The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
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List of the most influential people in Literature,
#8201
Christian Wilhelm Ahlwardt
1760 - 1830 (70 years)
Christian Wilhelm Ahlwardt was a German classical philologist. He was the father of orientalist Wilhelm Ahlwardt . After obtaining his habilitation from the University of Rostock, he worked as a schoolteacher in the town of Demmin . In 1795 he was named academic rector in Anklam, followed by a rectorship at the Oldenburg gymnasium . In 1811 he was named rector of the gymnasium in Greifswald, and in 1817 he became a professor of ancient literature at the University of Greifswald, where he remained until his death.
Go to Profile#8202
Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr.
1880 - 1958 (78 years)
Aurelio Macedonio Espinosa Sr. , a professor at Stanford University, was an internationally known scholar because of his studies in Spanish and Spanish American folklore and philology. He was especially known for his promotion of the study of the Spanish language and literature.
Go to Profile#8203
J. O. Bailey
1903 - 1979 (76 years)
James Osler Bailey was a professor of literature who taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He wrote on a wide slate of topics ranging from the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Hardy to science fiction and utopian literature.
Go to Profile#8204
Thomas Ellwood
1639 - 1713 (74 years)
Thomas Ellwood was an English religious writer. He is remembered for his relationship with poet John Milton, and some of his writing has proved durable as well. Life Ellwood was born in the village of Crowell, Oxfordshire, the son of a rural squire, Walter Ellwood, by his wife, Elizabeth Potman. From 1642 to 1646 the family lived in London. He was educated at Lord Williams's School in Thame.
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Najm al-Din Razi
1177 - 1256 (79 years)
Abū Bakr 'Abdollāh b. Moḥammad b. Šahāvar b. Anūšervān al-Rāzī commonly known by the laqab, or sobriquet, of Najm al-Dīn Dāya, meaning "wetnurse" was a 13th-century Sufi. Hamid Algar, translator of the Persian Merṣād to English, states the application of "wetnurse" to the author of the Merṣād derives from the idea of the initiate on the Path being a newborn infant who needs suckling to survive. Dāya followed the Sufi order, Kubrawiyya, established by one of his greatest influences, Najm al-Dīn Kubrā. Dāya traveled to Kārazm and soon became a morīd of Najm al-Dīn Kubrā. Kubrā then appointed Shaikh Majd al-Dīn Bagdādī as the spiritual trainer who also became Dāya's biggest influence.
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Werner Vordtriede
1915 - 1985 (70 years)
Werner Vordtriede was an emigre from Nazi Germany first to Switzerland and then to the United States who was a professor of German language and literature at the University of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1960 before returning to West Germany and accepting an appointment at the University of Munich. Beyond his scholarly publications, he translated and authored a number of fictional and non-fictional works.
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Mildred K. Pope
1872 - 1956 (84 years)
Mildred Katherine Pope was an English scholar of Anglo-Norman England. She became the first woman to hold a readership at Oxford University, where she taught at Somerville College. Biography Mildred Pope was educated at Edgbaston High School, Birmingham. She read French at Somerville College, Oxford, and in 1893 was placed in the first-class of the Oxford University women's examination. Interested in Old French philology, as an undergraduate "she had to rely mainly on tuition by correspondence from Paget Toynbee at Cambridge". She taught at Somerville College, Oxford, first as a librarian, and from 1894 as a lecturer.
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Anne Charlotte Leffler
1849 - 1892 (43 years)
Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler, duchess of Caianello , was a Swedish author. Biography She was the daughter of the school principal John Olof Leffler and Gustava Wilhelmina Mittag. Her brother was noted mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler. Leffler was initially educated privately and then a student at the Wallinska skolan from the age of thirteen, at that time perhaps the most progressive school open to females in Stockholm.
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Helen L. Webster
1853 - 1928 (75 years)
Helen L. Webster was an American philologist and educator. She taught at Vassar College, 1889–90, at same time giving a course of lectures on comparative philology at Barnard College. She served as professor of comparative philology in Wellesley College. 1890–9; and was the principal of the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Institute, 1899–1904. Webster was the author of: A Treatise on the Guttural Question in Gothic . She edited, The Legends of the Micmacs, 1893. Additional, she lectured and contributed to educational periodicals. Webster made her home in Farmington, Connecticut.
