Classic Poetry

Most of the great Greek stories and epic tales are initiated over women, which is exactly what happens in the very beginning of The Iliad by Homer. The Trojan War has been waging for nearly a decade, and really erupted when Helen, the wife to Menelaos, was kidnapped and thus launched the "thousand ships" in pursuit of her. This is the reason that the Achaians and the Trojans have been fighting each other for so long. Achilles, who has become hero to the Greeks, is given the present of a slave girl for his excellence in battle.

The Iliad is an epic Greek poem written by philosopher Homer, and is considered one of the oldest pieces of western literature still in existence. The story takes place during the last weeks of the 10-year Trojan War, with a focus on the quarrels between King Agamemnon and the legendary warrior Achilles. However, this tale's most famous scene is when the Greek's give a gift to the Trojans of a large wooden horse, but one that is filled with soldiers, that allows the Greeks to infiltrate the high walls of the city of Troy.

Die "Metamorphosen" - Verwandlungsgeschichten - des Publius Ovidius Naso gehören zum Grundbestand abendländischer Kultur...

What happened in the house that Jack built? It all started with the cheese that lay in the house that Jack built. And then came the rat that ate the cheese and the cat who killed the rat. Caldecott Medal-winning author and illustrator Simms Taback brings his distinctive humor and creativity to the beloved story of Jack and the house that he built. There is even a special guest star at the end of this humorous and unique interpretation of an age-old classic.

Wolfram von Eschenbach, a knight and a poet from 13th century Germany, is the author of this Arthurian romance. Parzival is the revival and completion of a narrative left incomplete by its initiator Chrétien de Troyes. It follows Parzival from his boyhood and career as a knight at the court of King Arthur to his ultimate achievement as King of the Temple of the Grail. This is both a tale of chivalry, and an epic quest for spiritual insight, as the hero Parzival must overcome his pride, and learn to be humble before he can finally win the Holy Grail.

American poet, critic, and short-story writer Edgar Allan Poe is universally recognized for his cultivation of the macabre in fiction. His stories are characterized by an original kind of supernatural horror, often using the awareness of death as a catalyzing force in its own right. His tales and poems brim with psychological depth and intense imagery, made vivid through his musical language and hypnotic rhythms, which are especially captivating when heard aloud.

This audiobook contains the most exciting and essential parts of the Iliad, capturing the final 50 days of the Trojan war and bringing to life ancient men and heroic battles. It provides an integral beginning to the infamous journey of Odysseus. Translated by Stanley Lombardo.

"Poets live the lives all of us live," says Bill Moyers, "with one big difference. They have the power--the power of the word--to create a world of thoughts and emotions other can share. We only have to learn to listen." In a series of fascinating conversations with thirty-four American poets...

The most famous of the three canticles that compose The Divine Comedy, "Inferno" describes Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life, with Virgil as a guide. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonizing torture, Dante encounters doomed souls that include the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicidal Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit.

Widely known as the master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe has held the world enraptured for more than 150 years with his dark and powerful works. This collection will sweep you away into a world of literary brilliance.

Conjoints dans une édition posthume de 1869 sous le titre de "Petits poèmes en proses", ces textes auraient dû sans doute s'intituler "Le Spleen de Paris". Tel était en effet l'intitulé auquel Baudelaire songeait. Dans cette marqueterie d'allégories, de pochades fantastiques, de vignettes lyriques, de nouvelles, de scènes de genre et de "doublets" de poèmes versifiés des "Fleurs du Mal", l'auteur traduit avec émotion le quotidien du "grand désert d'homme" dans lequel il muse solitairement, débuchant le grotesque et invoquant le sublime.

Yves Bonnefoy lit ses propres textes, fragments de sa première œuvre "Du mouvement et de l'immobilité du Douve", parue en 1953 jusqu'aux "Planches courbes", recueil publié en 2001. L'unité de l'écriture, en dialogue avec elle-même, se révèle dans la voix de son auteur. Le jeu de miroir, déjà présent dans l'œuvre d'Yves Bonnefoy, prend toute sa dimension dans le mouvement de son propre souffle, dans la respiration du poète qui lit ses vers, à la fois réflexifs et attachés au réel.

In the war a great volume of poetry was written, produced and published in books, periodicals, newspapers or letters back to home. We often think of war as a necessity. We fight for a more just and better world. We often fail. But in our poets we gain a truth and a morality that shocks us, consoles us and holds our values to the light. In this volume we hear poems from the front, from home, from soldiers, from auxiliaries, from friend and from foe.

A witty, bawdy, erotic but classic collection of poetry designed to celebrate the most sensual of human pleasures. Over the ages, many poets have put pen to paper in celebration of that most raw and yet most beautiful of human instincts - erotic love. This anthology includes verse by Herrick, Marlowe, Jonson, Byron, Verlaine, Whitman, Yeats, Cummings and, from our own time, John Betjeman. All aspects of erotic love are to be found in these poems - from the bawdy to the sensuous and tender.

Included in this collection are major works by Matthew Arnold, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, William Blake, Rupert Brooke, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Abraham Crowley, William Cooper, John Donne, Michael Drayton, John Dryden, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Goldsmith, Thomas Hardy, Robert Herrick, Thomas Gray, Ben Johnson, John Keats, John Lyly, Christopher Marlowe, Andrew Marvell, John Milton, Alexander Pope, Sir Walter Raleigh, Christina Rossetti, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Southey and more!

Here are the favorites from Lewis Carroll, Jonathan Swift, William Shakespeare, and more. And that is not to forget perhaps the greatest of them all: Anon. There are ballads, sonnets, proverbs, and nonsense verse. Poems to inform, divert, satirize, castigate and praise. A collection to make all listeners smile, laugh, remember and discover.

Classic Poems for Girls is a collection of over 25 funny, whimsical and moving poems for 5- to 10-year olds, designed to fuel the imagination. From the adventures of the Jumblies, who sail away in a sieve; to the sticky end of a girl named Matilda; to the courtship of a maiden who lived long ago, in a kingdom by the sea, there’s a poem to suit any feeling or mood. Seasoned Naxos AudioBooks readers Laura Paton, Anne-Marie Piazza, Benjamin Soames and Roy McMillan work their magic on the works of Edward Lear, Louisa May Alcott, Christina Rossetti, and many more.

In his perilous journey home after the Trojan War, Odysseus must pass through the land of the Cyclopes, encounter Circe the Enchantress, and face the terrible Charybdis and the six-headed serpent Scylla.

Of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, The Odyssey serves to some extent as a sequel to The Iliad. The poem describes the journey home of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, after the fall of Troy. In the Greek sources, the Trojan War lasted 10 years, and Odysseus spent 10 more years on the return journey due to the hostility of Poseidon, the god of earth and sea. Odysseus' fantastical adventures include a period of captivity on Calypso’s island, a visit to the lethargic lotus eaters, an encounter with a one-eyed Cyclops, and more.

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849), The Raven Edition, presents his complete literary output in five volumes. Although best known for his works of macabre fiction, Poe also had a deep interest in scientific discovery and speculative philosophy. This volume contains stories about wild and wonderful experiments and other objects of public curiosity, and essays about language and thought.