Poetry

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

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

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent and is a major text of Hinduism....

Beowulf is the greatest surviving work of literature in Old English, unparalleled in its epic grandeur and scope....

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 Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide, his ascent of Mount Purgatory and his encounter with his dead love Beatrice, and finally, his arrival in Heaven....

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....

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....

"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.

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

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....

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....

Guided by the Roman poet Virgil and the love of his life, Beatrice, Dante traverses the three realms of the dead—Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven—encountering sinners, souls seeking forgiveness, and divine beings.

Songs of Kabir is a book from 1915 consisting of 100 poems of Kabir, the 15th century Indian poet and mystic, translated to English by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore....

The Iliad and The Odyssey are epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer, of which the written versions are dated to the 8th century BCE. Chronicling events in the Greek Bronze Age, this magnificent pair of poems forms the cornerstone of Western literature....

Before entering the monastery, Thomas Merton studied English at Columbia University and taught literature at St. Bonaventure University. Delivered to the community at the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1965 and 1966, Merton’s talks examine one of his favorite poets: Rainer Maria Rilke....

An all-star cast including John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Anthony Quayle, and Peggy Ashcroft come together to read all 154 Sonnets....

The Iliad, set 9 years into the Trojan War, tells the story of the wrath of Achilles. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus as he wearily travels home from the war. The two epics provide the basis of Greek education and culture in the classical age....

John Lithgow has compiled an outstanding collection of memorable poems and has gathered his famous friends to read them....

In a 20-year journey, fabulous fantasy mixes with extraordinary reality as Odysseus encounters enchantresses, nymphs, monsters, prophets, and ghosts....

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...

Written by Thiruvalluvar in Tamil 10,000 years ago, Thirukkural and its Pearls of Wisdom is as relevant today as it was when written....

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.

For over a century, the beautiful words of the Lebanese American poet, Kahlil Gibran, have graced everything from greeting cards and wedding invitations to inspirational wall hangings and corporate motivational literature. By one account, Gibran is the third best selling poet of all time....