A SCHOLARLY BOOK REPOSITORY
“The classic of all Europe.” —T. S. Eliot
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) was born in 70 BC near Mantua and was educated at Cremona, Milan, and Rome. Slow in speech, shy in manner, thoughtful in mind, weak in health, he went back north for a quiet life. Influenced by the group of poets there, he may have written some of the doubtful poems included in our Virgilian manuscripts. All his undoubted extant work is written in his perfect hexameters. Earliest comes the collection of ten pleasingly artificial bucolic poems, the Eclogues, which imitated freely Theocritus’ idylls. They deal with pastoral life and love. Before 29 BC came one of the best of all didactic works, the four books of Georgics on tillage, trees, cattle, and bees. Virgil’s remaining years were spent in composing his great, not wholly finished, epic the Aeneid, on the traditional theme of Rome’s origins through Aeneas of Troy. Inspired by the Emperor Augustus’ rule, the poem is Homeric in metre and method but influenced also by later Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, and learning, and deeply Roman in spirit. Virgil died in 19 BC at Brundisium on his way home from Greece, where he had intended to round off the Aeneid. He had left in Rome a request that all its twelve books should be destroyed if he were to die then, but they were published by the executors of his will.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Virgil is in two volumes.
The poetry of Laynie Browne’s Apprentice to a Breathing Hand explores alchemy, connectivity, and perception. Throughout the collection, Browne considers the formation and limits of personhood, the experience of a body moving through time, and the imperative to continually learn and unlearn. Browne looks to alchemy as a practice for cultivating the impossible, positioning it as a fitting model for our current moment. In the material of language, meaning must be unmade and remade endlessly, and in this continual regeneration, Browne considers the alchemy of how a poem can in turn transform the poet. Moving through methods of making and unmaking, the collection centers on the figure of an apprentice working in a space of indeterminacy, lack, breath, and constant shifting.
The Greek epic account of the quest for the golden fleece.
Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, composed in the 3rd century BC, is the epic retelling of Jason’s quest for the golden fleece. Along with his contemporaries Callimachus and Theocritus, Apollonius refashioned Greek poetry to meet the interests and aesthetics of a Hellenistic audience, especially that of Alexandria in the Ptolemaic period following Alexander’s death. In this carefully crafted work of 5,835 hexameter verses in four books, the author draws on the preceding literary traditions of epic (Homer), lyric (Pindar), and tragedy (especially Euripides) but creates an innovative and complex narrative that includes geography, religion, ethnography, mythology, adventure, exploration, human psychology, and, most of all, the coming of age and love affair of Jason and Medea. It greatly influenced Roman authors such as Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid, and was imitated by Valerius Flaccus.
This new edition of the first volume in the Loeb Classical Library offers a fresh translation and improved text.
The Roman epic retelling of the quest for the golden fleece.
Valerius Flaccus, Gaius, Latin poet who flourished in the period ca. AD 70–90, composed in smooth and sometimes obscure style an incomplete epic Argonautica in eight books, on the auest for the golden fleece. The poem is typical of his age, being a free re-handling of the story already told by Apollonius Rhodius, to whom he is superior in arrangement, vividness, and description of character. Valerius’ poem shows much imitation of the language and thought of Virgil, and much learning. The chief interest of the epic lies in the relationship between Medea and Jason, especially the growth of Medea’s love, where Valerius is at his best. The long series of adventures and various Roman allusions suggest that the poet meant to do honor to Vespasian (to whom the epic is dedicated) with special reference to that emperor’s ships in waters around Britain.
The first complete English translation of one of the great court epics of Sanskrit literature.
Kirātārjunīya, or Arjuna and the Hunter, is one of the great court epics of the Sanskrit literary canon. Written by the sixth-century poet Bharavi, it is also the first and most remarkable reinterpretation of a pivotal episode in the Mahābhārata, India’s ancient epic. The warrior Arjuna travels to the Himalayas to perform penance and win a boon from the god Shiva that will help his brothers, the Pandavas, overcome their enemies in righteous war. Appearing in the guise of a hunter, Shiva tests Arjuna’s courage in combat, ultimately reveals himself, and bestows upon the hero an invincible weapon.
In Bharavi’s hands, the episode is turned into a masterful contemplation of heroic action, ethical conduct, ascetic discipline, and religious devotion—core values in India’s classical civilization and enduring themes in Indian literature. But the poem’s fame rests above all on its aesthetic achievement. With its elegant, epigrammatic verse, powerful imagery, dramatic speeches, and vivid descriptions, Arjuna and the Hunter, now made available for the first time in a complete English translation and accompanied by the Sanskrit original in the Devanagari script, will dazzle and move contemporary readers no less powerfully than its first courtly connoisseurs.
Aspects of History and Epic in Ancient Iran focuses on the content of one of the most important inscriptions of the Ancient Near East: the Bisotun inscription of the Achaemenid king Darius I (6th century BCE), which in essence reports on a suspicious fratricide and subsequent coup d’état. Moreover, the study shows how the inscription’s narrative would decisively influence the Iranian epic, epigraphic, and historiographical traditions well into the Sasanian and early Islamic periods.
Intriguingly, our assessment of the impact of the Bisotun narrative on later literary traditions—in particular, the inscription of the Sasanian king Narseh at Paikuli (3rd–4th centuries CE)—necessarily relies on the reception of the oral rendition of the Bisotun story captured by Greek historians. As Rahim Shayegan argues, this oral tradition had an immeasurable impact upon the historiographical writings and epic compositions of later Iranian empires. It would have otherwise remained unknown to modern scholars, had it not been partially preserved and recorded by Hellanicus of Lesbos, Herodotus, Ctesias, and other Greek authors. The elucidation of Bisotun’s thematic composition therefore not only allows us to solve an ancient murder but also to reevaluate pre-Thucydidean Greek historiography as one of the most important repositories of Iranian epic themes.
