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.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Literature,
#10701
Oğuz Atay
1934 - 1977 (43 years)
Oğuz Atay was a pioneer of the modern novel in Turkey. His first novel, Tutunamayanlar , appeared in 1971–72. Never reprinted in his lifetime and controversial among critics, it has become a best-seller since a new edition came out in 1984. It has been described as “probably the most eminent novel of twentieth-century Turkish literature”: this reference is due to a UNESCO survey, which goes on: “it poses an earnest challenge to even the most skilled translator with its kaleidoscope of colloquialisms and sheer size.” In fact four translations have so far been published: into Dutch, as Het leve...
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David Turner
1927 - 1990 (63 years)
David Turner was a British playwright. Turner was born in Birmingham and came from a working-class background. He studied French at Birmingham University and later worked as a school teacher in that city. He is best remembered for his stage play Semi-Detached, first performed during 1962, which reached Broadway and was adapted for the film All the Way Up . He prepared modern versions of classic plays including John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, a version seen in London in 1968, and The Miser by Molière, which was performed at the Birmingham Rep in 1973.
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James B. Greenough
1833 - 1901 (68 years)
James Bradstreet Greenough was an American classical scholar. Life James B. Greenough was born in Portland, Maine on May 4, 1833. He graduated at Harvard in 1856, studied one year at the Harvard Law School, was admitted to the Michigan bar and practised in Marshall, Michigan, until 1865, when he was appointed tutor in Latin at Harvard. In 1873 he became assistant professor.
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Nathaniel Fish Moore
1782 - 1872 (90 years)
Nathaniel Fish Moore was the eighth president of Columbia College; he had earlier been a lawyer and served on the faculty. He was the nephew of the college's former president Benjamin Moore. In 1820, Moore began his career at Columbia College as a professor of Greek and Latin, which in 1830 became titled the Jay Professor of the Greek Language and Literature. He was appointed the first full-time Librarian of the College in 1838. Four years later, Moore was elected the eighth president of the college, resigning under unremarkable circumstances in 1849.
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Heinrich Theodor Rötscher
1803 - 1871 (68 years)
Heinrich Theodor Rötscher was a German theatre critic and theorist. One strong influence on his writing was Hegel. Biography Rötscher was born in Mittenwalde, and studied philology and philosophy at the University of Berlin. From 1828 he was a gymnasium teacher in Bromberg . In 1842 he moved back to Berlin and dedicated himself to writing and theorizing about theatre. In Berlin, he was the dramatic critic for the Spenersche Zeitung.
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William Wilkie
1721 - 1772 (51 years)
William Wilkie was a Scottish Church of Scotland minister and Professor of Natural Philosophy primarily remembered as a poet nicknamed Potato Willie, known more respectfully as the "Scottish Homer". The son of a farmer, he was born in West Lothian and educated at Edinburgh. In 1757 he produced the Epigoniad, dealing with the Epigoni, sons of seven heroes who fought against Thebes. He also wrote Moral Fables in Verse.
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John Burnet
1863 - 1928 (65 years)
John Burnet, FBA was a Scottish classicist. He was born in Edinburgh and died in St Andrews. Life and work Burnet was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, the University of Edinburgh, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained first-class honours in Classical Moderations in 1885 and in Literae Humaniores in 1887. In the course of his undergraduate academic career at Oxford he won the Taylorian Scholarship in French and came second for the Boden Sanskrit Scholarship
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Friedrich Leo
1851 - 1914 (63 years)
Friedrich Leo was a German classical philologist born in Regenwalde, in the then-province of Pomerania . Academic career From 1868 he was a student at the University of Göttingen, and following military duty in the Franco-Prussian War, he continued his education at the University of Bonn, where he had as instructors Franz Bücheler and Hermann Usener. At Bonn his fellow students included Georg Kaibel, Friedrich von Duhn, Georg Dehio and Hans Delbrück. After graduation in 1873 he toured countries of the Mediterranean extensively.
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Peter Alexander
1893 - 1969 (76 years)
Peter Alexander, was a Scottish literary scholar. He was Regius Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow and a noted Shakespearean scholar. His collected works of Shakespeare are known as "the Alexander text". In 1914, he joined the army as a private in the Cameron Highlanders but left in 1918 after he became an artillery officer. Alexander returned to the University of Glasgow to finish his studies and graduated in 1920 with an MA degree.
