This book reproduces a course of lectures on the history of foreign literature, given by the author at the Faculty of History of World Culture at the University of Culture and Art. In it, the author tries in an accessible, but without any simplifications, form to present to a diverse circle of students the complex problems of that culture, which is rightly called elitist. The appendix contains a lecture on the work of Stendhal and articles devoted to the largest phenomena of Spanish-speaking culture. The book is addressed to high school students and a wide range of readers.