Ancient Classics

At the end of his life, William Blake (1757-1827) gave up hope of being widely understood, but the twentieth century brought to his work a new and intense interest and acclaim.

An easy-going drama critic discovers that his kind and gentle aunts have a bizarre habit of poisoning gentlemen callers and burying them in the cellar.

Fuenteovejuna is a play by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. First published in Madrid in 1619 as part of Docena Parte de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio, the play is believed to have been written between 1612 and 1614. The play is based upon an actual historical incident that took place in the village of Fuenteovejuna (now called Fuente Obejuna) in Castile in 1476.

After the death of their father, Oedipus, Antigone and Ismene return to Thebes. The ruler is their unyielding uncle by marriage, Creon, who assumed command after the death of the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles, and Polynices in a fratricidal struggle to take control of the city. Creon has the body of one brother buried with full civic honors but forbids the burial of the body of the other, whom he regards as a traitor. Antigone's challenge to Creon's decree, which she considers unjust, results in the extinction of the family line of Oedipus.

Three captivating manuscripts in one audiobook: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome.

In Stephen Mitchell's The Iliad, the epic story resounds again across 2,700 years, as if the lifeblood of its heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Hector, and Priam flows 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. Mitchell's The Iliad is the first translation based on the work of the preeminent Homeric scholar Martin L. West.

The multi award-winning SmartPass study guide, with and without commentary options. This is a full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Soak up the atmosphere of ancient Rome. Decide for yourself whether Caesar's power and ambition was a threat to the Republic, and whether assassination can ever be justified.

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.

In the Greek legend, a sculptor, Pygmalion, created a statue of a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with it. Later the goddess Aphrodite responded to his earnest prayers and brought the statue, named Galatea, to life. Shaw's Pygmalion is a fussy unmarried professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins, who claims that he could train an uneducated person off the street to speak so that he or she could pass as a member of the aristocracy. His Galatea is Eliza Doolittle, who sells flowers at Covent Garden and whose father is a dissipated but cunning vagrant.

In the winelands of 16th-century Germany, Obsopoeus witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure, and competitive drinking. Alarmed, and inspired by the Roman poet Ovid's Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. In How to Drink, Michael Fontaine offers the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus' text, rendering his poetry into spirited, contemporary prose and uncorking a forgotten classic that will appeal to drinkers of all kinds and (legal) ages.

The John Milton Poetry Collection includes four of his most beloved works, sharing Milton's pioneering writing on everything from politics to religion. As you listen, be transported to the 17th century when political and religious tensions were high and war was imminent. Listen as Milton's works reveal his opinions on biblical themes, political division, and personal freedoms.

One of the most significant and popular books in the history of human thought, and China’s earliest philosophical classic, The Dao De Jing has served for millennia as a brilliant guide to living healthily and happily, to treating the Earth with respect, and to understanding our place in the cosmos. Renowned translator J. H. Huang has spent over two decades researching the Dao, resulting in the most accurate translation to date based on the oldest known transcripts of the text.

As one of the supremely gifted poets of all time, one might expect great things from this collection of poetry by Horace. And these works do not disappoint. The 17 poems of the Epodes cover a variety of topics, including politics, magic, eroticism and food. A product of the turbulent final years of the Roman Republic, the collection is known for its striking depiction of Rome's sociopolitical ills in a time of great upheaval. In the Epistles, Horace reveals himself as a genuine moralist, a subtle observer of life, and a very good writer.

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.

Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him. Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom examines Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal.

The Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of the fifth century BC, is generally regarded as the first work of history and the first great masterpiece of non-fiction writing. Joined here are the sheer drama of Herodotus' narrative of the Persian invasions of Greece, and the endless curiosity - turning now to cannabis, now to the Pyramids - which make his book the source of so much of our knowledge of the ancient world.

Everyone knows something of Shakespeare's sonnets, even if only in memorable fragments like "the darling buds of May", or "remembrance of things past", or "the marriage of true minds". For centuries these wonderfully crafted, intense lyrics have stood for something valued about youth, love, and the emotional complexities belonging to that time of life. This new recording presents all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets, using the New Cambridge Shakespeare texts.

Aristotle's Poetics is best known for its definitions and analyses of tragedy and comedy, but it also applies to truth and beauty as they are manifested in the other arts. In our age, when the natural and social sciences have dominated the quest for truth, it is helpful to consider why Aristotle claimed poetry is more philosophical and more significant than history. Like so many other works by Aristotle, the Poetics has dominated the way we have thought about all forms of dramatic performance in Europe and America ever since.

The Trojan War is over, and Odysseus, the cunning King of Ithaca, sets out for home, his wife Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. It proves a long, 10-year journey, fraught with dangers.

How to think clearly, act purposefully, overcome any obstacle, and find peace and happiness along the way. The Meditations is a collection of Marcus' personal journal entries. They were not intended for publication but to remind Marcus himself of his principles and priorities. As a result, they are intimate, direct, and extremely useful. This new edition is rendered in contemporary English, with a foreword by Sam Torode.