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.
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List of the most influential people in Literature,
#9001
Raymond Picard
1917 - 1975 (58 years)
Raymond Picard was a French author, prominent Sorbonne professor and Jean Racine scholar. Work Picard is noted for his scathing tract "Nouvelle critique ou nouvelle imposture?" , which was aimed at the "subjective" analytical approach of Roland Barthes and other non-traditional approaches by writers and academics of "New Criticism", including Lucien Goldmann, Charles Mauron, Jean-Paul Weber and Jean-Pierre Richard. Barthes' response to this critique came in the form of Critique et vérité, which postulated a 'science of criticism' to replace the 'university criticism' perpetuated by Picard a...
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W. K. C. Guthrie
1906 - 1981 (75 years)
William Keith Chambers Guthrie , usually cited as W. K. C. Guthrie, was a Scottish classical scholar, best known for his History of Greek Philosophy, published in six volumes between 1962 and his death. He served as Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1952 to 1973 and as master of Downing College, Cambridge from 1957 to 1972.
Go to Profile#9003
Mikhail Mikhailovich Morozov
1897 - 1952 (55 years)
Mikhail Mikhailovich Morozov was a Russian Shakespeare scholar and translator. Life Morozov was educated in England; later, he attended Petrograd University. After his studies, he worked at several Russian theaters and also taught English. In 1935, he was made professor at the Institute of Red Professors. He was responsible for teaching Western literature, with an emphasis on William Shakespeare's works. He was a leader in scholarly societies devoted to Shakespeare and organized his first annual conference on the English dramatist in 1939.
Go to Profile#9004
Alban Butler
1710 - 1773 (63 years)
Alban Butler was an English Roman Catholic priest and hagiographer. Biography Alban Butler was born in 1710, at Appletree, Aston le Walls, Northamptonshire, the second son of Simon Butler, Esq. His father died when he was young and he was sent to the Lancashire boarding school run by Dame Alice. He went on to a Catholic further education at the English College, Douai, in France. In 1735 Butler was ordained a priest. At Douai, he was appointed professor of philosophy, and later professor of theology. It was at Douai that he began his principal work The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints.
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Vir Singh
1872 - 1957 (85 years)
Bhai Vir Singh was an Indian poet, scholar, and theologian of the Sikh revival movement, playing an important part in the renewal of Punjabi literary tradition. Singh's contributions were so important and influential that he became canonized as Bhai, an honorific often given to those who could be considered a saint of the Sikh faith.
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August Meineke
1790 - 1870 (80 years)
Johann Albrecht Friedrich August Meineke , German classical scholar, was born at Soest in the Duchy of Westphalia. He was father-in-law to philologist Theodor Bergk. He obtained his education at the University of Leipzig as a student of Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann. After holding an educational post at Danzig , he was director of the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in Berlin from 1826 to 1856. In 1830 he became a member of the Berlin Academy. He died in Berlin on 12 December 1870.
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Alexander Dragunov
1900 - 1955 (55 years)
Alexander Aleksandrovic Dragunov was a Soviet philologist and Sinologist. He is particularly known for his contributions to phonetic reconstruction of the Old Mandarin language of the 12th to 14th centuries and his study of Chinese dialectology. Dragunov was also an early proponent of the 23rd letter of the Tibetan alphabet as representing a voiced fricative in all positions.
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Ludwig Schwabe
1835 - 1908 (73 years)
Ludwig Schwabe was a German classical philologist and professor of classical archaeology born in Giessen. He studied classical philology and archaeology at the Universities of Giessen and Göttingen, receiving his doctorate in 1857 at Giessen. In 1863 he became an associate professor at Giessen, and soon afterwards relocated to the University of Dorpat as a professor of classical philology. In 1872 he was appointed professor of classical philology and chair of classical archaeology at the University of Tübingen, where in 1881–82 he was university rector.
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Marjorie Hope Nicolson
1894 - 1981 (87 years)
Marjorie Hope Nicolson was an American literary scholar. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1941 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1955. Early life and education Nicolson was the daughter of Charles Butler Nicolson, editor-in-chief of the Detroit Free Press during World War I and later that paper's correspondent in Washington, DC, and Lissie Hope Morris.
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Richard August Reitzenstein
1861 - 1931 (70 years)
Richard August Reitzenstein was a German classical philologist and scholar of Ancient Greek religion, hermetism and Gnosticism. He is described by Kurt Rudolph as “one of the most stimulating Gnostic scholars.” With Wilhelm Bousset, he was one of the major figures of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule .
