Western Literature

Refers to the literature written 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 culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin, especially western European culture.
The Great Books of the Western World is an attempt to present the western canon in a single package of 60 volumes
Dante, Homer and Virgil in Raphael's Parnassus fresco (1511), in which the Western canon is visualised
The Medieval West (The Great Schism with former borders in 1054.)

While epic literary works in verse such as the Mahabarata and Homer's Iliad are ancient and occurred worldwide, the novel as a distinct form of story telling only arose in the West in the period 1200 to 1750.
Western literature. William Shakespeare's First Folio pictured.
The Western canon is a term used to denote a canon of books, and, more widely, music and art, that has been the most influential in shaping Western culture. It asserts a compendium of the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the development of "high culture". Although previously held in high regard, it has been the subject of increasing contention through the latter half of the 20th century. In practice, debates and attempts to actually define the canon in lists are essentially restricted to books of various sorts: literature, including poetry, fiction and drama, autobiographical writings and letters, philosophy and history. A few accessible books on the sciences are usually included.

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