Showing titles in Poetry

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was born in Agra in the closing years of the eighteenth century. A precocious child, he began composing verses at an early age and gained recognition while he was still very young. He wrote in both Urdu and Persian and was also a great prose stylist. He was a careful...

Robert Pinsky's new verse translation of the Inferno makes it clear to the contemporary listener, as no other in English has done, why Dante is universally considered a poet of great power, intensity, and strength. This critically acclaimed translation was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book...

Achilles has quarrelled with Agamemnon and sulks in his tent while Hector brings his Trojans to the brink of victory; but fate will have the last word. While the heroes fight before the walls of Troy the gods have also drawn up battle lines, and it is their disagreements as much as the heroes' efforts which will decide the conflict. Despite the poem's antiquity, the very real, human qualities of the protagonists and their dilemmas make The Iliad immediately accessible.

The Aeneid represents one of the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Western Civilization. Within the brooding and melancholy atmosphere of Virgil's pious masterpiece lies the mythic story of Aeneas and his flight from burning Troy, taking with him across the Mediterranean the survivors of the Greek onslaught. Aeneas, after many travails and adventures, including a love affair with Dido Queen of Carthage and a visit to the underworld to see his father, ends up in Italy.

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...

Tao Te Ching, attributed to the ancient Chinese sage Lao Tzu, is a foundational text of Taoist philosophy and one of the most translated works in world literature. Composed of 81 brief, poetic chapters, the book offers timeless wisdom on living in harmony with the Tao—the natural way or path of the universe.

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.

The Divine Comedy is a narrative poem by Dante Alighieri that describes the the pilgrim Dante’s travels through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso). This trio of books, or cantiche, is one example of the number three as a theme throughout the work. Each book consists of 33 cantos, which—added to an introductory canto—totals 100. Each cantica follows a pattern of nine phases plus one for a total of ten: nine circles of hell plus Lucifer, nine rings of Mount Purgatory plus the garden of Eden, nine celestial bodies of Paradise followed by the Empyrean essence of God.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Royce Pierreson, star of Line of Duty, Our Girl and The Witcher. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Michael Alexander. Beowulf is the greatest surviving work of literature in Old English, unparalleled in its epic...

Includes a with-music version and no-music version. Poe is considered the inventor of detective story. He had a great role in developing the science fiction genre. He is best known for his tales of mystery and macabre. One of his best-known poems is “The Raven”, which was published in 1845. It was an instant success. His characters and work often appear in popular culture.

The ancient Greeks revered Homer and Hesiod and often cited their names together in theological and theological works. While the two could have been contemporaries, some estimate that Hesiod lived up to 100 years after Homer. Sappho was an ancient Greek poetess and musician. She pioneered song lyrics and the ancient Greeks included her in the canon of nine lyric poets. Plato even numbered her among the Parnassian goddesses, referring to her as the tenth muse.

The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia) by Dante Alighieri is one of the greatest works of art known to the world, a "comedy", that became a "divine book" for ancestors. It is an encyclopedia of "moral, natural, philosophical and theological" knowledges, a tremendous synthesis of the feudal catholic ideology and the same tremendous epiphany that spread during the new culture times. A great poetic genius of the author put this comedy above the era and made it a legacy of centuries. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise.

Man seduces another's wife then kidnaps her. The husband and his brother get a gang together to steal her back and take revenge. The woman regrets being seduced and wants to escape, whilst the man's entourage resent the position they have been placed in. Yet the battle lines have been drawn and...

The Theogony "the genealogy or birth of the gods" is a poem by Hesiod (8th – 7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed c. 730–700 BC. It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1022 lines. Hesiod's Theogony is a large-scale synthesis of a vast variety of local Greek traditions concerning the gods, organized as a narrative that tells how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos. It is the first known Greek mythical cosmogony.

The major texts of Western culture are a gateway to wisdom that can widen your views on self and society in enduring ways. And now you can examine its most important works - whether drama, poetry, or narrative - in this series of 64 penetrating lectures that reveal astonishing common ground.

Listeners will be awakened by deep spiritual truths within this famous poem as Walters sings the verses, reads the quatrains, and follows each with Yogananda's expanded, clarified meaning.

In words remarkable for their richness of rhythm and imagery, Milton tells the story of man's creation, fall, and redemption, "to justify the ways of God to men". Here, unabridged, and told with exceptional sensitivity and power by Anton Lesser, is the plight of Adam and Eve, the ambition and vengefulness of Satan and his cohorts.

Brought to you by Penguin. Homer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy. Its subject is the anger of the hero Achilles and its dreadful consequences for the warring Greeks and Trojans. It was composed more than 2600 years ago, but still transfixes us with its tale of loss...

The Iliad. Join Achilles at the Gates of Troy as he slays Hector to Avenge the death of Patroclus. Here is a story of love and war, hope and despair, and honor and glory. The recent major motion picture Helen of Troy starring Brad Pitt proves that this epic is as relevant today as it was twenty five hundred years ago when it was first written. So journey back to the Trojan War with Homer and relive the grandest adventure of all times. The Odyssey.

Hafiz's Little Book of Life is a lush collection of more than 250 selections from his lifework (his divan). Alongside a Quran, a copy of his divan can be found in average homes in Iran—where stars can be heard singing his poetry on the radio, and lines from his poems are quoted on the street. His poetry is sure to strike a chord in the hearts of readers everywhere. This vital collection of mystical poetry focuses on the issues we encounter in everyday life. Each brief poem may be savored as an oasis of clarity in the hurried literacy of our time, or the entire book enjoyed in one sitting.