Showing titles in Poetry

Primo capolavoro della letteratura occidentale, scritto probabilmente intorno all'VIII secolo a.C., l'Iliade è, insieme con l'Odissea, uno dei pilastri di tutta la cultura occidentale. Nel poema si narrano i 51 giorni della guerra di Troia, dall'ira di Achille ai funerali di Ettore, densi di battaglie ed imprese nelle quali si intrecciano continuamente i destini di dèi ed eroi.

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.

Shakespeare's Sonnets, one of the most remarkable collections of poetry, was first published in 1609, 400 years ago by Mr Thomas Thorpe. Naxos AudioBooks marks the occasion with a selection of 80 of the finest, read by leading actors. The selection includes famous ones such as 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day' as well as lesser well-known sonnets though of equally fine stature.

Martial was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his 12 books of Epigrams, published in Rome between A.D. 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these short, witty poems, he cheerfully satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing.

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Victorian era, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Science, religion and sexuality are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written during the Romantic period.

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.

A legendary voyage across storm-torn seas begins. In The Odyssey — Books 1 & 2, Homer introduces one of the greatest epic journeys ever told. Filled with gods, fate, danger, and the longing for home, this timeless classic follows the aftermath of the Trojan War as the story of Odysseus and his...

A biography of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome’s first great poet, a dandy who fell in love with another man’s wife and made it known to the world through his verse. This superb book gives a rare portrait of life during one of the most critical moments in world history through the eyes of one...

A collection of the finest work of one of America's best-loved poets. Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, fewer than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime. Critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet. Read by Julie Harris.

Here are some of the finest poems by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), a unique voice in American poetry. She is known for her short poems, full of acute observations, and deft use of language. This careful but imaginative selection shows the remarkable variety she produced, despite the miniature nature of her medium.

The Waste Land and Other Poems by T. S. Eliot, read by Edoardo Ballerini. To mark the centenary of the publication of The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot, Faber & Faber, in association with the T. S. Eliot Foundation, commissioned this new recording of T. S. Eliot's major poems, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini. Ballerini is widely regarded as the brightest star of the audiobook era, one of the finest narrators of literature today.

Acclaimed translator Dick Davis breathes new life into the timeless works of three masters of 14th-century Persian literature Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable...

The 12 Lays of Marie de France offer one of the most striking collections of short narrative poems of the 12th century - two centuries before Chaucer. Written in Anglo-French, they contain beguiling and entertaining stories of love and romance, of chivalry and adventure with sometimes even a magical twist. They are especially unique in early literature by being ascribed to a female poet, Marie de France: in the very first Lay - 'Guigemar' - is the introductory line: ‘Hear my Lords, what Marie says, who does not wish to be forgotten in her time.’ 

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.

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." And Ralph Waldo Emerson found Leaves of Grass "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed," calling it a "combination of the Bhagavad Gita and the New York Herald."

A 2009 Nautilus Gold Award Winner, Pure Water is Coleman Barks’ inspired live performance of the poetry of Jellaludin Rumi (1207-1273) - with Sufi stories and jokes, accompanied with music by Bach, O’Carolan, Friesen and others. The performance captured in this recording recalls the essence of the communal celebrations of poetry, stories, jokes, prayer, and music in which Rumi’s work was first uttered, but presents it in a distinctive contemporary setting. Coleman’s words combine with the cello of Grammy Award-winner Eugene Friesen.

Molière wrote some of the most durable and penetrating comedies of all time. The Imaginary Cuckold and The School for Husbands are two of his grand farces of marriage and misunderstanding, one set in Paris and the other in the provinces. In The School for Husbands, a tyrannical husband-to-be seeks to isolate his ward, while unwittingly carrying her messages of devotion to her lover. In The Imaginary Cuckold, an enraged husband imagines his wife is unfaithful, but is reluctant to defend his honor.

Out of the mixture of Latin and Germanic paganism and the Christianity of the Early Middle Ages has sprung one of the world's supremely great pieces of literature. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, delivered a famous lecture to the British Academy in 1936 in which he maintained that Beowulf was a poem all of a piece, and not (as had been suggested) a jumble of fragments for pedantic scholars to paw over.

Before entering the monastery, Thomas Merton studied English at Columbia University and taught literature at St. Bonaventure University. His passion for literature never faded, and now, you have the rare opportunity to take Thomas Merton as your guide in this set of his outstanding, remastered talks. 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 (1875 - 1926).

The Argonautica, also known as Jason and the Golden Fleece or Jason and the Argonauts, is the only surviving epic poem from Hellenistic Greece. It is a masterpiece whose story was well known to the audiences of the time. Virgil and other later poets were greatly influenced by it. Its author, Apollonius, was a well-known third century BC scholar living in Alexandria during the great age of Ptolomaic scholarship, and his bold attempt at writing a Homeric epic about Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece faced a daunting audience of knowledgeable contemporaries.