Venezuelan literature only began to develop during the colonial period, and writings of the era were dominated by Spanish culture and thinking. Chronicles and various styles of poetry were the chief literary manifestations of the 1700s. The 1800s and independence saw the rise of political literature, including the autobiography of Franciso de Miranda. Romanticism, the first important literary genre in Venezuela, unfolded in the mid 1800s and is best illustrated by Peonia, by Manuel Romero García. After independence, Venezuelan literature began to diversify, but only began to rapidly evolve under the regimes of Guzmán Blanco, from 1870 to 1888. The early 1900s saw the rise of several significant writers, novelists and poets, among them Andrés Eloy Blanco, Rómulo Gallegos, Arturo Uslar Pietri and Miguel Otero Silva. Literary tradition became established in Venezuela in the mid 1900s.

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