Teofilo Folengo (1491–1544) was born in Mantua and joined the Benedictine order, but became a runaway monk and a satirist of monasticism. In 1517 he published, under the pseudonym Merlin Cocaio, the first version of his macaronic narrative poem Baldo, later enlarged and elaborated. It blended Latin with various Italian dialects in hexameter verse, inventing a deliberately droll language whose humor depends on the mixture of high and low tonalities. An important example of the mock-heroic epic, the work was a model for Rabelais and was frequently reprinted.
Baldo, the hero of these picaresque adventures, is a descendant of French royalty who starts out as something of a juvenile delinquent. The poem narrates episodes that include imprisonment; battles with local authorities, pirates, shepherds, witches, and demons; and a journey to the underworld. Throughout Baldo is accompanied by various companions, among them a giant, a centaur, a magician, and his best friend Cingar, a wickedly inventive trickster (“practicus ad beffas”). This edition provides the first English translation of this hilarious send-up of ancient epic and Renaissance chivalric romance.
Teofilo Folengo (1491-1544) was born in Mantua and joined the Benedictine order, but became a runaway monk and a satirist of monasticism. In 1517 he published, under the pseudonym Merlin Cocaio, the first version of his macaronic narrative poem Baldo, later enlarged and elaborated. It blended Latin with various Italian dialects in hexameter verse, inventing a deliberately droll language whose humor depends on the mixture of high and low tonalities. An important example of the mock-heroic epic, the work was a model for Rabelais and was frequently reprinted.
Baldo, the hero of these picaresque adventures, is a descendant of French royalty who starts out as something of a juvenile delinquent. The poem narrates episodes which include imprisonment; battles with local authorities, pirates, shepherds, witches, and demons; and a journey to the underworld. Throughout Baldo is accompanied by various companions, among them a giant, a centaur, a magician, and his best friend Cingar, a wickedly inventive trickster ("practicus ad beffas"). This edition provides the first English translation of this hilarious send-up of ancient epic and Renaissance chivalric romance.
Epic history.
Lucan (M. Annaeus Lucanus, AD 39–65), son of wealthy M. Annaeus Mela and nephew of Seneca, was born at Corduba (Cordova) in Spain and was brought as a baby to Rome. In AD 60 at a festival in Emperor Nero’s honor Lucan praised him in a panegyric and was promoted to one or two minor offices. But having defeated Nero in a poetry contest he was interdicted from further recitals or publication, so that three books of his epic The Civil War were probably not issued in 61 when they were finished. By 65 he was composing the tenth book but then became involved in the unsuccessful plot of Piso against Nero and, aged only twenty-six, by order took his own life.
Quintilian called Lucan a poet “full of fire and energy and a master of brilliant phrases.” His epic stood next after Virgil’s in the estimation of antiquity. Julius Caesar looms as a sinister hero in his stormy chronicle in verse of the war between Caesar and the Republic’s forces under Pompey, and later under Cato in Africa—a chronicle of dramatic events carrying us from Caesar’s fateful crossing of the Rubicon, through the Battle of Pharsalus and death of Pompey, to Caesar victorious in Egypt. The poem is also called Pharsalia.
Among the epic romances of post–Barbarian Europe, such as Roland and El Cid, Digenis Akritas has been the least known in the West—outside Greece. It is the story of a half-breed prince who guarded the eastern border of the Roman Empire of Byzantium on the Euphrates in the tenth century. His name and cognomen, Basil, the Two–Blood Border Lord, sum up the curious richness of his heritage: Roman by politics, Arab and Cappadocian by birth, Greek in language, and orthodox by faith.
On an incursion into Byzantine territory, an Arab Emir captures a Christian woman. Her relatives, in raiding to rescue her, convert the Emir and his people to Christianity and bring them back to the empire. Basil is born of this union. A prodigy of valor, his miraculous strength in hunting and in battle win him an Arab bride and the loyalty of her family. He settles in a splendid garden palace by the Euphrates, pacifies the Border, fights dragons and bandits only to die young at the same instant as his wife.
The poem in English verse translation is full of humor, fairytale, and a moving religious devotion. It recaptures an urbane vanished civilization.
The translator has collated all the known texts and supports the translation with commentary, a bibliography, and a map.
Epic revels.
Nonnos of Panopolis in Egypt, who lived in the fifth century of our era, composed the last great epic poem of antiquity. The Dionysiaca, in forty-eight books, has for its chief theme the expedition of Dionysus against the Indians; but the poet contrives to include all the adventures of the god (as well as much other mythological lore) in a narrative that begins with chaos in heaven and ends with the apotheosis of Ariadne’s crown. The wild ecstasy inspired by the god is certainly reflected in the poet’s style, which is baroque, extravagant, and unrestrained. It seems that Nonnos was in later years converted to Christianity, for in marked contrast to the Dionysiaca, a poem dealing unreservedly with classical myths and redolent of a pagan outlook, there is extant and ascribed to him a hexameter paraphrase of the Gospel of John.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Dionysiaca is in three volumes.
Epic revels.
Nonnos of Panopolis in Egypt, who lived in the fifth century of our era, composed the last great epic poem of antiquity. The Dionysiaca, in forty-eight books, has for its chief theme the expedition of Dionysus against the Indians; but the poet contrives to include all the adventures of the god (as well as much other mythological lore) in a narrative that begins with chaos in heaven and ends with the apotheosis of Ariadne’s crown. The wild ecstasy inspired by the god is certainly reflected in the poet’s style, which is baroque, extravagant, and unrestrained. It seems that Nonnos was in later years converted to Christianity, for in marked contrast to the Dionysiaca, a poem dealing unreservedly with classical myths and redolent of a pagan outlook, there is extant and ascribed to him a hexameter paraphrase of the Gospel of John.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Dionysiaca is in three volumes.
Epic revels.
Nonnos of Panopolis in Egypt, who lived in the fifth century of our era, composed the last great epic poem of antiquity. The Dionysiaca, in forty-eight books, has for its chief theme the expedition of Dionysus against the Indians; but the poet contrives to include all the adventures of the god (as well as much other mythological lore) in a narrative that begins with chaos in heaven and ends with the apotheosis of Ariadne’s crown. The wild ecstasy inspired by the god is certainly reflected in the poet’s style, which is baroque, extravagant, and unrestrained. It seems that Nonnos was in later years converted to Christianity, for in marked contrast to the Dionysiaca, a poem dealing unreservedly with classical myths and redolent of a pagan outlook, there is extant and ascribed to him a hexameter paraphrase of the Gospel of John.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Dionysiaca is in three volumes.