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Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen
1780 - 1856 (76 years)
Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen was a German philologist, chiefly distinguished for his researches in Old German literature. He was born at Angermünde-Schmiedeberg in the Uckermark region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg. After studying law at the University of Halle, he obtained a legal appointment in the state service at Berlin, but in 1806 resigned in order to devote himself exclusively to letters. In 1810 he was appointed professor extraordinarius of German literature at the University of Berlin. In the following year he was transferred in a similar capacity to the University of Breslau, and in 1821 returned to Berlin as professor ordinarius.
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Dwight Macdonald
1906 - 1982 (76 years)
Dwight Macdonald was an American writer, editor, film critic, social critic, literary critic, philosopher, and activist. Macdonald was a member of the New York Intellectuals and editor of their leftist magazine Partisan Review for six years. He also contributed to other New York publications including Time, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and Politics, a journal which he founded in 1944.
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Ibn Zuhr
1091 - 1162 (71 years)
Abū Marwān ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr , traditionally known by his Latinized name Avenzoar , was an Arab physician, surgeon, and poet. He was born at Seville in medieval Andalusia , was a contemporary of Averroes and Ibn Tufail, and was the most well-regarded physician of his era. He was particularly known for his emphasis on a more rational, empiric basis of medicine. His major work, Al-Taysīr fil-Mudāwāt wal-Tadbīr , was translated into Latin and Hebrew and was influential to the progress of surgery. He also improved surgical and medical knowledge by keying out several diseases and their treatme...
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Johann Christoph Wilhelm Ludwig Döderlein
1791 - 1863 (72 years)
Johann Christoph Wilhelm Ludwig Döderlein was a German philologist. Biography Ludwig Döderlein was born at Jena. His father was Johann Christoph Döderlein, professor of theology at Jena. After receiving his preliminary education at Windsheim and Schulpforta , he studied at Munich, Heidelberg, Erlangen and Berlin. He devoted his chief attention to philology under the instruction of such men as F. Thiersch, G. F. Creuzer, J. H. Voss, F. A. Wolf, August Boeckh and P. K. Buttmann.
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John Crowne
John Crowne was a British dramatist. His father "Colonel" William Crowne, accompanied the earl of Arundel on a diplomatic mission to Vienna in 1637, and wrote an account of his journey. He emigrated to Nova Scotia where he received a grant of land from Cromwell, but the French took possession of his property, and the home government did nothing to uphold his rights.
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Jovan Đorđević
1826 - 1900 (74 years)
Jovan Đorđević was a Serbian writer, dramatist, Minister of Education and the co-founder of the Novi Sad Serbian National Theatre in 1861, the National Theatre in Belgrade in 1868 and the Academy of Dramatic Art in 1870. He is most famous for writing the lyrics to the Serbian National anthem Bože pravde in 1872. He was also a member of Matica Srpska.
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Arlo Bates
1850 - 1918 (68 years)
Arlo Bates was an American author, educator and newspaperman. Biography Arlo Bates was born at East Machias, Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1876. In 1880 Bates became the editor of the Boston Sunday Courier and afterward became professor of English at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1900.
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Ernst Ludwig von Leutsch
1808 - 1887 (79 years)
Ernst Ludwig von Leutsch was a German classical philologist born in Frankfurt am Main. He studied classical philology at the University of Göttingen, where he had as instructors Georg Ludolf Dissen, Christoph Wilhelm Mitscherlich and Karl Otfried Müller. It was during this time period that he became lifelong friends with Friedrich Wilhelm Schneidewin.
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Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens
1704 - 1771 (67 years)
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens was a French rationalist, author and critic of the Catholic Church, who was a close friend of Voltaire and spent much of his life in exile at the court of Frederick the Great.
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James Cousins
1873 - 1956 (83 years)
James Henry Cousins was an Irish-Indian writer, playwright, actor, critic, editor, teacher and poet. He used several pseudonyms, including Mac Oisín and the Hindu name Jayaram. Life Cousins was born at 18, Kevor Street in Belfast, Ireland, the descendant of Huguenot refugees. His father was James Cousins, a mariner, and Susan, née Davis. Largely self-educated at night schools, he worked some time as a clerk became private secretary and speechwriter to Sir Daniel Dixon, 1st Baronet, the Lord Mayor of Belfast. In 1897 he moved to Dublin where he became part of a literary circle which included William Butler Yeats, George William Russell and James Joyce.
