Ancient Poetry

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.

The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. How to Be Queer is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between women, and between humans and gods, in lucid and lively new translations.

The secret of their identities has fueled debate for hundreds of years: Who are the nameless nobleman and the dark-haired mistress? And what did they do to inspire the creation of more than 150 deeply intimate poems? Whether William Shakespeare's sonnets are pure fiction or the lingering echo of an autobiographical account, this exquisitely written collection defied traditional love poem conventions to explore the many layers of romance, the dangers of lust, and the nuances of beauty.

Llewelyn Morgan explores Ovid's immense influence on later literature and art, spanning from Shakespeare to Bernini. Throughout, Ovid's poetry is revealed as enduringly scintillating, his personal story compelling, and the issues his life and poetry raise of continuing relevance and interest.

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."

The power and the beauty of The Iliad resound again across 2,700 years in Stephen Mitchell's exciting new translation, as if the lifeblood of its heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Hector and Priam flowed in every word. And we are there with them amid the horror and ecstasy of war, carried along by a poetry that lifts even the most devastating human events into the realm of the beautiful.

Humphries has rendered (Ovid's) love poetry with conspicuous success into English which is neither obtrusively colloquial nor awkwardly antique.

The Song of Roland is acknowledged today as the first masterpiece of French vernacular literature and one of the world’s greatest epic poems. Written down around the year 1090, The Song of Roland finely crafted verses tell of the betrayal and defeat of Charlemagne’s beloved nephew at the Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees and of the revenge subsequently sought on his behalf.

Walt Whitman said, "...poetry is the voice of the nation, expressing its deepest concerns, ambitions and longings," which is certainly true of the great classic poetry of America. This wide-ranging anthology, from the earliest poets of the 16th century to the present day, reflects the changing preoccupations and visions of Americans, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, E.E. Cummings, and more.

The oldest long poem in Old English, written about AD 1,000, Beowulf tells the story of a great warrior of southern Scandinavia, in both youth and maturity. The monster Grendel terrorizes the Scyldings of Hrothgar's Danish Kingdom until Beowulf defeats him. As a result, he has to face her enraged mother. Beowulf dies after a battle against a fierce dragon.

Ovid's sensuous and witty poem brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation, often as a result of love or lust, in which men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best known myths and legends of ancient Greece and Rome.

The Odyssey is the greatest adventure story ever written, and one of the great epic masterpieces of Western literature For almost 3,000 years, it has been a storehouse of ancient Greek folklore and myth. It is also our very first novel, if we think of it in terms of romantic plot development, realistic characterizations, frequent change of scene, and heroic dramatic devices.

The iconic love story of the Middle East, by a 12th-century Persian poet who has been compared to Shakespeare for his subtlety, inventiveness, and dramatic force, Layli and Majnun tells of star-crossed lovers whose union is tragically thwarted by their families and whose passion continues to ripple out across the centuries. Theirs is a love that lasts a lifetime, and in Nezami's immortal telling, erotic longing blends with spiritual self-denial in an allegory of Sufi aspiration, as the amenities of civilization give way to the elemental wilderness.

Li Po (AD 701-762) lived in T'ang Dynasty China, but his influence has spanned the centuries: the pure lyricism of his poems has awed readers in China and Japan for over a millennium, and through Ezra Pound’s translations, Li Po became central to the modernist revolution in the West. However ethereal in spirit, his poems remain grounded in the everyday experience we all share. He wrote 1,200 years ago, half a world away, but in his poems we see our world transformed.

The Theogony (composed c. 700 BC) is a poem by Hesiod (8th-7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods. A theogony is a part of Greek mythology which attempts to articulate reality as a whole. Hesiod's work is a synthesis of various local Greek traditions concerning the gods, organized as a narrative that tells of their origin and how they established control over the Cosmos.

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. If The Iliad is a classic war story, The Odyssey is symbolic of the individual’s journey through life.

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.

Set during the fierce Trojan War, Troilus and Criseyde is the poignant tale of love won and lost. The beautiful Criseyde becomes the object of desire for Troilus, the son of King Priam, and he is able to win her affection through the machinations of his uncle, Pandarus. They experience a brief time of bliss together, but despite their vows of faithfulness, they are soon separated by the fortunes of war.

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.

Along with Virgil, Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was the greatest poet produced by Rome, and in many ways his work has had arguably an even greater impact. His brilliant expression and astonishing acumen continue to amaze readers today, either in their original Latin or in innumerable worldwide translations. Shakespeare's debt to Horace is incalculable, and it is difficult to read his Sonnets today without immediately being reminded of the famous Odes.