In his fourth poetry collection, Matthew Minicucci examines masculinity and gun violence as he brings to life the grammatical concept of the dual, a number that is neither singular nor plural. Though now lost in English, the concept is present in other languages both extant and ancient. The poems’ forms fittingly include the elegy, palinode, and contrapuntal, which is both a single poem and two poems intertwined. They align contemporary moments with key texts from Western literature, including ancient Greek epics, in a way that helps us reconsider the aggression of young men. “The world kills kind boys,” Minicucci writes, and “we bury the bodies inside men.”
Minicucci recategorizes our idea of “West,” the Western canon, and the Old West and its bullets, comparing them to modern-day landscapes in Utah, Oregon, Washington, California, and Hawai’i. Whether memorializing a woodworking grandfather or poets Brigit Pegeen Kelly and James Longenbach, Dual notes that loss has a double vision. While weighty in their subjects, Dual’s poems make room for unexpected moments of lightness, such as when the speaker compares the complications of love to “reading the Iliad and realizing, sure, there's anger, // but before that there’s just a lot of camping.”
The book argues, in the end, that there is an unalienable dual between the observer and the observed, the self and the self as confessed to another.
In his fourth poetry collection, Matthew Minicucci examines masculinity and gun violence as he brings to life the grammatical concept of the dual, a number that is neither singular nor plural. Though now lost in English, the concept is present in other languages both extant and ancient. The poems’ forms fittingly include the elegy, palinode, and contrapuntal, which is both a single poem and two poems intertwined. They align contemporary moments with key texts from Western literature, including ancient Greek epics, in a way that helps us reconsider the aggression of young men. “The world kills kind boys,” Minicucci writes, and “we bury the bodies inside men.”
Minicucci recategorizes our idea of “West,” the Western canon, and the Old West and its bullets, comparing them to modern-day landscapes in Utah, Oregon, Washington, California, and Hawai’i. Whether memorializing a woodworking grandfather or poets Brigit Pegeen Kelly and James Longenbach, Dual notes that loss has a double vision. While weighty in their subjects, Dual’s poems make room for unexpected moments of lightness, such as when the speaker compares the complications of love to “reading the Iliad and realizing, sure, there's anger, // but before that there’s just a lot of camping.”
The book argues, in the end, that there is an unalienable dual between the observer and the observed, the self and the self as confessed to another.
“The classic of all Europe.” —T. S. Eliot
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) was born in 70 BC near Mantua and was educated at Cremona, Milan, and Rome. Slow in speech, shy in manner, thoughtful in mind, weak in health, he went back north for a quiet life. Influenced by the group of poets there, he may have written some of the doubtful poems included in our Virgilian manuscripts. All his undoubted extant work is written in his perfect hexameters. Earliest comes the collection of ten pleasingly artificial bucolic poems, the Eclogues, which imitated freely Theocritus’ idylls. They deal with pastoral life and love. Before 29 BC came one of the best of all didactic works, the four books of Georgics on tillage, trees, cattle, and bees. Virgil’s remaining years were spent in composing his great, not wholly finished, epic the Aeneid, on the traditional theme of Rome’s origins through Aeneas of Troy. Inspired by the Emperor Augustus’ rule, the poem is Homeric in metre and method but influenced also by later Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, and learning, and deeply Roman in spirit. Virgil died in 19 BC at Brundisium on his way home from Greece, where he had intended to round off the Aeneid. He had left in Rome a request that all its twelve books should be destroyed if he were to die then, but they were published by the executors of his will.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Virgil is in two volumes.
With its generic fusion of tall tales, science, myth, politics, and the absurd, the work also announces the emergence of the genre of modern fantasy in Bengal. A detailed introduction, bibliography, and extensive annotation bring to life the context for these stories, highlighting key intertexts, political nuances, and important mythological references. This volume also contains the first translation of a rare biographical piece on the author, which includes long autobiographical parts written by Trailokyanath himself. Carefully translated and thoroughly researched, this volume will introduce a trenchant Indian voice to the English-language readership.
The authoritative new translation of the epic Ramayana, as retold by the sixteenth-century poet Tulsidas and cherished by millions to this day.
The Epic of Ram presents a new translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas (1543–1623). Written in Avadhi, a literary dialect of classical Hindi, the poem has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. A devotional work revered and recited by millions of Hindus today, it is also a magisterial compendium of philosophy and lore, and a literary masterpiece.
The seventh volume completes Tulsidas’s grand epic. Ram reunites with his family in Ayodhya and assumes the throne, beginning his long, utopian reign. He also delivers ethical and spiritual teachings to his brothers and subjects. Then, a fascinating narrator—an immortal sage embodied in a lowly crow—reflects on Ram’s life story while recounting how he acquired wisdom, despite setbacks, on his own mystical and devotional quest across aeons.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of the inspired poet and storyteller. It is accompanied by the most widely accepted edition of the Avadhi text, presented in the Devanagari script.
The authoritative new translation of the epic Ramayana, as retold by the sixteenth-century poet Tulsidas and cherished by millions to this day.
The Epic of Ram presents a new translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas (1543–1623). Written in Avadhi, a literary dialect of classical Hindi, the poem has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. A devotional work revered and recited by millions of Hindus today, it is also a magisterial compendium of philosophy and lore, and a literary masterpiece.
In the sixth volume, Ram and his devoted allies fight the army of Ravan in a climactic battle that ends with the death of the demon king. Ram reunites with Sita, and—after her fidelity is confirmed by the burning of an illusory double—they board a flying palace to return to the city of Ayodhya, where Bharat has been waiting anxiously as his brother Ram’s fourteen-year exile nears its end.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of the inspired poet and storyteller. It is accompanied by the most widely accepted edition of the Avadhi text, presented in the Devanagari script.
The authoritative new translation of the epic Ramayana, as retold by the sixteenth-century poet Tulsidas and cherished by millions to this day.