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Clyde Fitch
1865 - 1909 (44 years)
William Clyde Fitch was an American dramatist, the most popular writer for the Broadway stage of his time . Biography Born in Elmira, New York, and educated at Holderness School and Amherst College , William Clyde Fitch wrote over 60 plays, 36 of them original, ranging from social comedies and farces to melodrama and historical dramas.
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Christian Adolph Klotz
1738 - 1771 (33 years)
Christian Adolph Klotz was a German philologist and controversialist. He is a notable representative of the transition period between the Age of Enlightenment and Sturm und Drang. Education Klotz, son of a senior church official, was born in Bischofswerda, Lusatia. He attended the gymnasium in Meißen and Görlitz. From 1758 until 1760, he studied at the University of Leipzig. In these years, he was already publishing his first philological works. Then he moved to the University of Jena, where he wrote polemic papers against Pieter Burman the Younger. Klotz defended his dissertation, qualified ...
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Ghalib
1797 - 1869 (72 years)
Mirza Beg Asadullah Khan , also known as Mirza Ghalib, was an Indian poet of the Urdu and Persian languages. He was popularly known by the pen names Ghalib and Asad. His honorific was Dabir-ul-Mulk, Najm-ud-Daula. During his lifetime, the already declining Mughal Empire was eclipsed and displaced by the British East India Company rule and finally deposed following the defeat of the Indian Rebellion of 1857; these are described through his work.
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Steele Rudd
1868 - 1935 (67 years)
Steele Rudd was the pen name of Arthur Hoey Davis an Australian author, best known for his short story collection On Our Selection. In 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, Rudd was named one of the Q150 Icons for his role in Queensland literature.
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Babette Deutsch
1895 - 1982 (87 years)
Babette Deutsch was an American poet, critic, translator, and novelist. Background Babette Deutsch was born on September 22, 1895, in New York City. Her parents were of Michael Deutsch and Melanie Fisher Deutsch. She matriculated from the Ethical Culture School and Barnard College, graduating in 1917 with a B.A. She published poems in magazines such as the North American Review and the New Republic while she was still a student at Barnard.
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Václav Černý
1905 - 1987 (82 years)
Václav Černý was a Czechoslovak literary scholar, writer and philosopher. He was an enthusiast of Spanish literature and philosophy and translated into Czech a number of literary and philosophical works by Spanish writers as Ortega y Gasset, Unamuno and Cervantes.
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Henri Weil
1818 - 1909 (91 years)
Henri Weil was a French philologist. Biography Born to a Jewish family in Frankfurt, he was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Leipzig. He went to France, and continued his studies at Paris, graduating as Docteur ès lettres in 1845, and becoming "agrégé" in 1848. Appointed professor of ancient literature at the University of Besançon, he was in 1872 elected dean of the faculty. In 1876 he was called to Paris to fill a vacancy as instructor at the École Normale Supérieure and to assume charge of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, both of which positions he resigned in 1891. I...
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Tristan Bernard
1866 - 1947 (81 years)
Tristan Bernard was a French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer. Life He studied law, and after his military service, he started his career as the manager of an aluminium smelter. In the 1890s, he managed the Vélodrome de la Seine at Levallois-Perret and the Vélodrome Buffalo, events that were an integral part of Parisian life, being regularly attended by personalities such as Toulouse-Lautrec. He reputedly introduced the bell to signify the last lap of a race.
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Rodolfo Oroz
1895 - 1997 (102 years)
Rodolfo Oroz was a Chilean writer, professor, and philologist. He won the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 1978.
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Jacob Geel
1789 - 1862 (73 years)
Jacob Geel was a Dutch scholar, critic and librarian. He was born in Amsterdam. In 1823 he was appointed as a librarian, and in 1833 as university librarian and honorary professor at Leiden University, where he remained until his death. Geel materially contributed to the development of classical studies in the Netherlands. He was the author of editions of Theocritus , of the Vatican fragments of Polybius , of the Olympikos of Dio Chrysostom and of numerous essays in the Rheinisches Museum and Bibliotheca critica nova, of which he was one of the founders. He also compiled a valuable catalogue...
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Vasile Conta
1845 - 1882 (37 years)
Vasile Conta was a Romanian philosopher, poet, and politician. The son of a priest, he was born in Ghindăoani, a village in Bălțătești commune, Neamț County. He attended primary school in Târgu Neamț , and graduated from the Academia Mihăileană in Iași in 1868. Beneficiary of a fellowship, he went to study in 1871 in Belgium, first in Antwerp, and then at the Free University of Bruxelles, from which he graduated with a law degree in 1872. Upon returning to Romania, he was appointed professor at the University of Iași's Law School.
