Showing titles in Themes & Styles

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Poetry Pharmacy by William Sieghart. As heard on BBC Radio 4, the essential prescriptions from William Sieghart's poetic dispensary Sometimes only a poem will do. These poetic prescriptions and wise words of advice offer comfort, delight and...

"In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost." When you find yourself suddenly without bearings, as Dante Alighieri voiced so well centuries ago, where will you look for guidance? Throughout the ages, teaches David Whyte, the language of poetry...

In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Satan has ben banished to Hell and is working to organize the angels who fell with him and create his new kingdom. While a constant angelic war rages, Satan begins to wield his influence on the first humans created on Earth, and soon tempts them into defying God by using wit and logic to tempt Eve. The actions get Adam and Eve banished from paradise, and in the aftermath of their sin they get to glimpse the future of humanity based on their actions.

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them...

An epic poem is a lengthy narrative poem, usually set in a time beyond living memory in which the extraordinary ancestors, in their dealings with the gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants, the poet, and his audience in order to understand themselves as a people.

The Old English epic poem Beowulf, recorded in its original Saxon dialect for the first time. Performed by Icelandic poet, playwright, professional storyteller and performer Svanur Thorkelsson, Audible’s production gives listeners the opportunity to experience how it might have felt to hear bards recite sections of the 3000-line poem from memory in Anglo Saxon dining halls. Audible’s Beowulf recaptures the heroic style and vast scale of what can be considered ‘England’s first native audiobook’.

Rumi's Spiritual Verses is the greatest mystical poem in Islamic culture - and of all time. Rumi examines our human separation from reality, love, and truth. He shows how love - neither erotic nor sentimental but divine, by which the universe is held together - enlightens ignorance and dissolves suffering. The first book of the Masnavi is the key to the whole work: It takes off from simple, amusing tales into realms unimaginable, but wholly familiar to the human heart.

This remarkable poem, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, was Spenser's finest achievement. The first epic poem in modern English, The Faerie Queene combines dramatic narratives of chivalrous adventure with exquisite and picturesque episodes of pageantry. At the same time, Spenser is expounding a deeply-felt allegory of the eternal struggle between Truth and Error....

Paradise Lost, along with its companion piece, Paradise Regained, remain the most successful attempts at Greco-Roman style epic poetry in the English language. Remarkably enough, they were written near the end of John Milton's amazing life, a bold testimonial to his mental powers in old age. And, since he had gone completely blind in 1652, 15 years prior to Paradise Lost, he dictated it and all his other works to his daughter.

The Iliad is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks.

Rainer Maria Rilke has been called the most significant and compelling poet of spiritual experience of the 20th century. His exploration of the struggle between life and art and the supremacy of divine love over personal love has touched the hearts of men and women everywhere. The poems in this reading are from the selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell.

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc.

प्रेम कितना मोहक, सम्मोहक और मादक होता है.. उसके विभिन्न पड़ावों से गुजरते हुए मैंने यह जाना है। 'मन पतंग दिल डोर' को लिखते हुए मैंने महसूस किया है कि मोहब्बत का कोई मौसम नहीं होता। वो जब हो जाए वही उसका मौसम हो जाता है। यौवन जब आता है तो अनेक मधुर एहसास लिए आता है.. उन एहसासों को शब्द मैंने नहीं दिए हैं बल्कि उन्होंने खुद अपने लिए शब्द चुने हैं।

Discover the timeless classic that has inspired millions of people worldwide. Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet is a collection of 26 fables that explore the depths of the human experience. From love and marriage to work and pleasure, this prose poetry masterpiece speaks to the soul of humanity. Gibran's inspiring and thought-provoking messages will stay with you long after you finish reading, providing you with an experience of profound insight.

The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts.

'Here I am, weightless / now take me home' So That You Know is the quintessential Mani Rao collection. These are poems that hold the playful exuberance of youth and the dazzling insight of age; that are at times measured, at times extravagant. What unites them is their commitment to mining deep...

 Kahlil Gibran's Little Book of Secrets is a collection of Gibran's words on life's big questions and the mysteries of the spiritual path. It is an exploration of the riddles and conundrums that are part of the fabric of existence, and it is an attempt to penetrate and explain the mysteries of life. 

Kahlil Gibran wrote prolifically and passionately in Arabic as well as English. First published in 1965 with nine works of poetry translated by Joseph Sheban, Mirrors of the Soul includes writings by Gibran that are as poignant today as when first written, such as “The New Frontier” and “The Sea.” These poems illuminate the dual nature of Gibran, who lived in the shadows both of New York skyscrapers and the cedars of his childhood Lebanon.

Grace, dignity, and eloquence have long been hallmarks of Maya Angelou’s poetry. Her measured verses have stirred our souls, energized our minds, and healed our hearts. Whether offering hope in the darkest of nights or expressing sincere joy at the extraordinariness of the everyday, Maya...

From Tiktok phenomenon Whitney Hanson, a revised edition of her bestselling Home, now with a new introduction and more than a dozen new poems "the bees aren't going to go away but they are going to change with you sometimes they will be chaotic sometimes they will rest sometimes they will give...