The Epic of Ram presents a new translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas (1543–1623). Written in Avadhi, a literary dialect of classical Hindi, the poem has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. A devotional work revered and recited by millions of Hindus today, it is also a magisterial compendium of philosophy and lore and a literary masterpiece.
Volume 5 encompasses the story’s three middle episodes—Ram’s meetings with forest sages, his battles with demons, the kidnapping of his wife, his alliance with a race of marvelous monkeys—and climaxes with the god Hanuman’s heroic journey to the island city of Lanka to locate and comfort Sita.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of the inspired poet and storyteller. It is accompanied by the most widely accepted edition of the Avadhi text, presented in the Devanagari script.
The authoritative new translation of the epic Ramayana, as retold by the sixteenth-century poet Tulsidas and cherished by millions to this day.
The Epic of Ram presents a new translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas (1543–1623). Written in Avadhi, a literary dialect of classical Hindi, the poem has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. A devotional work revered and recited by millions of Hindus today, it is also a magisterial compendium of philosophy and lore and a literary masterpiece.
The third volume details the turbulent events surrounding the scheming of Prince Ram’s stepmother, who thwarts his installation on the throne of Avadh. Ram calmly accepts fourteen years of forest exile and begins his journey through the wilderness accompanied by his wife, Sita, and younger brother Lakshman. As they walk the long road, their beauty and serenity bring joy to villagers and sages dwelling in the forest.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of the inspired poet and storyteller. It is accompanied by the most widely accepted edition of the Avadhi text, presented in the Devanagari script.
The authoritative new translation of the epic Ramayana, as retold by the sixteenth-century poet Tulsidas and cherished by millions to this day.
The Epic of Ram presents a new translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas (1543–1623). Written in Avadhi, a literary dialect of classical Hindi, the poem has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. A devotional work revered and recited by millions of Hindus today, it is also a magisterial compendium of philosophy and lore and a literary masterpiece.
The fourth volume turns to the story of Ram’s younger half-brother Bharat. Despite efforts to place him on the throne of Avadh, Bharat refuses, ashamed that Ram has been exiled. In Bharat’s poignant pilgrimage to the forest to beg the true heir to return, Tulsidas draws an unforgettable portrait of devotion and familial love.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of the inspired poet and storyteller. It is accompanied by the most widely accepted edition of the Avadhi text, presented in the Devanagari script.
The authoritative new translation of the epic Ramayana, as retold by the sixteenth-century poet Tulsidas and cherished by millions to this day.
The Epic of Ram presents a new translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas (1543–1623). Written in Avadhi, a literary dialect of classical Hindi, the poem has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. A devotional work revered and recited by millions of Hindus today, it is also a magisterial compendium of philosophy and lore and a literary masterpiece.
This volume presents Tulsidas’s grand introduction to the Ram story, replete with philosophical and theological meditations and tales of gods, sages, and royalty. Here, the stage is set for the advent and divine mission of Ram.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of its inspired poet and storyteller. It is accompanied by the most widely accepted edition of the Avadhi text, presented in the Devanagari script.
The authoritative new translation of the epic Ramayana, as retold by the sixteenth-century poet Tulsidas and cherished by millions to this day.
The Epic of Ram presents a new translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas (1543–1623). Written in Avadhi, a literary dialect of classical Hindi, the poem has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. A devotional work revered and recited by millions of Hindus today, it is also a magisterial compendium of philosophy and lore and a literary masterpiece.
In the second volume, prompted by the tyranny of the demon king Ravan, Ram decides to be born on earth. Tulsidas lovingly details Ram’s infancy, childhood, and youthful adventures, the winning of Princess Sita as his bride, and the celebration of their marriage.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of its inspired poet and storyteller. It is accompanied by the most widely accepted edition of the Avadhi text, presented in the Devanagari script.
In Epic of the Dispossessed, Robert D. Hamner offers an insightful, well-researched analysis of Omeros, the masterful epic poem by 1992 Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. Rich and various, Omeros is an innovative extension of the epic tradition. Despite Walcott's insistence that he violates the formulaþhe notes his autobiographical presence in the poem and the absence of classical heroic figures and epic battlesþthe poem incorporates fragments of all the definitive characteristics of the genre. Hamner establishes that through its self-reflexive textuality, Omeros complements the time-honored tradition of the epic by giving voice to the marginalized peoples of the New World.
Hamner briefly explains his perception of the epic tradition and its viability in contemporary literature. He examines Walcott's writing career and traces his development of devices, themes, techniques, and a narrative style essential to epic poetry. Although Walcott could not have fully anticipated Omeros, a retrospective view of his writing reveals the consistent accumulation of the skills and broad scope required for such an undertaking. Hamner attempts also to show that Walcott has incorporated into his personal style not only the more obvious aspects of his formal education but also uniquely West Indian cultural material and forms of expression.
Hamner describes Omeros as an epic of the dispossessed because each of its protagonists is a castaway in one sense or another. Regardless of whether their ancestry is traced to the classical Mediterranean, Europe, Africa, or confined to the Americas, they are transplanted individuals whose separate quests all center on the fundamental human need to strike roots in a place where one belongs.
Walcott's vivid, lyrical verse is visually compelling and aurally appealing. He is, however, a richly complex, allusive writer dealing with a wide range of profound human problems. Given the exciting climate of postcolonial and postmodern criticism, Walcott offers students and scholars unparalleled opportunities for challenging, creatively interpretive insights. Epic of the Dispossessed will be a valuable companion to the work that may prove to be Walcott's crowning achievement. The fresh and original Omeros stands on its own merits; nevertheless, it deserves to be examined in light of both Western tradition and its Caribbean context.
Three foundational Roman poets.
The Loeb Classical Library series Fragmentary Republican Latin continues with three highly influential pioneers in the creation and development of Latin poetry.
Livius Andronicus (born ca. 292 BC) was regarded by the Romans as the founder of Latin literature, introducing tragedy and comedy, adapting Homer’s Odyssey into Saturnian verse, and composing a nationally important hymn for Juno. A meeting place for writers and actors was established in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine in recognition of his poetic achievements.
