Poetry

The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of every man's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, the energy and poetry of Homer's original is captured in a bold, contemporary idiom, giving us an edition of The Odyssey that is a joy to listen to, worth...

Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer’s other great epic―the most revered war poem of all time....

Brought to you by Penguin The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly...

Milton tells the story of man's creation, fall and redemption, "to justify the ways of God to men"....

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Steve John Shepherd, whose theatre credits include Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, The Good Canary directed by John Malkovich, Bomber's Moon and Piaf. His TV and film credits range from the iconic This Life to Silent Witness...

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce....

Ovid's sensuous and witty poetry brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation - often as a result of love or lust - where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings....

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!). These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance....

Odysseus has been away from Ithaca, the Greek city-state under his rule, for ten years while fighting in the Trojan War. After the fall of...

"150 Most Famous Poems: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman and Many More" is a timeless anthology that brings together some of the most celebrated and influential poems in the English language.

A powerful and poignant translation of Vergil’s epic poem, newly equipped with introduction and notes....

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...

'A joyful rendition of an iconic text' - Arundhathi Subramaniam Saundarya Lahari is a popular Sanskrit hymn celebrating the power and beauty of Sakti, the primordial goddess. In one hundred verses, it underlines the centrality of the feminine principle in Indian thought. Attributed to Adi...

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War....

The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran is now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast production of Homer’s epic seafaring adventure, dramatised by award-winning poet Simon Armitage and starring Tim McInnerny, Amanda Redman & Benedict Cumberbatch. ‘My fame is written in the heavens, and my fate too...’ So speaks Odysseus as he starts to recount his...

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time....

In the heat of the Trojan War, the Greek army’s greatest warrior, Achilles, withdraws from battle after a bitter dispute with King Agamemnon. As the war spirals into chaos, heroes rise and fall, divine forces meddle in mortal affairs, and honor is tested on every side.

The tale of the fifth king of the first dynasty of Uruk (in what is modern-day Iraq), who reigned for 126 years, according to the ancient Sumerian list of kings....

The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by David Sibley, best known for Henry V, War & Peace and Silent Witness. This definitive recording is translated by, and includes an introduction by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan William. Taliesin's is one of the most important names in all...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Shaheen Khan. This definitive recording includes an introduction by J. D. Smith, read by Sagar Arya. The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian...

Rome’s epic origin story, brilliantly rendered in a vivid, rhythmic idiom.

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful"....

“Probably the most finely accomplished and ... most enduring" translation (Los Angeles Times Book Review) of this essential work of world literature—from a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante and an accomplished poet. “The Hollanders … act as latter-day Virgils, guiding us...