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Karl Luick
1865 - 1935 (70 years)
Karl Luick was the de facto founder of the Vienna School of English historical linguistics, which was continued by Herbert Koziol and has been expanded, most notably and most recently, by Herbert Schendl and Nikolaus Ritt as the most recent holders of the "Luick Chair" in English historical linguistics.
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Vladimir Wagner
1849 - 1934 (85 years)
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Wagner was a Russian psychologist and naturalist known for his studies of comparative and evolutionary psychology. He also studied spiders, and in 1882 proposed the first classification of spider families based on copulatory organs.
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Adelbert von Keller
1812 - 1883 (71 years)
Adelbert von Keller was a German philologist. Biography He was born at Pleidelsheim, and educated at the University of Tübingen, where, after study at Paris, he became Privatdozent and assistant librarian . After travels in Italy and research in Italian libraries, he was professor and librarian at Tübingen until 1850, when he became president of the Litterarische Verein. In this office much of his work as editor of German-language works was done, while his work in Romance languages belongs to the earlier period.
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Cristoforo Landino
1424 - 1498 (74 years)
Cristoforo Landino was an Italian humanist and an important figure of the Florentine Renaissance. Biography From a family with ties to the Casentino, Landino was born in Florence in 1424. He studied law and Greek . Against his father's will he turned away from a career in the law and decided to study philosophy instead, a decision he would not have been able to make but for the patronage of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici. Landino's wife Lucrezia was a member of the Alberti family.
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María Bibiana Benítez
1783 - 1873 (90 years)
María Bibiana Benítez Batista was Puerto Rico's first female poet and one of its first playwrights. She was the first of three renowned poets in her family, the others being her niece and adopted daughter Alejandrina Benítez de Gautier, and Alejandrina's son José Gautier Benítez.
Go to Profile#8215
Gao Heng
1900 - 1986 (86 years)
Gao Heng was a Chinese philologist and palaeographer, known for his work on the modern interpretation of the I Ching. Among his most important accomplishments, he published a new translation of the ancient political treatise of Lord Shang with an original commentary in the context of the 1970s.
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Elizabeth Inchbald
1753 - 1821 (68 years)
Elizabeth Inchbald was an English novelist, actress, dramatist, and translator. Her two novels, A Simple Story and Nature and Art, have received particular critical attention. Life Born on 15 October 1753 at Stanningfield, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, Elizabeth was the eighth of the nine children of Mary Simpson and her husband John Simpson , a farmer. The family, like several others in the neighbourhood, was Roman Catholic. Her brother was sent to school, but Elizabeth and her sisters were educated at home.
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Daniel Drake
1785 - 1852 (67 years)
Daniel Drake was a pioneering American physician and prolific writer. Early life Drake was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, to Isaac Drake and Elizabeth Shotwell. He was the elder brother of Benjamin Drake, author of Life of Tecumseh. Daniel Drake "was predestined for the medical profession by his father. The latter, we are told by those who knew him, was a gentleman by nature and a Christian from convictions produced by a simple and unaffected study of the Word of God. His poverty he regretted, his ignorance he deplored."
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Andrew Young
1885 - 1971 (86 years)
Andrew John Young was a Scottish poet and clergyman, although recognition of his poetry was slow to develop. Life Andrew Young was born to the stationmaster of Elgin in Scotland in 1885. Two years later his father moved to Edinburgh, where young Andrew attended the Royal High School and later took an arts degree at the University of Edinburgh. The disappearance of his brother David in discreditable circumstances in 1907 so affected him that he gave up his intention to become a barrister and instead studied theology at the local New College. Old habits died hard, however, and his first collect...
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Jakob Ulrich
1856 - 1906 (50 years)
Jakob Ulrich was a Swiss Romance philologist. He studied Indo-European linguistics and Romance philology in Zürich and Paris, where his teachers included Gaston Paris and Paul Meyer. In 1879 he received his doctorate at Zürich under the direction of Heinrich Schweizer-Sidler with the thesis Die formelle Entwicklung des Participium Praeteriti in den romanischen Sprachen. In 1880 he obtained his habilitation for Romance philology at the University of Zürich, where in 1901 he attained a full professorship. After his death, he was succeeded at the university by Louis Gauchat.
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Miftahetdin Akmulla
1831 - 1895 (64 years)
Miftakhetdin Kamaletdinovich Kamaletdinov, known as Akmulla was a Bashkir, Kazakh and Tatar educator, poet and philosopher. Biography Born 14 December 1831 in the village of Tuhanbay, Kulil-Minsk volost Belebeyevsk Uyezd, Orenburg Governorate .