Naevius (born ca. 280–260), though most famous for his comedies, also wrote tragedy and epic. He innovated by incorporating Roman material into his Greek models and writing on Roman subjects independently. The inventor of the fabula praetexta, drama on a Roman theme, he also introduced new topics to Roman tragedy, especially those relating to Troy, and his Punic War, the first epic on a Roman historical subject, was a longtime school text and a favorite of Augustus.
Caecilius (born probably in the 220s), a friend of the older Ennius, excelled at comedy, of which he was Rome’s leading exponent during his career, and was so considered by posterity. Caecilius continued the Naevian practice of inserting Roman allusions into his works and was admired by later critics particularly for his substantive and well-constructed plots, and for his ability to arouse emotion.
The texts are based on the most recent and reliable editions of the source authors and have been revised, freshly translated, and amply annotated in light of current scholarship.
we are crossing, / we are / crossing, / we are crossing in big salt water, // we are crossing, // crossing under a sky of no guilt / we have left home // though we know we will go back / someday, / see our people / as we knew them . . .
Troupe re-creates the history of lost voices between the waters of Africa, Cuba, and the United States. His daring poetics drenched in new forms-notably the seven-elevens-clench transformative narratives spurred on by a relentless, rhythmic language that mimics the foaming waves of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. His personae speak quantum litanies within one epic, sermonic-gospel to articulate our most ancient ways of storytelling and survival.
Over more than four decades, J. R. R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien completed some twenty-four volumes of his father’s work, much more than his father had succeeded in publishing during his own lifetime. Thanks to Christopher’s extraordinary publishing efforts and scholarship, readers today can survey and understand the vast landscape of Tolkien’s legendarium.
The Great Tales Never End sheds new light on J. R. R. Tolkien’s work and the debt owed to Christopher by the many Tolkien scholars who were privileged to work with him. Essays by world-renowned scholars and Tolkien family reminiscences offer unique insights into the publication process. What was Tolkien’s intended ending for The Lord of the Rings, and did it leave echoes in the stripped-down version that was actually published? What was the audience’s response to the first-ever adaptation of The Lord of the Rings—a radio dramatization that has now been deleted forever from the BBC’s archives?
The book is illustrated with color reproductions of J. R. R. Tolkien’s manuscripts, maps, drawings, and letters, as well as photographs of Christopher Tolkien and extracts from his works. Many of these documents have never been seen before, making this volume essential reading for Tolkien scholars, readers, and fans.
Cyclic verse.
Greek epics of the archaic period include poems that narrate a particular heroic episode or series of episodes and poems that recount the long-term history of families or peoples. They are an important source of mythological record. Here is a new text and translation of the examples of this poetry that have come down to us.
The heroic epic is represented by poems about Heracles and Theseus, and by two great epic cycles: the Theban Cycle, which tells of the failed assault on Thebes by the Seven and the subsequent successful assault by their sons; and the Trojan Cycle, which includes Cypria, Little Iliad, and The Sack of Ilion. Among the genealogical epics are poems in which Eumelus creates a prehistory for Corinth and Asius creates one for Samos. In presenting the extant fragments of these early epic poems, Martin West provides very helpful notes. His Introduction places the epics in historical context.
"Gunslinger is a fundamental American masterpiece."---Thomas McGuane
This fiftieth anniversary edition commemorates Edward Dorn’s masterpiece, Gunslinger, a comic, anti-epic critique of American capitalism that still resonates today. Set in the American West, the Gunslinger, his talking horse Claude Lévi-Strauss, a saloon madam named Lil, and the narrator called “I” set out in search of the billionaire Howard Hughes. As they travel along the Rio Grande to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and finally on to Colorado, they are joined by a whole host of colorful characters: Dr. Jean Flamboyant, Kool Everything, and Taco Desoxin and his partner Tonto Pronto. During their adventures and hijinks, as captured in Dorn’s multilayered, absurd, and postmodern voice, they joke and smoke their way through debates about the meaning of existence. Put simply, Gunslinger is an American classic.
In a new foreword Marjorie Perloff discusses Gunslinger's continued relevance to contemporary politics. This new edition also includes a critical essay by Michael Davidson and Charles Olson’s idiosyncratic “Bibliography on America for Ed Dorn,” which he wrote to provide guidance for Dorn's study of, and writing about, the American West.
Invocations, curiosities, and biographies connected with the famous Greek bard.
Performances of Greek epics customarily began with a hymn to a god or goddess—as Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days do. A collection of thirty-three such poems has come down to us from antiquity under the title “Hymns of Homer.” This Loeb Classical Library volume contains, in addition to the Hymns, fragments of five comic poems that were connected with Homer’s name in or just after the Classical period (but are not today believed to be by the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey). Here too is a collection of ancient accounts of the poet’s life.
The Hymns range widely in length: two are over 500 lines long; several run only a half dozen lines. Among the longest are the hymn to Demeter, which tells the foundational story of the Eleusinian Mysteries; and to Hermes, distinctive in being amusing. The comic poems gathered as Homeric Apocrypha include Margites, the Battle of Frogs and Mice, and, for the first time in English, a fragment of a perhaps earlier poem of the same type called Battle of the Weasel and the Mice. The edition of Lives of Homer contains The Contest of Homer and Hesiod and nine other biographical accounts, translated into English for the first time.
Martin West’s faithful and pleasing translations are fully annotated; his freshly edited texts offer new solutions to a number of textual puzzles.
Beowulf is one of the finest works of vernacular literature from the European Middle Ages and as such is a fitting title to head the Old English family of texts published in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.
But this volume offers something unique. For the first time in the history of Beowulf scholarship, the poem appears alongside the other four texts from its sole surviving manuscript: the prose Passion of Saint Christopher, The Wonders of the East, The Letter of Alexander the Great to Aristotle, and (following Beowulf) the poem Judith. First-time readers as well as established scholars can now gain new insights into Beowulf—and the four other texts—by approaching each in its original context.