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Leopold Cohn
1856 - 1915 (59 years)
Leopold Cohn was a German author and philologist. He was also the father of Israeli politician and supreme court jurist Haim Cohn. He received his education at the gymnasium at Culm, West Prussia, and at the University of Breslau, whence he graduated as doctor of philosophy in 1878. In 1884 he became privatdozent at the Breslau University, in 1889 he was appointed librarian, and in 1897 he received the title of professor.
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Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi
1926 - 1978 (52 years)
Syed Zahoor Shah Hashmi , commonly known as Syed Hashmi , was a Pakistani poet, academic, writer and philosopher who is widely considered one of the most important figures in Balochi language literature. He wrote in Balochi, Urdu, Persian and Arabic. Syed Hashmi was awarded Pride of Performance by the Government of Pakistan for his contribution in the field of literature.
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Eugene O'Neill Jr.
1910 - 1950 (40 years)
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill Jr. was an American professor of Greek literature and the only child of Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill and his first wife, Kathleen Jenkins. Early life O'Neill Jr.'s parents divorced in 1912, when he was a toddler. O'Neill once said he did not even meet his father until age 12. He entered Yale in 1928; in his freshman year a poem he had written was widely reprinted. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 1932, where he was a member of Skull and Bones secret student society. After studying abroad for a year, he earned a PhD in philosophy from Yale in...
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Heinrich Morf
1854 - 1921 (67 years)
Heinrich Morf was a Swiss linguist and literary historian. He studied Indo-Germanic and classical philology at the University of Zürich and Romance philology at the University of Strasbourg , receiving his doctorate in 1877 with the dissertation Die Wortstellung im altfranzösischen Rolandslied. Following graduation, he continued his education in Spain and Paris , where he was a student of Gaston Paris. In 1879 he was named an associate professor of Romance philology at the University of Bern. Later on, he served as a professor at the University of Zürich , the Akademie für Sozial- und Hande...
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Frederic de Forest Allen
1844 - 1897 (53 years)
Frederic de Forest Allen was an American classical scholar. Early life Frederick Forest Allen was born in 1844 in Oberlin, Ohio. He graduated at Oberlin College in 1863. Allen taught Greek and Latin at the University of Tennessee from 1866 to 1868. He attended the University of Leipzig in Germany from 1868 to 1870, where his thesis supervisor was Georg Curtius. He earned his Ph.D. there with his thesis De Dialecto Locrensium.
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Hans Diller
1905 - 1977 (72 years)
Hans Diller was a German classical scholar and historian of ancient Greek medicine. Life and work Diller obtained a doctorate in 1930 in Hamburg, and later studied in Leipzig in 1932 before returning to Hamburg as a lecturer.
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Wendelin Förster
1844 - 1915 (71 years)
Wendelin Förster was an Austrian philologist and Romance scholar. Biography Förster was born in Wildschütz in Silesia and educated in Vienna, where he obtained his doctorate in 1872, as a student of Johannes Vahlen. Following a study trip to Paris, he received his habilitation in Vienna with a dissertation involving Romance philology. In 1874, he became an associate professor at the University of Prague, and two years later was named a full professor at the University of Bonn as successor to Friedrich Christian Diez. One of his noteworthy achievements was the definite establishment of the Br...
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Sayyid Qutb
1906 - 1966 (60 years)
Sayyid Ibrahim Husayn Qutb was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamic scholar, theorist, revolutionary, poet, and a leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1966, he was convicted of plotting the assassination of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and was executed by hanging. He is considered as "the Father of Salafi jihadism", the religio-political doctrine that underpins the ideological roots of global jihadist organisations such as al-Qaeda and ISIL.
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Moritz Hermann Eduard Meier
1796 - 1855 (59 years)
Moritz Hermann Eduard Meier was a German classical philologist, born at Glogau. At the age of 24, he became an associate professor at the University of Greifswald. In 1825, he was named professor of classical philology at the University of Halle, where he remained until his death.
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William Francis Allen
1830 - 1889 (59 years)
William Francis Allen was an American classical scholar and an editor of the first book of American slave songs, Slave Songs of the United States. Allen was born in Northborough, Massachusetts in 1830, the son of Joseph Allen. He graduated Harvard College in 1851; later he traveled and studied in Europe. A Unitarian, he considered the ministry before deciding to pursue a literary and scholarly career. In 1856, he became assistant principal at the West Newton English and Classical School in Massachusetts, headed by his cousin Nathaniel Topliff Allen. In 1862 he married a former student of t...
