Classic Poetry

Sensual, macabre, joyous and liberating, The Flowers of Evil, or Les Fleurs du Mal, is a beautifully debauched reflection on dreams, sin, life, and death. With subjects ranging from travel to drugs, sex to faith, sleep to contemplation, Baudelaire finds new beauty in the most sinister and corrupt of situations. His morbid and nightmarish Romanticism was completely unique: cynical and bleak, but also inspiring. The book was highly controversial upon its release and Napoleon III’s government prosecuted Baudelaire for "an insult to public decency".

Transcendentalism embodies the concept that people have a deeper and more profound understanding of the world around them than simply by what they can glimpse with their senses. In this collection of essays and poems, the works of three transcendentalist authors are shared, each with their own impressions and opinions supporting the movement.

This collection of 18 of Beatrix Potter's charming stories about Peter Rabbit, Tom Kitten, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tittlemouse, and the others have enchanted children for over a hundred years and will surely do so well into the future. Beatrix Potter's tales were often connected with real places, people, or animals, so each story also includes a brief introductory note about its history.

Richard Burton, the multi-award winning actor reads the finest work of John Donne.

English literature is a treasure trove of wonderful poetry. From Shakespeare to Milton, Keats to Shelley and Tennyson to Yeats, this accessible history (especially written for Naxos Audiobooks) introduces the listener to countless small masterpieces, including all the old favorites and some lesser-known gems. Whitfield explores this most expressive of art forms and traces the historical development of a rich and diverse canon of poetical works.

Five works in one collection. This audiobook of his treasured poetry collection walks you through a time when the American Experiment came to a new maturity; when the Transcendentalist Movement forever changed life and poetry.

Sappho was a female poet who was well known in ancient Greece and Rome for her lyrical poetry. She was most famous for her poems involving women who loved women, and it is from her name that sapphic, a term referring to sexual relations between women, originated. This is a compendium of her surviving work, a collection of 54 fragments translated by Henry de Vere Stacpoole.

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....

As the Enlightenment movement was gathering strength in the early 18th century, various challenges to established religious faith were launched. In response, a number of celebrated commentators produced defences of religion and morality, and among these was Alexander Pope, who was inspired to write "some pieces on Human Life and Manners." The result was a collection of poems in rhyming couplets, designated "Epistles", which were published in instalments.

Stones Before The Ocean is an anthology of poetry for use in prayer and worship, featuring over 200 poems from modern and classic poets.

Traditional cultures in many parts of the world have displayed a profound appreciation for the unity of all human spirit in its quest for knowledge of the Divine. Here a medieval Muslim handbook for right living is interpreted in modern English verse. When I am come above these things of earth, I find a heaven in my contemplation: Eternal Beauty, nameless, featureless, No longer masked nor hid by folds of flesh. Two hundred years later, Rumi paid Ghazzali the compliment of incorporating several of his allegories into his own epic work, the Masnavi. Jabez L. Van Cleef takes foundational ...

Juanita di Perli was a young woman when she decided to live the rest of her life on a table-top. She called it God's will, but for the order of nuns that sprang up around her, Juanita's devotion was a curse. For decades they did the bidding of the holy grouch, and the entire island of San Juan el Pirata sighed with relief when she died. Twenty years later, the islanders fight for Juanita's canonization - not because they liked her, but because a local saint would be a tourist boon. The only thing keeping the island poor is the Archduke, who refuses to ask Rome to consider Juanita for sainthood.

Naxos AudioBooks continues its new series of Great Poets, represented by collections of their most popular poems in one program. W. B. Yeats was one of the most beloved poets of the 20th century. He left a large legacy of outstanding poems, and the finest are collected here: "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Lake Isle of Inisfree," "The Secret Rose," and "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". They are read by a strong cast, led by Olivier award-winner Jim Norton.

Acclaimed actress Claire Danes burnishes an epic story of heroes, gods, and monsters in a groundbreaking translation of The Odyssey, the first great adventure story in the Western literary tradition. When the wily warrior-king Odysseus sets off for home after the Trojan War, he doesn’t realize this simple undertaking will become a perilous journey of 10 years. Beset at every turn, he encounters obstacles, detours, and temptations—both supernatural and human—while his wife Penelope fends off would-be suitors desperate to take the throne.

Eleven complete Dr. Seuss stories at a great price, featuring performances by John Cleese, Billy Crystal, Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Dustin Hoffman, John Lithgow, and more!

The epitome of the romantic literary hero, Lord Byron was as well known in his time for the revolutionary panache with which he lived as for his extremely popular verse. “As a myth,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “his importance, especially on the continent, was enormous.” His many tempestuous relationships were the subject of scandal which only added to his celebrity. His name has even entered into our language to describe a man of deep passion and defiance.

Unwittingly, we weave the fabric of our lives to perfection, like the spider mindlessly spins the perfect web. There is great beauty in the process, a beauty which is only perceived in retrospect; towards life's end. Way of the Wise follows one man's journey from youth's blinding impetuousness to the enveloping clarity of maturity's hindsight, only to arrive at the inescapable: The realization that each of us has but one course to follow, a course that we alone must navigate. Soon there will come upon that incessant wave of experience an encroaching weight of awareness...

Carved close to the original Greek, acclaimed classicist Caroline Alexander's new translation is swift and lean, with the driving cadence of its source - a translation epic in scale yet devastating in its precision and power.

This Collection of 62 Poems by various authors including William Cowper, Thomas Kelly, Willie Mullan, Robert Murray McCheyne, Charlotte Elliott, George Herbert, Charitie Lees De Chenez and many others, has been brought together in order that these spiritual truths and impressions, presented in poetical form, will comfort and edify God's people as they wrestle daily with the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Full of tragic heroes, intoxicating love stories, and the unstoppable force of fate, there is no conflict more iconic than the Trojan War. Troy is the story of the epic battle retold by Fry with drama, humor, and vivid emotion. Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, Helen, their lovers, and their mortal enemies all burn bright in Fry's compelling prose. This volume invites you to explore a captivating world with a brilliant storyteller as your guide.