Could a fascination with the monstrous have motivated the compiler of this manuscript, working over a thousand years ago, to pull together this diverse grouping into a single volume? The prose translation by R. D. Fulk, based on the most recent editorial understanding, allows readers to rediscover Beowulf’s brilliant mastery along with otherworldly delights in the four companion texts in The Beowulf Manuscript.
The epic tale of wrath and redemption.
Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of Homer’s stirring heroic account of the Trojan war and its passions. The eloquent and dramatic epic poem captures the terrible anger of Achilles, “the best of the Achaeans,” over a grave insult to his personal honor and relates its tragic result: a chain of consequences that proves devastating for the Greek forces besieging Troy, for noble Trojans, and for Achilles himself. The poet gives us compelling characterizations of his protagonists as well as a remarkable study of the heroic code in antiquity.
The works attributed to Homer include the two oldest and greatest European epic poems, the Odyssey and Iliad. These texts have long stood in the Loeb Classical Library with a faithful and literate prose translation by A. T. Murray. William F. Wyatt has brought the Loeb’s Iliad up to date, with a rendering that retains Murray’s admirable style but is worded for today’s readers. The two-volume edition includes an Introduction, helpful notes, and an index.
The epic tale of wrath and redemption.
Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of Homer’s stirring heroic account of the Trojan war and its passions. The eloquent and dramatic epic poem captures the terrible anger of Achilles, “the best of the Achaeans,” over a grave insult to his personal honor and relates its tragic result: a chain of consequences that proves devastating for the Greek forces besieging Troy, for noble Trojans, and for Achilles himself. The poet gives us compelling characterizations of his protagonists as well as a remarkable study of the heroic code in antiquity.
The works attributed to Homer include the two oldest and greatest European epic poems, the Odyssey and Iliad. These texts have long stood in the Loeb Classical Library with a faithful and literate prose translation by A. T. Murray. William F. Wyatt has brought the Loeb’s Iliad up to date, with a rendering that retains Murray’s admirable style but is worded for today’s readers. The two-volume edition includes an Introduction, helpful notes, and an index.
The first English translation of the narrative poem that is widely recognized as one of treasures of pre-modern Bengali culture.
In 1752, the Bengali poet Bharatchandra Ray completed a long narrative poem dedicated to the glory of Annada, the consort of Shiva and the divinity who, as her name proclaims, “bestows the bounty of rice.”
A poet well-versed in Sanskrit, Persian, and Hindi—all of which enrich his work—Bharatchandra took up the literary performance genre maṅgalkāvya and thoroughly transformed it, addressing the aesthetic tastes of the court rather than those of the traditional village audience. He added depth and sensitivity to well-known legends, along with allusions to his own experiences of poverty, and more than a dash of mischievous wit.
The second volume recounts the clandestine love affair of Princess Vidya and Prince Sundar, and how Bhavananda, ancestor of the poet’s patron, stopped a rebellion and became a king.
This translation, the first in English, features the original text in the Bangla script. Lively and entertaining, In Praise of Annada was regarded as a major achievement in its own time and is now counted one of the treasures of Bengali literature.
The first English translation of the narrative poem that is widely recognized as one of treasures of pre-modern Bengali culture.
In 1752, the Bengali poet Bharatchandra Ray completed a long narrative poem dedicated to the glory of Annada, Shiva’s consort and the divinity who, as her name proclaims, “bestows the bounty of rice.”
A poet well versed in Sanskrit, Persian, and Hindi—all of which enrich his work—Bharatchandra took up the literary performance genre maṅgalkāvya and thoroughly transformed it, addressing the aesthetic tastes of the court rather than of the traditional village audience. He added depth and sensitivity to well-known legends, along with allusions to his own experiences of poverty, and more than a dash of mischievous wit. The first volume narrates Annada’s origins, including the building of her city and temple under Shiva’s direction and the spread of her worship, and incorporates praise of the poet’s patron, the Nadia royal family.
This translation, the first into English, accompanies the original text in the Bangla script. Lively and entertaining, In Praise of Annada was regarded as a major achievement in its own time and remains a treasure of Bengali literature.
The classic Kannada version of the Mahabharata, a jewel of world literature, translated into English.
The Mahabharata, a cornerstone of ancient Indian literature, recounts the rivalry between branches of a royal family, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, culminating in a cataclysmic war. It has inspired numerous adaptations across languages and artistic media.
The Kannada Mahabharata, known as Kumāravyāsa Bhārata, is an innovative retelling where Krishna occupies center stage, composed by the fifteenth-century poet Kumaravyasa. His powerful verses critique kingship and caste and remain popular in musical performances and improvisational folk theatre today.
Volume 1 comprises “The Book of Beginnings” and “The Book of the Assembly,” including Pandu’s tragic death, the marriage of the Pandavas to Draupadi, Arjuna’s fiery destruction of the Khandava forest, the slaying of King Shishupala, and the dice game plotted by the Kauravas leading to the Pandavas’s exile.
This edition, which abridges the Kannada classic, presents a new English translation and the most reliable text of the original in the Kannada script.
A canonical great poem, or mahākāvya, of the Sanskrit canon, depicting a well-known episode from the Mahābhārata.
Magha’s The Killing of Shishupala, written in the seventh century, is a celebrated example of the Sanskrit genre known as mahākāvya, or great poem. This adaptation from the epic Mahābhārata tells the story of Shishupala, who disrupts Yudhishthira’s coronation by refusing to honor Krishna, the king’s principal ally and a manifestation of divinity. When Shishupala challenges Krishna to combat, he is immediately beheaded.
Magha, who was likely a court poet in western India, draws on the rich stylistic resources of Sanskrit poetry to imbue his work with unparalleled sophistication. He expands the narrative’s cosmic implications through elaborate depictions of the natural world and intense erotic sensuality, mixing myth and classical erudition with scenes of political debate and battlefield slaughter. Krishna is variously portrayed as refined prince, formidable warrior, and incarnation of the god Vishnu protecting the world from demonic threat.
With this translation of The Killing of Shishupala, presented alongside the original text in the Devanagari script, English readers for the first time gain access to a masterwork that has dazzled Indian audiences for a thousand years.
A thirteenth-century adaptation of one of ancient India’s most enduring stories, a cornerstone of the Kannada literary canon, translated for the first time into English.