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Alberto Lista
1775 - 1848 (73 years)
Alberto Rodríguez de Lista y Aragón , Spanish poet and educationalist, was born in Seville. Biography He began teaching at the age of fifteen, and when little over twenty was made professor of elocution and poetry at the University of Seville. In 1813 he was exiled, on political grounds, but pardoned in 1817. He then returned to Spain and, after teaching for three years at Bilbao, started a critical review at Madrid. Shortly afterwards he founded the celebrated college of San Mateo in that city. The liberal character of the San Mateo educational system was not favored by the government, and in...
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Otto Ribbeck
1827 - 1898 (71 years)
Johann Carl Otto Ribbeck was a German classical scholar. His works are mostly confined to criticisms of Latin poetry and to classical character sketches. Biography He was born at Erfurt in Saxony. In early life he went to Berlin, where he studied under Karl Lachmann, Franz Bopp and August Böckh, and from there to Bonn where he was a close student of the methods of Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker and Friedrich Ritschl. Having received his degree in Berlin and traveled for a year through Italy, in 1853 he returned to Berlin, where he entered Böckh's school. He then taught at Elberfeld and Bern. Hav...
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Nasif al-Yaziji
1800 - 1871 (71 years)
Nāṣīf bin ʻAbd Allāh bin Nāṣīf bin Janbulāṭ bin Saʻd al-Yāzijī was a Lebanese author at the times of the Ottoman Empire and father of Ibrahim al-Yaziji. He was one of the leading figures in the Nahda movement.
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Justus Hermann Lipsius
1834 - 1920 (86 years)
Justus Hermann Lipsius was a German classical philologist. He was the brother of theologian Richard Adelbert Lipsius. He studied theology and philology at the University of Leipzig , where he later served as an associate professor and full professor of classical philology. In 1891/92 he was university rector.
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Ted Ray
1905 - 1977 (72 years)
Ted Ray was an English comedian of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, on radio and television. His BBC radio show Ray's a Laugh ran for 12 years. Biography Ray was born Charles Olden in Wigan, Lancashire, England, to comic singer and mimic Charles Olden and his wife Margaret Ellen . His parents moved to Liverpool within days of his birth, and Liverpudlians regard him as a local. He was educated at Anfield council school and Liverpool Collegiate School, and as a youth wished to become a footballer. As a comedian of the 1940s and 1950s, he demonstrated his ad-libbing skills in his weekly radio show Ray's A Laugh from 1949 until 1961.
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Carl Michael Bellman
1740 - 1795 (55 years)
Carl Michael Bellman was a Swedish songwriter, composer, musician, poet, and entertainer. He is a central figure in the Swedish song tradition and remains a powerful influence in Swedish music, as well as in Scandinavian literature, to this day. He has been compared to Shakespeare, Beethoven, Mozart, and Hogarth, but his gift, using elegantly rococo classical references in comic contrast to sordid drinking and prostitution—at once regretted and celebrated in song—is unique.
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John McCarten
1911 - 1974 (63 years)
John McCarten was an American writer who contributed about 1,000 pieces for The New Yorker, serving as the magazine's film critic from 1945 to 1960 and Broadway theatre critic from 1960 to 1967. McCarten was born in Philadelphia into an Irish-American family. After serving in the Merchant Marine, he started writing for American Mercury, Fortune, and Time during the 1930s.
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Wilhelm Konrad Hermann Müller
1812 - 1890 (78 years)
Wilhelm Konrad Hermann Müller was a philologist of Germanic studies. From 1830 he studied philology and theology at the University of Göttingen as a student of Karl Otfried Müller. In 1841 he started work as a lecturer of German language and literature at Göttingen, becoming an associate professor in January 1845. From 1856 up until his death in 1890, he was a full professor of philology at Göttingen.
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Joseph Bosworth
1788 - 1876 (88 years)
Joseph Bosworth was an English scholar of the Anglo-Saxon language and compiler of the first major Anglo-Saxon dictionary. Biography Born in Derbyshire in 1788, Bosworth was educated at Repton School as a 'Poor Scholar' but left in his early teens and did not go to university. Despite the lack of a degree he somehow gained sufficient academic standing for the Church of England to allow him to become a priest. He became a curate in Bunny, Notts in 1814 and three years later became vicar of Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire. He was proficient in many European languages and made a particular study of Anglo-Saxon.