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Dumitru Evolceanu
1865 - 1938 (73 years)
Dumitru Evolceanu was a Romanian literary critic. Born in Botoșani, he attended high school in his native city, followed by the literature faculty of Iași University, from which he graduated in 1889. He then took specialty courses at the École pratique des hautes études and the Collège de France , the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin . Upon returning home, Evolceanu was hired as an assistant professor of Latin language and literature at the University of Bucharest's literature faculty. He rose to associate professor in 1902 and was a full professor from 1906 to 1935. In Convorbiri Literare between 1894 and 1901, he published criticism of Romanian literature.
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Choi Jae-seo
1908 - 1964 (56 years)
Choi Jae-seo was a South Korean literary scholar, a critic of English literature, and a novelist. He graduated from Keijō Imperial University , received his M.A. from the University of London, and later taught at Yonsei University. As editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Humanities Review, he was a forerunner of progressive literary criticism. Although he later presided over pro-Japanese literary journals under pressure from the ruling Japanese, he undoubtedly remains an important figure in Korean modernism of the 1930s.
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Clifford Leech
1909 - 1977 (68 years)
Clifford Leech was a prolifically published British-born professor of English at University College at the University of Toronto 1963-74. In The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe , Patrick Cheney, its editor, describes Leech's contribution to Christopher Marlowe studies "historically important." His publications mainly concerned Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, including William Shakespeare, John Webster and John Ford. He also wrote a book on American playwright Eugene O'Neill.
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Jean Garrigue
1914 - 1972 (58 years)
Jean Garrigue was an American poet. In her lifetime, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a nomination for a National Book Award. Life Jean Garrigue was born Gertrude Louise Garrigus in Evansville, Indiana, to Allan Colfax and Gertrude Garrigus. She was born in 1912 but later gave 1914 as her birth year. She had one sister, Marjorie, and one brother, Ross.
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Jakob Sverdrup
1881 - 1938 (57 years)
Jakob Sverdrup was a Norwegian philologist and lexicographer. Personal life He was born in Leikanger as a son of the bishop and politician Jakob Sverdrup . He was a brother of Georg Johan Sverdrup, uncle of historian Jakob Sverdrup, a first cousin of Harald Ulrik Sverdrup Jr., and Leif Sverdrup, a nephew of Georg Sverdrup and Edvard Sverdrup, grandson of Harald Ulrik Sverdrup Sr., grandnephew of Johan Sverdrup and great-grandson of Jacob Liv Borch Sverdrup.
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Wang Chi-chen
1899 - 2001 (102 years)
Chi-chen Wang was a Chinese-born American literary scholar and translator. He taught as a professor at Columbia University from 1929 until his retirement in 1965. Life and career Wang was born in Huantai County, Shandong province. His father Wang Caiting achieved the Jinshi degree, the highest level of the civil service examinations and was a county magistrate in Guangdong, where Chi-chen lived for several years.
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H. W. J. Thiersch
1817 - 1885 (68 years)
Heinrich Wilhelm Josias Thiersch , usually known as H. W. J. Thiersch, was a German Evangelical theologian and philologist, who served as a minister in the short-lived Catholic Apostolic Church. Early life Thiersch was born in Munich, the son of well-known classicist Friedrich Thiersch, and brother of surgeon Karl Thiersch and painter Ludwig Thiersch. He studied philology at the University of Munich from 1833 to 1835, primarily under his father but also under Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Joseph Görres. He switched to theology and moved to the University of Erlangen, where from 1835...
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Ágoston Pável
1886 - 1946 (60 years)
Ágoston Pável, also known in Slovenian as Avgust Pavel was a Hungarian Slovene writer, poet, ethnologist, linguist, and historian. Education Ágoston Pável was born in Cankova as the third child of Iván Pável, a tailor, and Erzsébet Obal. He attended elementary school in his native village. Although Slovene was his native language, Ágoston Pável graduated with excellence from a Hungarian-speaking high school in Szentgotthárd, being the top student among 28 from 1897 through 1901. In these early days, a friendly relationship developed between Pável and his class teacher Győző Schmidt. Schmidt,...
