Trần literature is considered superior to Lý literature in both quality and quantity. Initially, most members of the Trần clan were fishermen without any depth of knowledge. For example, Trần Thủ Độ, the founder of the Trần dynasty, was described in Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư as a man of superficial learning. However, after their usurpation of power from the Lý dynasty, Trần emperors and other princes and marquises always attached special importance to culture, especially literature.

Two important schools of literature during the reign of the Trần dynasty were patriotic and Buddhist literature. To commemorate the victory of Đại Việt against the second Mongol invasion the grand chancellor Trần Quang Khải composed a poem, named Tòng giá hoàn kinh (Return to the capital), which was considered one of the finest examples of Vietnamese patriotic literature during the dynastic era. Patriotism in Trần literature was also represented by the proclamation Hịch tướng sĩ (Call of Soldiers), written by general Trần Quốc Tuấn, which was the most popular work of the hịch (appeal, call) form in Vietnamese literature.

Besides members of the Trần clan, there were several mandarins and scholars who were well known for patriotic works such as Trương Hán Siêu, an eminent author of the phú form, or general Phạm Ngũ Lão with his famous poem Thuật hoài. As Buddhism was de facto the national religion of the Trần dynasty, there were many works of Trần literature that expressed the spirit of Buddhism and Zen, notably the works of the Emperor Trần Nhân Tông and other masters of Trúc Lâm School.

`Besides the literature created by the upper classes, folk narratives of myths, legends, and ghost stories were also collected in Việt Điện U Linh Tập by Lý Tế Xuyên and Lĩnh Nam chích quái by Tran The Phap. These two collections held great value not only for folk culture but also for the early history of Vietnam.

Trần literature had a special role in the history of Vietnamese literature for its introduction and development of the Vietnamese language (Quốc ngữ) written in Chữ Nôm. Before the Trần dynasty, Vietnamese was only used in oral history or proverbs. Under the rule of the Emperor Trần Nhân Tông, it was used for the first time as the second language in official scripts of the imperial court, besides Chinese characters.

It was Hàn Thuyên, an official of Nhân Tông, who began to compose his literary works in the Vietnamese language, with the earliest recorded poem written in Chữ Nôm in 1282. He was considered the pioneer who introduced chữ nôm in literature. After Hàn Thuyên, chữ Nôm was progressively used by Trần scholars in composing Vietnamese literature, such as Chu Văn An with the collection Quốc ngữ thi tập (Collection of national language poems) or Hồ Quý Ly who wrote Quốc ngữ thi nghĩa to explain Shi Jing in the Vietnamese language. The achievement of Vietnamese language literature during the Trần era was the essential basis for the development of this language and the subsequent literature of Vietnam.