The Life of Harishchandra, Raghavanka’s thirteenth-century masterpiece, is the first poetic rendering of one of ancient India’s most enduring legends. When his commitment to truth is tested by a powerful sage, King Harishchandra suffers utter deprivation—the loss of his wife and son, his citizens and power, and, dearest of all, his caste status—but refuses to yield. The tale has influenced poets and readers through the ages. Mahatma Gandhi traced his own commitment to truth to the impact of a Harishchandra play seen in childhood.
A poet from northern Karnataka trained in the twin traditions of Sanskrit and Kannada, Raghavanka negotiates a unique space for himself in the Kannada literary canon through important thematic, formal, and stylistic innovations. The conflicts he addresses—of hierarchical social order, political power, caste, and gender—are as relevant to contemporary India as to his own times.
Accompanied by the original text in the Kannada script, this spirited translation, the first into any language, brings an elegant and energetic narrative to a global readership.
The first English translation of the oldest extant work in Apabhramsha, a literary language from medieval India, recounting the story of the Ramayana.
The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language of the famous Ramayana tale. It was written by the poet and scholar Svayambhudeva, who lived in south India around the beginning of the tenth century. Like the epic tradition on which it is based, The Life of Padma narrates Prince Rama’s exile, his search for his wife Sita after her abduction by King Ravana of Lanka, and the restoration of his kingship.
The second volume recounts Rama’s exile with Sita and his brother Lakshmana. The three visit various cities—rather than ashrams, as in most versions; celebrate Lakshmana’s marriages; and come upon a new city built in Rama’s honor. In Dandaka Forest, they encounter sages who are masters of Jain doctrine. Then, the discovery of Sita’s disappearance sets the stage for war with Ravana.
This is the first direct translation into English of the oldest extant Apabhramsha work, accompanied by a corrected text, in the Devanagari script, of Harivallabh C. Bhayani’s critical edition.
The first English translation of the oldest extant work in Apabhramsha, a literary language from medieval India, recounting the story of the Ramayana.
The Life of Padma, or the Paümacariu, is a richly expressive Jain retelling in the Apabhramsha language of the famous Ramayana tale. The work was written by the poet and scholar Svayambhudeva, who lived in south India around the beginning of the tenth century. Like the epic tradition on which it is based, The Life of Padma narrates Prince Rama’s exile, his search for his wife Sita after her abduction by King Ravana of Lanka, and the restoration of his kingship.
The first volume of The Life of Padma begins by recounting the histories and noteworthy ancestors of Rama’s allies and enemies, focusing on his antagonist, Ravana. Svayambhudeva connects central characters from the Ramayana tradition to one another and to Rishabha, the founding prophet of Jainism, in a complex web of family relations dating back generations.
This is the first direct translation into English of the oldest extant work in Apabhramsha, accompanied by a corrected reprint in the Devanagari script of Harivallabh C. Bhayani’s critical edition.
Women’s voices and their desires are in the spotlight in this celebrated ninth-century Prakrit romance, set in modern-day coastal Andhra Pradesh.
The Prakrit romance Lilavai, an early ninth-century poem attributed to Kouhala and set in modern-day coastal Andhra Pradesh, is the most celebrated work in the genre. Complexly narrated in the alternating voices of its heroines and heroes and featuring a cast of semi-divine and magical beings, it centers on three young women: Lilavai, princess of Sinhala (today’s Sri Lanka); her cousin Mahanumai, princess of the mythical city Alaka; and Kuvalaavali, Mahanumai’s adopted sister. Following a prophecy that Lilavai’s husband will rule the earth, the princess happens upon a portrait of King Hala of Pratishthana and immediately falls in love. While journeying to meet him, she hears her cousins’ tales of their lost loves, and then vows not to marry until they are reunited. To win Lilavai’s hand, King Hala journeys to the underworld, faces monsters, and overcomes armies.
Lilavai explores themes of karma and female desire, notably privileging women as storytellers. A new edition of the Prakrit text, presented in the Devanagari script, accompanies a new English prose translation.
A new English translation of Raghuvaṃśa by the celebrated Sanskrit poet Kalidasa, who inspired such modern writers as Goethe and Tagore.
For a millennium and a half, Kalidasa’s works—from The Cloud Messenger to The Recognition of Shakuntala—have delighted audiences in India and beyond. Although the renowned poet and dramatist inspired many literary works over the centuries, little is known about his life. He likely lived in central India in the late fourth or early fifth century.
Kalidasa’s The Lineage of the Raghus, or Raghuvaṃśa, belongs to the Sanskrit literary tradition of mahākāvya, or court poem. It recounts the lives of ancient kings in the sūryavaṃśa, the Solar Dynasty who ruled from the capital city of Ayodhya. The poem describes, among other episodes, the quest for offspring by Dilipa, a descendant of the primordial king Manu; the world conquest of his son Raghu, which offers a panorama of the Indian subcontinent; the exploits of the famous Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu; and the debaucheries of Agnivarna, which jeopardize the future of the lineage.
This volume presents a new edition of the Sanskrit text in the Devanagari script alongside a fresh English translation of this enduring epic.
The first in-depth analysis of some of the most important epic poems of the Spanish Golden Age, Myth and Identity in the Epic of Imperial Spain breathes new life into five of these long- neglected texts. Elizabeth Davis demonstrates that the epic must not be overlooked, for doing so creates a significant gap in one's ability to appraise not only the cultural practice of the imperial age, but also the purest expression of its ideology.
Davis's study focuses on heroic poetry written from 1569 to 1611, including Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana, undeniably the most significant epic poem of its time. Also included are Diego de Hojeda's La Christiada, Juan Rufo's La Austriada,. Lope de Vega's Jerusalén Conquistada, and Cristóbal de Virués's Historia del Monserrate.
Examining these epics as the major site for the construction of cultural identities and Renaissance nationalist myths, Davis analyzes the means by which the epic constructs a Spanish sense of self. Because this sense of identity is not easily susceptible to direct representation, it is often derived in opposition to an "other," which serves to reaffirm Spanish cultural superiority. The Spanish Christian caballeros are almost always pitted against Amerindians, Muslims, Jews, or other adversaries portrayed as backward or heathen for their cultural and ethnic differences.
