Showing titles in Ancient, Classical & Medieval Literature

You’ve heard all about the ‘brilliant men’ of ancient myth, but what about the scheming and scandalous women who were so often lost in their shadow? Bad Girls of Ancient Greece contains profiles of wayward wives, mad mothers, scandalous sisters and damsels, that quite frankly, caused...

Dive into the epic adventure of the "Epic of Gilgamesh," a journey through time that takes you back to the origins of literature with one of the oldest stories ever told.

This classic Shakespearean comedy is presented here in a colorful full-cast dramatization, drawn from the complete text and starring Warren Mitchell, Michael Maloney, and Sarah Woodward.

‘A lively picture of multiple operators scrambling to steal a march on the competition . . . Lavishly detailed’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘This is Shakespearean scholarship at its best, brilliantly researched yet compulsively readable. It's a book for our times, enduringly fascinating and appealing...

The Odyssey tells of the heroic journey of Odysseus after the Trojan war. In his attempt to return home to Ithaca, this ancient hero is faced with obstacle after obstacle, mythic creature after mythic creature. This is an epic poem encompassing an epic journey as famous as it is classic. Translated by Stanley Lombardo.

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!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc.  

L'Odissea è un testo che conserva sempre intatto il suo fascino particolare. Restiamo sempre ammaliati da quello che si può considerare il viaggio più importante di tutta la cultura occidentale. La curiosità dell'ignoto, il bisogno del viaggio e del ritorno a casa sono le forze che spingono Ulisse a vagabondare per tutto il mondo conosciuto ed anche oltre. Le sue avventure si sviluppano in un continuo intreccio di rapporti con gli dèi, i quali di volta in volta in volta lo salvano o tentano di eliminarlo.

An absolutely joyous, gasp-out-loud achievement. - Stephen Fry A cathedral of consciousness - Shakespeare's uncanny insight into human nature finds us, unearthed here. - LionHeart, artist, poet, and BBC Radio London presenter Shakespeare had an ear and hand that was able to capture our everyday...

Published at the author’s own expense in 1896, after rejection from publishers, this collection contains a cycle of 63 poems. Despite exploring themes of lost love, obsession, pessimism, and death, the poems touched English readers and the book became a best seller during the Second Boer War and World War I. The collection, set in a half-imagined pastoral Shropshire, includes the well-known poems "When I Was One-and-Twenty", "To an Athlete Dying Young", and "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now".

The Iliad is one of the most enduring creations of Western Civilization and was originally written to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of various instruments. Properly performed, this work today is just as meaningful, just as powerful and just as entertaining as it was in the ninth century B.C.,and it casts its spell upon modern listeners with the same raw intensity as it did upon the people of ancient times.

These 16 lectures bring the Socratic quest for truth alive and explore ideas that are as vital today as they were 25 centuries ago. Ideas about truth, justice, love, beauty, courage, and wisdom that can change lives and reveal the world in new ways. Here, you'll delve into the inner structure, action, and meaning of 17 of Plato's greatest dialogues, making these lectures an indispensable companion for anyone interested in philosophy in general or Platonic thought in particular.

The Roman historian Tacitus was a successful politician who eventually became governor of the province of Asia. He is thought to have died around AD 120 and benefitted from the patronage of the Flavian emperors. The Histories, of which only just over four out of 14 books survive, covers the years following the assassination of the Emperor Nero: Rome was plunged into further civil war with the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 69), which culminated in the accession of Vespasian, the first of the Flavians.

After a century of civil strife in Rome and Italy, the poet Virgil wrote The Aeneid to honor the emperor Augustus by praising Aeneas, Augustus's legendary ancestor. As a patriotic epic imitating Homer, The Aeneid also set out to provide Rome with a literature equal to that of Greece.

Most people have heard of the Celts - the elusive, ancient tribal people who resided in present-day England, Ireland, Scotland and France. Paradoxically characterized as both barbaric and innocent, the Celts appeal to the modern world as a symbol of a bygone era, a world destroyed by the ambition of empire and the spread of Christianity throughout Western Europe. Despite the pervasive cultural and literary influence of the Celts, shockingly little is known of their way of life and beliefs, because very few records of their stories exist.

The Code of the Woosters is one of the best known of Wodehouse's Bertie and Jeeves series. Bertie's beloved Aunt Dahlia pressures him into stealing a cow-shaped silver creamer much coveted by his uncle from his arch rival in silver collecting, Sir Watkyn Bassett. At the same time, Bertie attempts to patch up the shaky romance between Guisse Fink-Nottle, the newt expert, and Madeline Bassett, a four star drip. The results of Bertie's efforts are, as always, a financial disaster.

Listening to The Satires by Juvenal is to come face to face with the corruption, the debauchery, the waste, the sloth, and the mean-spirited greed of ancient Rome...or is it more like modern times? Indeed, these masterpieces of biting social commentary could easily have been written today about any number of metropolitan areas we are all familiar with.

Homer's Iliad is the famous epic poem set among the tales of Troy. Its subject is the anger of the hero Achilles and its consequences for the warring Greeks and Trojans. Unlike other books on the Iliad, this one combines the detailed expertise of a historian with the sensitivity of a teacher of it as poetry. Lane Fox goes on to consider hallmarks of the poem, its values, implicit and explicit, its characters, its women, its gods and even its horses. He argues repeatedly for its beautiful observation and addresses its parallel use of what is, to us, the natural world.

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 Troy, Odysseus begins the long journey home to his wife and son; however, his journey is plagued by misfortune as the gods feud over his fate, leaving the Ithacans to believe that he has died. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Man seduces another's wife then kidnaps her. The husband and his brother get a gang together to steal her back and take revenge. The woman regrets being seduced and wants to escape, whilst the man's entourage resent the position they have been placed in. Yet the battle lines have been drawn and...

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...