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Bonamy Dobrée
1891 - 1974 (83 years)
Bonamy Dobrée , British academic, was Professor of English Literature at the University of Leeds from 1936 to 1955. Dobrée declared himself a Channel Islander, and was rather proud that both his Bonamy and Dobrée ancestors, bankers, had been mentioned by Thackeray. His father, who had the same name, was born in 1862 and married Violet Gordon Chase. He had two daughters before his son was born, then died at St. Moritz of tuberculosis on 30 August 1891. His grandfather was the Bonamy Dobrée who was Governor of the Bank of England in 1859–1861.
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John J. Winkler
1943 - 1990 (47 years)
John Jack Winkler was an American philologist and Benedictine monk. Winkler studied classical studies at Saint Louis University from 1960 to 1963 and then went to England, where he joined a Benedictine order. In 1966 he returned to the United States and taught at Saint Louis Priory School until 1970. In 1970, he left the Benedictines and participated in a graduate program in Ancient Philology at the University of Texas, Austin. In 1974 he graduated with the thesis In Pursuit of Nymphs: Comedy and Sex in Nonnos' "Tales of Dionysos". He then served as assistant professor at Yale University. In 1979 Winkler was appointed to a professorship at Stanford University.
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Henry Augustin Beers
1847 - 1926 (79 years)
Henry Augustin Beers was an author, literary historian, poet, and professor at Yale University. Beers practiced law and worked as tutor before joining the Yale Department of English in 1875, where he produced numerous works, including scholarly studies of literature, volumes of poetry, and biographies. He is probably best known for his works on the historical development of literature.
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Franz Ernst Heinrich Spitzner
1787 - 1841 (54 years)
Franz Ernst Heinrich Spitzner was a German educator and philologist who specialized in Homeric studies. He was born in Trebitz, Saxony-Anhalt. He studied theology and philology at the University of Wittenberg, where he was student of Christian Lobeck . In 1811 he became conrector at the Lyceum at Wittenberg, where two years later he was appointed rector. In 1820 he relocated to the Gymnasium at Erfurt, and in 1824 returned to his former position at the Wittenberg Lyceum.
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J. J. Mikkola
1866 - 1946 (80 years)
Jooseppi Julius Mikkola , was Finnish linguist and professor. Mikkola is regarded as one of the most important Finnish linguists of Slavic languages of his era. Biography Mikkola's parents were farmer Antti Erland Mikkola and Johanna Mikkola. Mikkola graduated in 1886.
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Richard Brinsley Sheridan
1751 - 1816 (65 years)
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Anglo-Irish playwright, writer and Whig politician who sat in the British House of Commons from 1780 to 1812, representing the constituencies of Stafford, Westminster and Ilchester. The owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London, he wrote several prominent plays such as The Rivals , The Duenna , The School for Scandal and A Trip to Scarborough , along with serving as Treasurer of the Navy from 1806 to 1807. After dying in 1816, Sheridan was buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, and his plays remain a central part of the Western canon and ...
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Ivor Gurney
1890 - 1937 (47 years)
Ivor Bertie Gurney was an English poet and composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in Gloucester. He suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in psychiatric hospitals. Critical evaluation of Gurney has been complicated by this, and also by the need to assess both his poetry and his music. Gurney himself thought of music as his true vocation: "The brighter visions brought music; the fainter verse".
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William Taylor
1765 - 1836 (71 years)
William Taylor , often called William Taylor of Norwich, was a British essayist, scholar and polyglot. He is most notable as a supporter and translator of German romantic literature. Early life He was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England on 7 November 1765, the only child of William Taylor , a wealthy Norwich merchant with European trade connections, by his wife Sarah , second daughter of John Wright of Diss, Norfolk. William Taylor was taught Latin, French and Dutch by John Bruckner, pastor of the French and Dutch Protestant churches in Norwich, in preparation for continuing his father's continental trading in textiles.
