The textbook contains a detailed overview of the most important phenomena in the history of foreign literature of the XVII-XVIII centuries, including the literature of Italy, Spain, France, England, the United States of America, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary. Special chapters of the book are devoted to the consideration of the work of the largest writers of the XVII-XVIII centuries: Lope de Vega, Calderon, Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Milton, Voltaire, Rousseau, Beaumarchais, Schiller, Goethe, Defoe, Swift, Stern, etc. The textbook reflected aesthetic problems associated with the history of literary styles of this period (baroque, classicism, Renaissance and educational realism).