Showing titles in Epic

Alexander Pope was celebrated for his command of classical Greek and produced seminal translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Prior to the preparation of these translations, Pope took advantage of his mastery of the classical style and also his waspish wit to compose a burlesque epic about the theft of a lock of hair. The incident that inspired Pope was related to him by his friend John Caryll. Lord Petre had cut off a lock of the hair of Arabella Fermor, whom he was courting at the time, without asking the lady's permission.

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. They have long remained among the most significant poems of European tradition. Produced here in full cast arrangement and narrated by Rob Goll, one can experience these age-old stories in a brand new way.

Paradiso is the third and final part of The Divine Comedy, Dante's epic poem describing man's progress from hell to salvation. In it, the author progresses through nine concentric spheres of heaven. Corresponding with medieval astronomy, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn deal with the four cardinal virtues Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Temperance. The remaining two spheres are the fixed stars and the Primum Mobile, containing the purely virtuous and the angels, followed by the Empyrean, or God itself.

Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, a collection of narratives written between 1387 and 1400, tells of a group of 30 people from all layers of society who pass the time along their pilgrimage to Canterbury by telling stories to one another, their interaction mediated (at times) by the affable host - Chaucer himself. Naxos AudioBooks’ third volume presents the tales of six people, here in an unabridged modern verse translation (by Frank Ernest Hill, 1935).

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.

Es un poema épico anglosajón anónimo que fue escrito en inglés antiguo en verso aliterativo. Cuenta con 3182 versos. Tanto el autor como la fecha de composición del poema se desconocen aunque las discusiones académicas suelen proponer fechas que van desde el siglo VIII al XII d. C.

Byron's Don Juan is a comic masterpiece written in a satirical, mock heroic style. Based on the legend of Don Juan, (which is here pronounced JOO-AN), Byron completely reverses the portrayal of Juan, instead showing him as someone easily seduced by women instead of seducing them. He called this form of poetry "epic satire". It is generally considered to be Byron's masterpiece.

You may think you know Vergil’s epic poem, The Aeneid - the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, prophesized to found Rome. Or maybe you’ve heard of the fearsome Cyclopes, the tragic queen Dido, the Trojan horse, the River Styx and the three headed dog who guards the underworld. But what of the man who wrote it and why? This is that story.

Parzival is a medieval epic poem written by the knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. It is divided into 16 books, each composed of several 30-line stanzas of rhyming couplets. Regarded as one of the literary masterpieces of the Middle Ages, the romantic poem commonly dated to the early part of the 13th century. The verse narrative focuses on the Arthurian hero Parzival and his long quest for the Holy Grail after his initial failure to achieve it.

Of Letters and a Man: A is the first canto of a projected 26-canto epic. It begins with the appearance of the Poet/Anti-Poet, who invokes Cadmus the Phoenician, father of letters and literature, and announces his intention to narrate the life of a man he calls the Hero/Zero. Following this prologue, the Hero/Zero, who also identifies with Cadmus, declares that he will narrate his own life in a work he calls I Am the Book I Write.

Vis and Ramin is one of the world's great love stories. It was the first major Persian romance, written between 1050 and 1055 in rhyming couplets. This remarkable work has now been superbly translated into heroic couplets (the closest metrical equivalent of the Persian) by the poet and scholar Dick Davis. Vis and Ramin had immense influence on later Persian poetry and is very probably also the source for the tale of Tristan and Isolde, which first appeared in Europe about a century later.

Christina Rossetti's long narrative poem about two innocent sisters, Lizzie and Laura, tempted by the delicious, magical fruit sold by goblin merchants as they walk through the glen....

The Kalevala is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. The Kalevala was instrumental in the development of the Finnish national identity and the sense of nationality that led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917. Beginning with the traditional Finnish creation myth, the Kalevala branches out into stories of the creation of the earth, plants, creatures, and the sky. There are many stories of, romance, kidnapping, seduction, and magical spell casting and singing.

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 Arthurian legend of Camelot has been told many times, but never better than by Alfred Tennyson. Employing some of the most stirring and beautiful blank verse ever written, Tennyson crafted his version of the Knights of the Round Table over the course of nearly fifty years, completing it in 1885. Despite the length of time, Tennyson managed to maintain a high level of style and continuity throughout.

"The Greatest Story Ever ToldDispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters...

"The Greatest Story Ever ToldDispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins-the Pandavas and the Kouravas-but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters...

Theogony & Works and Days by Hesiod are foundational texts of ancient Greek literature, offering a powerful blend of myth, morality, and early philosophical thought. In Theogony, Hesiod presents the first systematic account of Greek mythology, tracing the origins of the cosmos and the genealogy of the gods—from Chaos and Gaia to Zeus and the Olympian order.

Protectress is a hybrid poetry-prose novella offering a risky take on the legend of Medusa. With stunning economy of words and a delicate hand, Protectress provokes us to think about the feminist identity and the power of compassion. Listeners who fell deeply for Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, Madeleine Miller’s Circe, Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation of Beowulf, and Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth will find themselves enamoured with Protectress.

Welcome to Dante's The Divine Comedy, the ultimate journey to Paradise. Follow Italian writer and philosopher Dante Alighieri and his guide, the poet Virgil, through each circle of hell, over the mountain of Purgatory, and ultimately to Paradise, to be reunited with his beloved Beatrice. Dante meets many familiar faces among the sinners and the saved and learns many things of value throughout his long, dangerous journey.