helped establish the Italian language.

• The Divine Comedy
• Inferno

Philosopher · 1844 – 1900

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher whose radical critiques of morality, religion, and truth—including the proclamation that "God is dead" and the ideal of the Übermensch—made him one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the modern era.

• "God is dead"
• The Übermensch

Writer · 1749 – 1832

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, poet, and statesman, widely regarded as the greatest figure in German literature and one of the towering minds of European culture.

• Faust
• The Sorrows of Young Werther

Novelist · 1547 – 1616

Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish writer whose novel Don Quixote is widely regarded as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works in world literature.

• Don Quixote
• The first modern novel

Novelist · 1802 – 1885

Victor Hugo was a French novelist, poet, and dramatist, the towering figure of French Romanticism, whose novels Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame are monuments of world literature.

• Les Misérables
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame