Showing results for "F" in Ancient, Classical & Medieval Literature

Though it is for the sparkling epic, Aeneid, that the Roman poet Virgil is best known, it was these two poems, The Eclogues and Georgics, which first established his reputation.

One of the finest German medieval epic poems, The Lay of the Nibelungs is perhaps best known now as one of the principal sources for Wagner’s four-part music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. It is easy to see how Wagner was enthralled by the story and the poetry for the power of the tale drives the narrative: intense love, loyalty, jealousy, murder, duty, honour and massacre are all interwoven into a classic.

The 12 Lays of Marie de France offer one of the most striking collections of short narrative poems of the 12th century - two centuries before Chaucer. Written in Anglo-French, they contain beguiling and entertaining stories of love and romance, of chivalry and adventure with sometimes even a magical twist. They are especially unique in early literature by being ascribed to a female poet, Marie de France: in the very first Lay - 'Guigemar' - is the introductory line: ‘Hear my Lords, what Marie says, who does not wish to be forgotten in her time.’

Jason and the Golden Fleece is one of the finest tales of Ancient Greece, an epic journey of adventure and trial standing beside similar stories of Perseus, Theseus and the Labours of Heracles. The finest classic account comes from Apollonius of Rhodes, the Greek poet of the 3rd century BCE and librarian at Alexandria. Though less well-known than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and much shorter, it is an epic poem which is both exciting and moving, with remarkably vivid portraits of the main characters, Jason and Medea.

Libidinous, licentious, salacious and very, very funny, The Satyricon is one of the most remarkable documents from ancient Rome. It tells the ribald story of Encolpius, a man of active and varied appetites (powered notably by his passion for his favourite lover, the handsome Giton), who plunges without inhibition into the life of Roman pleasures: orgies of food, feasting, abundant sex and escapades. The kind of hedonism found occasionally in Roman mosaics is here brought to life.

This play takes place in the 1900s in Russia, at a time when it was experiencing a severe economic crisis. A crowd of ruined peasants and workers roam the country and, in the end, sink to the "bottom". The desperate situation of these discarded from people's lives is taken advantage of by the owners of fetid cellars. In one such flophouse Mikhail Kostylev is ready to squeeze the very last penny from his unfortunate and disadvantaged guests. And there are further developments....

"Gorjachee serdce" - odna iz samyh znamenityh p'es A.N.Ostrovskogo, govorja o kotoroj specialisty, prezhde vsego, otmechajut ostrotu ee satiricheskogo zvuchanija. Zhizn' imenitogo kupca Kuroslepova prohodit v besprobudnom p'janstve. Ego vtoraja zhena Matrena izmenjaet emu s prikazchikom, voruet muzhniny den'gi i vsjacheski pritesnjaet doch' Kuroslepova ot pervogo braka Parashu. Sjuzhet zakruchivaetsja vokrug propazhi krupnoj summy deneg.