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Adolf Stern
1835 - 1907 (72 years)
Adolf Stern was a German literary historian and poet. He was born in Leipzig. He studied at the universities of Leipzig and Jena, and in 1868 was appointed professor of the history of literature in the Königlich-Sächsischen Polytechnikum of Dresden. His publications include the compilation Fünfzig Jahre deutscher Dichtung ; two collections of essays, Aus dem achtzehnten Jahrhundert , Geschichte der neuern Litteratur ; Grundriss der allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte ; and editing of Hauff, Herder, and Körner, Sr. His literary works include: Gedichte ; fourth edition, 19001866188018871911Leipzig...
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Jakob Bernays
1824 - 1881 (57 years)
Jacob Bernays was a German philologist and philosophical writer. Life Jacob Bernays was born in Hamburg to Jewish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays was a man of wide culture and the first orthodox German rabbi to preach in the vernacular; his brother, Michael Bernays, was also a distinguished scholar.
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Augustin Daly
1838 - 1899 (61 years)
John Augustin Daly was one of the most influential men in American theatre during his lifetime. Drama critic, theatre manager, playwright, and adapter, he became the first recognized stage director in America. He exercised a fierce and tyrannical control over all aspects of his productions. His rules of conduct for actors and actresses imposed heavy fines for late appearances and forgotten lines and earned him the title "the autocrat of the stage." He formed a permanent company in New York and opened Daly's Theatre in New York in 1879, and a second one in London in 1893.
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Nicolaus Delius
1813 - 1888 (75 years)
Nicolaus Delius was a German philologist. Delius was born at Bremen; he was distinguished especially as a student of Shakespeare and for his edition of Shakespeare's works. Life and work Nikolaus Delius went to school in Bremen. After passing his A-levels he read philosophy, history, Greek literature, and Sanskrit at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. In 1838 Delius finished his studies with a promotion in Bonn and taught at Berlin University afterwards. In 1844/1845 he wrote articles amongst others for the new Weser-Zeitung in Bremen. About a year later he made up his mind to work as a private lecturer at Bonn University.
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Hermann Fränkel
1888 - 1977 (89 years)
Hermann Ferdinand Fränkel was a German American classical scholar. He served as professor of Ancient Greek philology at Stanford University until 1953. Son of professor Max Fränkel and younger brother of Charlotte Fränkel, Fränkel studied classics at Berlin, Bonn and Göttingen. He later lectured at Göttingen, but was denied a professorship after the Machtergreifung. Eluding increasing racial discrimination by the Nazis, Fränkel immigrated to the United States in 1935. He was offered a professorship at Stanford shortly after. He also held guest professorships at University of California, Berke...
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Enid Starkie
1897 - 1970 (73 years)
Enid Mary Starkie CBE , was an Irish literary critic, known for her biographical works on French poets. She was a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, and Lecturer and then Reader in the University.
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Alexander Adam
1741 - 1809 (68 years)
Alexander Adam was a Scottish teacher and writer on Roman antiquities. Life Alexander Adam was born near Forres, in Moray, the son of a farmer. From his earliest years he showed uncommon diligence and perseverance in classical studies, notwithstanding many difficulties and privations. In 1757 he went to Edinburgh, where he studied at the University of Edinburgh. During this period he lodged with a Mr Watson on Restalrig.
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Paul Lehmann
1884 - 1964 (80 years)
Paul Lehmann was a German paleographer and philologist. Biography Paul Lehmann was the son of businessman Gustav Lehmann and his wife Louisa Meyer. After attending school in his hometown, Lehmann started studying at the University of Göttingen. A successor to Ludwig Traube, Paul Lehmann began as docent at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1911 and became professor of medieval Latin philology there in 1917. Author of a dissertation on Franciscus Modius and a Habilitationsschrift on Johannes Sichardus, he made numerous contributions to the Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen Akademie. He is best known for Parodie im Mittelalter .
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Stuart Sherman
1881 - 1926 (45 years)
Stuart Pratt Sherman was an American literary critic, educator and journalist known for his philosophical "feud" with H. L. Mencken. The two men were very close in age, and their career paths have sometimes been compared, but Mencken outlived Sherman by three decades.
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Lal Shahbaz Qalandar
1177 - 1274 (97 years)
Sayyid Usman Marwandi, popularly known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar , was a Sufi saint and poet who is revered in South Asia. Born in Marwand, Sistan, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar eventually settled in Sindh and is revered by the local Sindhi population.
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