English poet.

• Wrote The Canterbury Tales

Italian poet.

• Wrote The Decameron

Persian poet, astronomer and mathematician.

• Wrote the Rubaiyat, a long poem popularized in English by the 1859 translation of Edward Fitzgerald

French philosopher, theologian and poet.

• Wrote the autobiography Historia calamitatum (''''History of My Troubles'''')

Fifteenth-century English writer and translator.

• Wrote Le Morte D''Arthur

English printer and translator.

• The first printer in England

Italian poet.

• Wrote The Divine Comedy

One of the early fathers of the Christian church.

• Produced the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible

Italian humanist scholar and poet whose emphasis on the classics helped to bring about the Italian Renaissance.

• Wrote the Canzoniere

Greek epic poet who chronicled the Trojan War.

• Believed to have composed the epic Greek poems The Odyssey and The Iliad

Roman poet.

• Wrote the Aeneid

Spanish scholar.

• Compiled a massive encyclopedia

Roman poet and satirist. Full name: Quintus Horatius Flaccus.

• Wrote the Satires

Carthaginian, taken to Rome as a slave in the second century B.C., who became Rome's greatest comic playwright. Full name: Publius Terentius Afer.

• Wrote The Eunuch

Roman scholar and satirist.

• Wrote a 25-book work about the Latin language

Byzantine emperor.

• Wrote several histories

Frankish scholar and historian who was an important figure of the Carolingian Renaissance.

• Wrote a famous biography of Charlemagne

Thirteenth-century Turkish poet and mystic.

• The influence of his poetry extends into modern times

Spanish military leader, poet, and patron of the arts.

• Best known for his ten serranillas

Fourteenth-century Welsh poet.

• Wrote many awdlau (odes) and cywyddau (rhyming couplets)

Thirteenth-century German poet.

• Wrote the epic poem Tristan und Isolde

Italian archbishop and writer.

• Wrote The Golden Legend

Thirteenth-century French poet.

• Wrote the first part of the allegory Roman de la rose

Thirteenth-century French poet.

• Completed Guillaume de Lorris'' allegory Le Roman de la rose

One of the most prominent Jewish writers and philosophers in Muslim-controlled Spain.

• Wrote Diwan

Fourteenth-century English knight and author; possibly a pseudonym.

• Wrote The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight

Icelandic chieftan, poet and historian.

• Wrote the Heimskringla

English bishop and chronicler.

• Wrote The History of the Kings of Britain, one of the earliest sources of the Arthurian legends

Roman orator, statesman and writer.

• Wrote De natura deorum

Roman philosopher, statesman and playwright.

• Wrote the Consolationes

Second-century Greek rhetorician and writer

• Wrote Dialogs of the Gods

Roman elegiac poet of the first century B.C.

• Known for his love poems

Second-century Indian poet.

• Known for his Sattasati, a collection of romantic poems

Pseudonym used by one or more yogic writers.

• Author(s) of the Yoga-sutras

Hindu poet.

• Wrote the Ramayana, an ancient epic that tells the story of the great Hindu leader and diety Rama

Indian writer.

• Compiled the Kama-Sutra, an ancient Indian guide to love and eroticism

Eleventh-century Japanese courtier and novelist. Murasaki is actually the name of the heroine of her novel; the author's real name is unknown.

• Wrote The Tale of Genji, thought to be the world''s first novel

German abbess, mystic and writer.

• Wrote treatises on medicine and natural history, as well as recording her visions

French poet and author.

• Wrote Le Livre de la cité des dames (''''The Book of the City of Ladies'''')

The earliest known French female poet. Wrote in the late 12th century.

• Wrote lais and ysopets (fables)

Greek lyric poet of the sixth century B.C.

• Greatly admired throughout history, though only fragments of her work remain