Showing titles in Ancient, Classical & Medieval Literature

I hate and love. How do I do this, you might ask. I don't know but I feel it and am tortured. A Penguin Classic Award-winning translator Stephanie McCarter presents a translation of the surviving poems of Catullus (84-54 BCE), the Roman poet and punk, the lover and the hater, the hedonist and...

The great poetic tradition of pre-Christian Scandinavia is known to us almost exclusively though the Prose Edda, a collection of narrative literature, and its companion, the Poetic Edda. The poems originated in Iceland, Norway, and Greenland between the ninth and 13th centuries, when they were compiled in a unique manuscript known as the Codex Regius. The poems are primarily lyrical rather than narrative.

Sappho is widely recognized as one of the great poets of world literature, an author whose works have caused her readers to repeat in many different forms Strabo's amazed epithet when he wrote that she could only be called "a marvel." The reception of Sappho's poetry even through the twentieth century offers a case study of the conflicts induced by the sexual preferences she seemingly alludes to in her verse. Little is known with certainty about the life of Sappho, or Psappha in her native Aeolic dialect. She was born probably about 620 B.C. to an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos during a great cultural flowering in the area.

This Very Short Introduction introduces the life, work, and influence of one of the greatest dramatists of all time, Sophocles the Athenian. Placing his plays within their historical context, and explaining the conventions of ancient Greek tragic theatre, Edith Hall spotlights their distinctive features—tight plots, titanic personalities, lucid style, sympathetic women, exquisite poetry, and stagecraft. This analysis is followed by an account of how and why Sophoclean dramas have survived to be read and widely performed into the twenty-first century.

Conrad, the Corsair, is the chieftain of a pirate band, and plans to attack the Pacha, Seyd, and seize his possessions. Conrad's wife, Medora, prevails upon her husband to abandon his plan and remain at home. Confident in his plan and assured of his safe return, Conrad and his pirate crew set sail for the Pacha's island.

Recommended by Mary Beard as one of the BBC History Magazine's Books of the Year Classical stories about women who wield power, from the Amazons to Dido to Cleopatra A Penguin Classic There is no other anthology that brings together similar stories of ancient women in power. These women threaten...

Omar Khayyám (1048–1122) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and a philosopher who was not known as a poet in his lifetime. Later, a body of quatrains became attached to his name, although not all were his works. These verses lay in obscurity until 1859, when Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883), an English country gentleman, published a free adaptation of this Persian poetry. After its discovery by D. G. Rossetti and others, the verse became extremely popular.

Victor Hugo is one of the best-known French writers, and is part of the greatest literary figures of all time. His poetry made him famous very early, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest lyric poets when he was only 20 years old. He was also a novelist and a dramatist, and furthered the cause of Romanticism, this exalted artistic movement which toyed with Sublime and soared on the winds of emotion.

A full-cast dramatization of the classic Russian novel. Satan and his retinue, including a seven foot tall skinny fellow with a pince-nez , an obnoxious cigar smoking black cat and a beautiful naked vampire visit Moscow in the 1920s, taking with them chaos and insanity where ever they go.

A selection of the very best of Chinese poetry over the course of a thousand years, from 100 years before Christ was born up of the middle ages. Arthur Waley's translations of Chinese poetry are still the benchmark by which such translations are held, nearly two hundred years after he introduced the west to the wonder of classical Chinese poetry.

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.

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Romantic period, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Love, romance and portrayals of nature are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written during the Romantic period. Performed by Richard Burton, Peter Orr, William Squire, Richard Marquand, Peggy Ashcroft, Margaretta Scott, Tony Church, Derek Godfrey, Patrick Garland, Gary Watson and Janette Richer. This collection includes poems from: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats.

The book is one of the most influential ethical treatises of all time. Written in 350 BC, it identifies happiness as life's goal. How do we achieve this goal? Not through the satisfactions that come from pleasure, wealth, or fame. According to Aristotle, the true path to happiness lies in contemplation of philosophic truth. This is the only action through which humans can exercise their distinctively unique trait: the ability to reason.

Virgil's Georgics ranks as one of the most precious pastoral poems ever written, and it has served as a model for its type ever since. Georgics means "of or relating to agriculture or rural life" and it comes from the Greek word, "georgicus". Virgil's main theme in this, his second great work after The Eclogues, was the importance of peace both in the spiritual and physical sense.

In seinem kurzen Leben (1777 - 1811) schuf Heinrich von Kleist ein großes Werk. Vier seiner bekanntesten Dramen, die noch heute auf den Bühnen zum Standard-Repertoire gehören, sind in dieser großen Box versammelt, ungekürzt gelesen und sortiert nach ihrer Entstehung.

This Greek tragedy is based on the myth of Prometheus, a Titan who, in defiance of the gods, gives fire to mankind, an act for which he is subjected to perpetual punishment.The play consists almost entirely of speeches since the protagonist is chained throughout.

These four plays, translated into blank verse by C. A. Wheelwright, present to us the wide range of this ancient playwright's fertile imagination. From war and peace to politics and society to the relationships between mena nd women, no topic is off-limits.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales I: Modern Verse Translation collection. Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of "The Knight's Tale" to the joyous bawdy of the Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigor in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

Written by Susan Glaspell in 1916, Trifles is a one-act play about a woman accused of strangling her husband. Based on an actual murder case reported by Glaspell for the Des Moines News, the play represented an early exploration of gender relationships in a time when women often were considered to be mere trifles. A groundbreaking feminist play, Trifles is often included in anthologies of drama and literature.

كتاب جامع في التربية والأخلاق والتصوف والفقه والعقيدة ، وهو من أهم كتب المواعظ وأعظمها . رتبه رحمه الله على أربعة أقسام ، ومقدمة في العلم ، وبين في الربع الأول...