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Petru Th. Missir
1856 - 1929 (73 years)
Petru Th. Missir was a Romanian literary critic, journalist and jurist. Born in Roman, Principality of Moldavia, into a family of ethnic Armenian merchants, he graduated from Iași's National College in 1873. While a student at the University of Vienna's law faculty, he entered and became secretary of the România jună society. He later studied law at Berlin University, where he earned a doctorate in 1879. A member of Junimea, he also served as the organization's attorney; he was both a lifelong friend to Ion Luca Caragiale and close to Titu Maiorescu and Petre P. Carp. After working as a magis...
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Jean-Michel Charlier
1924 - 1989 (65 years)
Jean-Michel Charlier was a Belgian comics writer. He was a co-founder of the famed Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote. Life Charlier was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1924. In 1945 he got a job as a draughtsman in Brussels with World Press, the syndicate of Georges Troisfontaines, which worked mainly for Spirou magazine. The following year he and artist Victor Hubinon created the four-page comic strip L'Agonie du Bismarck. Charlier wrote the script and also drew the ships and airplanes. In 1947, Charlier and Hubinon began the long-running air-adventure comic strip Buck Danny. After a few year...
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Adib Pishavari
1844 - 1930 (86 years)
Seyyed Ahmad Adib Pishavari , also known as Sayyed Ahmad B. Sehab al-Din Razawi , was a Sufi scholar who born in or near Peshawar in modern-day Pakistan, and was descended from Omar Sohravardi. Adib was a master of Persian literature.
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Ferdinand Holthausen
1860 - 1956 (96 years)
Ferdinand Holthausen was a German scholar of English and old Germanic languages. Life Holthausen received his doctorate in 1884 from Universität Leipzig with his thesis Studien zur Thidrekssaga. He received his Habilitation in 1885 at Heidelberg. He then helds posts at Göttingen and Gießen , before becoming Professor für Altgermanistik at the University of Gothenburg. From 1900 until his retirement in 1925, he was Professor ordinarius for English studies at Universität Kiel. He then became an emeritus professor, but from 1927 to 1935 he was also a guest professor at Universität Frankfurt.
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Henry Martyn Clark
1857 - 1916 (59 years)
Henry Martyn-Clark was an Afghan-born adopted British medical missionary stationed in Amritsar in the late 19th century. Biography Clark was born to Afghan parents, and was adopted after his mother's death by Elizabeth and Rev. Robert Clark in 1859. It is thought that he was named Henry Martyn after the Anglican missionary to Persia and India. Clark was educated at the University of Edinburgh and received his MD in 1892. In 1881 he was accepted by the Church Missionary Society to start the Amritsar Medical Mission as a Medical Missionary. He left for Amritsar to join his father on 4 February 1882.
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Caroline Ransom Williams
1872 - 1952 (80 years)
Caroline Ransom Williams was an Egyptologist and classical archaeologist. She was the first American woman to be professionally trained as an Egyptologist. She worked extensively with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and other major institutions with Egyptian collections, and published Studies in ancient furniture , The Tomb of Perneb , and The Decoration of the Tomb of Perneb: The Technique and the Color Conventions , among others. During the Epigraphic Survey of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute's first season in Luxor, she helped to develop the "Chicago House method" ...
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George Stuart
1715 - Present (311 years)
George Stuart FRSE LLD was an 18th-century Scottish classicist. He was joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783. Life From 1741 to 1775 he was Professor of Humanities at the University of Edinburgh also serving as the University Librarian during this period. The humanities course included the teaching of Latin and the study of Roman Antiquities.
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Muthuswami Dikshitar
1775 - 1835 (60 years)
Muthuswami Dikshitar , mononymously Dikshitar, was a South Indian poet, singer and veena player, and a legendary composer of Indian classical music, who is considered one of the musical trinity of Carnatic music. Muthuswami Dikshitar was born on 24 March 1775 in Tiruvarur near Thanjavur, in what is now the state of Tamil Nadu in India, to a family that is traditionally traced back to Virinichipuram in the northern boundaries of the state. His compositions, of which around 500 are commonly known, are noted for their elaborate and poetic descriptions of Hindu gods and temples and for capturing the essence of the raga forms through the vainika style that emphasises gamakas.
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Maurits Hansen
1794 - 1842 (48 years)
Maurits Christopher Hansen was a Norwegian writer. He was born in Modum as a son of Carl Hansen and Abigael Wulfsberg . In October 1816 he married teacher Helvig Leschly . He was a father-in-law of Eilert Sundt, and thus grandfather of Einar Sundt.