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Wilhelm Schubart
1873 - 1960 (87 years)
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Schubart was a German ancient historian. He was leading authority in the field of papyrology. Shubart was born on 21 October 1873 in Liegnitz, then part of the German Empire. He studied classical philology and philosophy at the Universities of Tübingen, Halle, Berlin and Breslau, earning his PhD at the latter institution in 1897. In 1900 he obtained his habilitation in ancient history at Berlin, becoming an associate professor in 1912. From 1931 to 1937 he was an honorary professor in Berlin, later serving as a professor of ancient history at the University of Leipzig...
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Ernst Maass
1856 - 1929 (73 years)
Ernst Maass was a German classical philologist. From 1875 he studied at the universities of Tübingen and Greifswald, receiving his doctorate in 1879 as a student of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. After graduation, he took an extended study trip to Italy, Paris and London , and afterwards qualified as a lecturer in Berlin with the habilitation-thesis Analecta Eratosthenica. In 1886, he was named a professor at the University of Greifswald, and from 1895 to 1924, served as a professor and director of the philological seminary at the University of Marburg. In 1910/11 he was rector at the u...
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Aleksandr Evlakhov
1880 - 1966 (86 years)
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Evlakhov was a Russian literary critic and doctor. Professor, Rector of Rostov State University in 1920. Biography Aleksandr Mikhailovich Evlakhov was born on 8 August 1880 in Odessa in the family of a gymnasium teacher. In 1898 he entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Saint Petersburg University, but already a year later he moved to the History and Philology Department, which he graduated in 1903. In 1902 he also graduated from the St. Petersburg Archaeological Institute and worked there for a while. In 1907 he became a Master of Literature. Privatdocent of St.
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Thomas Blackburn
1916 - 1977 (61 years)
Thomas Eliel Fenwick Blackburn was a British poet. His work is noted for its self-examination and spiritual imagery. His memoir, A Clip of Steel , portrays the effects of a childhood under a repressive clergyman father.
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William Logan
1841 - 1914 (73 years)
William Logan was a Scottish officer of the Madras Civil Service under the British Government. Before his appointment as Collector of Malabar, he had served in the area for about twenty years in the capacity of Magistrate and Judge. He was conversant in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. He is remembered for his 1887 guide to the Malabar District, popularly known as the Malabar Manual.
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Vanja Radauš
1906 - 1975 (69 years)
Vanja Radauš was a Croatian sculptor, painter and writer. Life After attending elementary and high school in his home town of Vinkovci, he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb from 1924 to 1930. During World War II he participated in the National Liberation movement. He was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1945 to 1969.
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Mary Wollstonecraft
1759 - 1797 (38 years)
Mary Wollstonecraft was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships at the time, received more attention than her writing. Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.
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Marian Auerbach
1882 - 1941 (59 years)
Marian Auerbach a.k.a. Mayer [Majer] Auerbach was a Polish classical philologist of Jewish background. He graduated from the Philology Department of the University of Lwów, where he received his doctorate in 1911 and his habilitation in 1932. Auerbach lectured there, and was murdered by the Gestapo during the Holocaust in Poland.
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Dion Boucicault
1820 - 1890 (70 years)
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. Although The New York Times hailed him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century," he and his second wife, Agnes Robertson Boucicault, had applied for and received American citizenship in 1873.
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Tom Brown
1662 - 1704 (42 years)
Thomas Brown , also known as Tom Brown, was an English translator and satirist, largely forgotten today save for a four-line gibe that he may have written concerning John Fell. Biography Early life Brown was born at either Shifnal or Newport in Shropshire; he is identified with the Thomas Brown, son of William and Dorothy Brown, who was recorded christened on 1 January 1663 at Newport. His father, a farmer and tanner, died when Thomas was eight years old. He took advantage of the free schooling offered in the county, attending Adams' Grammar School at Newport, before going up to Christ Churc...
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Jacob Baart de la Faille
1886 - 1959 (73 years)
Jacob Baart de la Faille compiled the first catalogue raisonné of the work of Vincent van Gogh, published in 1928. The catalogue was revised and republished by an editorial committee in 1970, and this version is considered to be the definitive catalogue of van Gogh's work.
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Paulin Martin
1840 - 1890 (50 years)
Jean-Pierre-Paulin Martin , often referred to as Abbé Paulin Martin, or simply Abbé Martin or Paulin Martin, was a French Catholic Biblical scholar. Life Paulin Martin's secondary studies were made at Montfaucon, and his theology at St. Sulpice. Here came under the influence of Le Hir. At the end of his course, Martin was too young for ordination; so he went to the French Seminary, Rome, attended the lectures at the Gregorian University, and was raised to the priesthood in 1863.
