Classic Poetry

Some of the greatest poets and lovers in the English language speak of their love in this seductive and romantic collection. Here are the voices of Romeo, Robert Burns, Lord Byron and many others.

This is a tribute to the work of Emily Dickinson and Sara Teasdale, two of the greatest representatives of female American literature. It is a carefully crafted selection of 150 poems, all of them eight lines in length, which are presented face-to-face in pairs—one per author—and with matching themes. In this way, the listener can compare and enjoy the magic of these poets.

Dante's Purgatory is the second of the three cantos of the Divine Comedy, and is divided into "Antipurgatorio", "Purgatorio", and "Earthly Paradise". It consists of seven frames, in which the seven deadly sins are expiated: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony, lust. The sinners who complete purgatory move to paradise.

Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.

This is an early translation from the Anglo-Saxon seventh-century epic poem, which is based on Norse legends of wars and monsters and tells of the heroic deeds of the warrior Beowulf. Translated by A. Diedrich Wackerbarth.

Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal, from afar. Conspicuous as the brightness of a star. Legible only by the light they give. Stand the soul-quickening words - believe, and live....

The finest voices reading a wonderful selection of poetry accompanied by selected classical music.

This insightful look into one of mankind's favorite artists traces the magic and melancholy of Vincent Van Gogh. Out of Vincent's letters to his brother Theo, as collected by Irving Stone, we have selected an exciting and sensitive series of quotations. The quotations in My Life and Love Are One revolve around three themes - love, art, and turmoil. Centered around emotion and creation, Vincent's writing and philosophy is as expressive as his art.

Los viajes y aventuras de Ulises. La anecdota suele regodearse sobre la figura legendaria de Homero, supuesto juglar ciego que iba de pueblo en pueblo cantando sus grandes narraciones epicas. La Iliada, una narracion de la Guerra de Troya, originada en el rapto que hizo Paris de la mujer mas bella del mundo, Helena y La Odisea, la descripcion de las aventuras del sabio Ulises u Odiseo en su vuelta a Itaca, su patria, terminada la guerra...

Harold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or "J") writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Illiad, the Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's Prelude, and works by Freud, Kafka, and Beckett.

A dark, allegorical, Gothic horror fable in verse telling of seduction, enthrallment, and deep sisterly love by the British Victorian poet, Christina Rossetti. The goblin market men, selling sweet and delicious fruits, inveigle Laura, a young girl, to partake of their tempting wares. Soon, she is lost to the world and her life begins slowly to fade away. Only the courage of her sister, Lizzie, can possibly save her from her fate. Will it be enough?

The G.K. Chesterton Classics Collection brings together some of the most celebrated works of one of the 20th century's most influential writers, spanning his diverse contributions to detective fiction, theology, storytelling, and poetry. This richly illustrated edition includes key works such as The Innocence of Father Brown, featuring the iconic amateur detective whose sharp intellect and moral insight unravel complex mysteries; Orthodoxy, Chesterton's profound defense of Christian faith; and The Ballad of the White Horse, a lyrical epic about King Alfred the Great.

Included in this collection, along with Longfellow's classic "The Song of Hiawatha", are "An April Day", "Autumn", "Woods in Winter", "The Wreck of the Hesperus", "The Village Blacksmith", "Endymion", "Voices of the Night", "Hymn to the Night", "A Psalm of Life", "The Reaper and the Flowers", "The Light of Stars", "Footsteps of Angels", "Flowers", "The Beleaguered City", "Midnight Mass for the Dying Year" and "The Day Is Done".

Richard Burton reads from Hardy and Donne, and performs a wonderful unabridged version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (along with Robert Hardy and John Neville).

Alec Guinness reads a selection of his favourite poetry including works by Longfellow, Crashaw, and Vaughan.

Libidinous, licentious, salacious and very, very funny, The Satyricon is one of the most remarkable documents from ancient Rome. It tells the ribald story of Encolpius, a man of active and varied appetites (powered notably by his passion for his favourite lover, the handsome Giton), who plunges without inhibition into the life of Roman pleasures: orgies of food, feasting, abundant sex and escapades. The kind of hedonism found occasionally in Roman mosaics is here brought to life.

Abou Ben Adhem awakens to find an angel within his room writing the names of those who love The Lord inside a book of gold. To his shock, he discovers his is name will not be added and learns of the fate awaiting him.

This collection, first published in 1914, contains 28 short pieces in prose and verse, which present themes frequently explored in Gibran's other works. These include love, death, creation myths and spiritual realization.

A collection of the greatest war poetry ever written, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Tragedy, war and humanity are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written about, or on, the battlefield.

This book compiles both the first (1855) and final (1892) versions of Walt Whitman's masterpiece Song of Myself in one volume, making it unique and valuable for students of American literature.