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Heinrich Schenkl
1859 - 1919 (60 years)
Heinrich Schenkl was an Austrian classical philologist. He was the son of classical philologist Karl Schenkl. From 1876 to 1880 he studied classical philology, archaeology and philosophy at the University of Vienna, where his instructors included Theodor Gomperz and Wilhelm von Hartel. For several years he worked as a gymnasium teacher in Vienna, and in 1892 became an associate professor at the University of Graz. From 1896 onward, he served as a full professor at Graz, being named university dean in 1899. In 1917 he appointed professor of classical philology at the University of Vienna.
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Edward Harper Parker
1849 - 1926 (77 years)
Edward Harper Parker was an English barrister and sinologist who wrote a number of books on the First and Second Opium Wars and other Chinese topics. On his return to England he ended his career as a university professor.
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Karl Franz Otto Dziatzko
1842 - 1903 (61 years)
Karl Franz Otto Dziatzko was a German librarian and scholar, born in Neustadt, Silesia. Biography From 1859 to 1863 he studied classical philology at the universities of Breslau and Bonn. At Bonn, he was influenced by philologist Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl and worked as an assistant at the university library. In 1863, he received his doctorate with a thesis on the prologues of Plautus and Terence. Following graduation, he worked as a schoolteacher in Opole and then in Lucerne .
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Jean d'Arras
1350 - 1394 (44 years)
Jean d'Arras was a 14th-century writer from Northern France about whom little is known. He collaborated with Antoine du Val and Fouquart de Cambrai in putting together a collection of stories entitled L'Évangile des quenouilles . The frame story features a group of ladies at their spinning who relate the current theories on a great variety of subjects. The work is of considerable value for the light it throws on medieval manners, and for its echoes of folklore, sometimes deeply buried under layers of Christian tradition.
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Jack Brooks
1912 - 1971 (59 years)
Jack Brooks was an English-American lyricist. Brooks was born in Liverpool, England. His family was Jewish and originally from Russia, having changed their surname to Brooks from Bruch. He wrote lyrics of many popular songs, including "Ole Buttermilk Sky" "That's Amore" and " Wagon Train" the second theme used on the television program, Wagon Train. He joined the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1946.
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Raymond Weeks
1863 - 1954 (91 years)
Raymond Weeks was an American linguist and academic. He was Chair of Romance Languages at the University of Missouri from 1895 to 1908, and later taught at Columbia University in New York City. Early life Raymond Weeks was born on January 2, 1863, in Tabor, Iowa. He was educated at Price High School in Kansas City, Missouri. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1890 and a master's degree in 1891.
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Fan Zhongyan
989 - 1052 (63 years)
Fan Zhongyan , courtesy name Xiwen , was a Chinese military strategist, philosopher, poet, and politician of the Song dynasty. After serving the central government for several decades, Fan was appointed Prime Minister or Chancellor over the entire Song empire. Fan's philosophical, educational and political contributions continue to be influential to this day, and his writings remain a core component of the Chinese literary canon. His attitude towards official service is encapsulated by his oft-quoted line on the proper attitude of scholar-officials: "They were the first to worry the worries of All-under-Heaven, and the last to enjoy its joys".
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Nathaniel Cotton
1707 - 1788 (81 years)
Nathaniel Cotton was an English physician and poet. Cotton is thought to have studied at Leiden University, possibly under Herman Boerhaave. Cotton specialised in the care of patients with mental health issues, maintaining an asylum known as the Collegium Insanorum, at St Albans. William Cowper was one of his patients and held Cotton in high regard.
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Francis Harvey Green
1861 - 1951 (90 years)
Francis Harvey Green was an American educator, poet and lecturer. He served as Chair of English at West Chester Normal School for 30 years and as Headmaster of the Pennington School. The Francis Harvey Green Elementary School in Bethel Township, Pennsylvania, and two libraries at West Chester University were named in his honor.
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August Wilmanns
1833 - 1917 (84 years)
August Wilmanns was a German classical philologist and librarian. He studied classical philology at the Universities of Bonn and Tübingen, receiving his doctorate in 1863 with a dissertation on the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro. In 1870 he began work as a librarian at the Universitätsbibliothek in Freiburg, followed by professorships at the Universities of Innsbruck and Kiel . In 1874 he was named Oberbibliothekar at the University of Königsberg, shortly afterwards, given the same title at the Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek in Göttingen .
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