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Mihail Cruceanu
1887 - 1988 (101 years)
Mihail Cruceanu was a Romanian poet. He was born in Iași to Mihail Cruceanu, a doctor, and his wife Ecaterina . He attended high school in Ploiești and Pitești, earning his degree in 1906 at Bucharest's Saint Sava High School. Cruceanu enrolled in the University of Bucharest, where he took degrees in law and literature and philosophy . He subsequently taught high school at Alexandria, Craiova and Bucharest. He made his poetic debut in Revista literară in 1904. Although he associated with the Literatorul circle of Alexandru Macedonski, he was closer to Ovid Densusianu's Vieața Nouă group. His first published volume was the 1912 Spre cetatea zorilor.
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Adeline Rittershaus
1876 - 1924 (48 years)
Adeline Rittershaus was a German philologist, a scholar in old Scandinavian literature, and champion for the equality of women. She earned her doctorate in 1898, at the University of Zurich, being one of the first women to do so at that institution, and acquired in 1902, as the first woman, a Venia legendi at the Faculty of Arts of the same university. Her most famous work is a collection of Icelandic folk tales.
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Dumitru Popovici
1902 - 1952 (50 years)
Dumitru Popovici was a Romanian literary historian. Born in Dăneasa, Olt County, his parents were Ioan Popovici, a teacher, and his wife Ioana . After attending primary school in nearby Șerbănești from 1909 to 1914, he studied at Radu Greceanu High School in Slatina from 1914 to 1923. Popovici then went to the literature faculty of the University of Bucharest from 1923 to 1927, earning a doctorate there in 1935. From 1924 to 1926, he was honorific teaching assistant to Dumitru Caracostea. He taught high school in Slatina and Iași . From 1936 until his death, he was a professor in the literature faculty of the University of Cluj.
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D. Gwenallt Jones
1899 - 1968 (69 years)
David James Jones , commonly known by his bardic name Gwenallt, was a Welsh poet, critic, and scholar, and one of the most important figures of 20th-century Welsh-language literature. He created his bardic name by transposing Alltwen, the name of the village across the river from his birthplace.
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Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas
1523 - 1601 (78 years)
Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas , also known as El Brocense, and in Latin as Franciscus Sanctius Brocensis, was a Spanish philologist and humanist. Biography Sanctius was born in Brozas, province of Cáceres. His parents, Francisco Núñez and Leonor Díez, were of noble birth but had little money. Sancius was able to study thanks to the support of relatives, starting in Évora, where he learnt Latin and humanities, and then in Lisbon. There he served Queen Catherine I and King John III of Portugal and remained in the court of the Portuguese kingdom until the death of the princess in 1545. In acco...
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Ștefan Vârgolici
1843 - 1897 (54 years)
Ștefan G. Vârgolici was a Moldavian, later Romanian poet, critic and translator. Born in Borlești, Neamț County, he attended secondary school at Academia Mihăileană in Iași, followed by the literature and philosophy faculty at the University of Iași. After obtaining a degree in 1864, Vârgolici continued his studies at Madrid, Paris , and Berlin. Following his return home, he taught high school in Bârlad and Iași. In 1875, he was hired as a professor at the University of Iași's French language and literature department, which later became the department of the history of modern literatures, particularly Romance.
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Mary Abigail Dodge
1833 - 1896 (63 years)
Mary Abigail Dodge was an American writer and essayist, who wrote under the pseudonym Gail Hamilton. Her writing is noted for its wit and promotion of equality of education and occupation for women. She was an abolitionist.
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Patrick Russell
1726 - 1805 (79 years)
Patrick Russell was a Scottish surgeon and naturalist who worked in India. He studied the snakes of India and is considered the "Father of Indian Ophiology". Russell's viper, Daboia russelii, is named after him.
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Terrot R. Glover
1869 - 1943 (74 years)
Terrot Reaveley Glover was a Cambridge University lecturer of classical literature. He was a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He was also a Latinist, and is known for translating Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses to Latin.
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Adela Rogers St. Johns
1894 - 1988 (94 years)
Adela Nora Rogers St. Johns was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies, but is best remembered for her groundbreaking exploits as "The World's Greatest Girl Reporter" during the 1920s and 1930s and her celebrity interviews for Photoplay magazine.
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