The pro-Castilian elite of sixteenth-century Spain faced the daunting task of constructing unity at home in the process of expansion and conquest abroad, yet ethnic and regional differences in the Iberian Peninsula made the creation of an imperial identity particularly difficult. The epic, as Davis shows, strains to convey the overriding image of a Spain that appears more unified than the Spanish empire ever truly was.
An important reexamination of the Golden Age canon, Myth and Identity in the Epic of Imperial Spain brings a new twist to the study of canon formation. While Davis does not ignore more traditional approaches to the literary text, she does apply recent theories, such as deconstruction and feminist criticism, to these poems, resulting in an innovative examination of the material.
Confronting such issues as canonicity, gender, the relationship between literature and Golden Age culture, and that between art and power, this publication offers scholars a new perspective for assessing Golden Age and Transatlantic studies.
In 1961, the University of Chicago Press published Richmond Lattimore's translation of Homer’s The Iliad. For more than sixty years, it has served to introduce readers to the ancient Greek world of gods and heroes and has been one of the most popular and respected versions of the work. Yet through all those decades, Chicago never published a companion translation of the best-known epic in the Western canon, The Odyssey—until now.
With his new Odyssey, celebrated author, critic, classicist, and translator Daniel Mendelsohn has created a rendering worthy of Chicago’s unparalleled reputation in classical literature. Widely known for his essays bringing classical literature and culture to mainstream audiences in the New Yorker and many other publications, Mendelsohn eschews the streamlining and modernizing approach of many recent translations, focusing instead on the epic’s formal qualities—meter, enjambment, alliteration, assonance—in order to bring it to life in all its archaic grandeur. In this line-for-line rendering, the long, six-beat line he uses, closer to the original than that of other recent translations, allows him to capture each Greek line without sacrificing the amplitude and shadings of the original.
The result is a magnificent feat of translation, one that conveys the poetics of the original while bringing to vivid life the gripping adventure, profound human insight, and powerful themes that make Homer’s work continue to resonate today. Supported by an extensive introduction, notes, and commentary, Mendelsohn’s Odyssey is poised to become the authoritative English-language version of this magnificent and enduringly influential masterpiece.
The hero’s journey home from war.
Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of the resplendent epic tale of Odysseus’ long journey home from the Trojan War and the legendary temptations, delays, and perils he faced at every turn. Homer’s classic poem features Odysseus’ encounters with the beautiful nymph Calypso; the queenly but wily Circe; the Lotus-eaters, who fed his men their memory-stealing drug; the man-eating, one-eyed Cyclops; the Laestrygonian giants; the souls of the dead in Hades; the beguiling Sirens; the treacherous Scylla and Charybdis. Here, too, is the hero’s faithful wife, Penelope, weaving a shroud by day and unraveling it by night, in order to thwart the numerous suitors attempting to take Odysseus’ place.
The works attributed to Homer include the two oldest and greatest European epic poems, the Odyssey and Iliad. These texts have long stood in the Loeb Classical Library with a faithful and literate prose translation by A. T. Murray. George Dimock has brought the Loeb’s Odyssey up to date, with a rendering that retains Murray’s admirable style but is worded for today’s readers. The two-volume edition includes a new introduction, notes, and index.
The hero’s journey home from war.
Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of the resplendent epic tale of Odysseus’ long journey home from the Trojan War and the legendary temptations, delays, and perils he faced at every turn. Homer’s classic poem features Odysseus’ encounters with the beautiful nymph Calypso; the queenly but wily Circe; the Lotus-eaters, who fed his men their memory-stealing drug; the man-eating, one-eyed Cyclops; the Laestrygonian giants; the souls of the dead in Hades; the beguiling Sirens; the treacherous Scylla and Charybdis. Here, too, is the hero’s faithful wife, Penelope, weaving a shroud by day and unraveling it by night, in order to thwart the numerous suitors attempting to take Odysseus’ place.
The works attributed to Homer include the two oldest and greatest European epic poems, the Odyssey and Iliad. These texts have long stood in the Loeb Classical Library with a faithful and literate prose translation by A. T. Murray. George Dimock has brought the Loeb’s Odyssey up to date, with a rendering that retains Murray’s admirable style but is worded for today’s readers. The two-volume edition includes a new introduction, notes, and index.
Imperial Greek epos.
Oppian of Cilicia flourished in the latter half of the second century, and dedicated his Fishing (in five books) to Antoninus, presumably Marcus Aurelius. It deals with the habits and characteristics of fish as well as giving instructions for fishing: if not exactly poetical, it contains a great deal of curious information. The Chase, dedicated to Caracalla, is an inferior composition and may even be the work of a Syrian imitator. The first book gives an appreciation of the huntsman’s horses and hounds, the three remaining being devoted to the hunting of wild animals, from the lion to the hare. This edition is equipped with extensive zoological and ichthyological notes.
This volume also includes the extant work of two epic poets of Egypt who wrote in the second half of the fifth century under the influence of Nonnus. The Rape of Helen of Colluthus in 394 lines is a pleasant account of the Judgement of Paris and Helen’s elopement with him; Tryphiodorus (papyri reveal the correct spelling to be Triphiodorus) deals with The Taking of Troy in 691 lines, beginning with the Wooden Horse and ending with the sacrifice of Polyxena.
Barry Keane's idiomatic and inventive verse translation brings to life this half-forgotten poetic account of a remarkable tale of triumph in the face of overwhelming oppression and allows Anna Stanislawska to take her place among the women poets of early modern Europe.
A late epic bridge between Homeric masterpieces.
Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica, the only long mythological epic to survive in Greek from the period between Apollonius’ Argonautica (3rd century BC) and Nonnus’ Dionysiaca (5th century AD), fills in the whole story of the Trojan expedition between the end of Homer’s Iliad and the beginning of the Odyssey, which had been treated only episodically by earlier epic and dramatic poets. Composing sometime between the late second and mid-fourth centuries AD, Quintus boldly adapts Homeric diction and style to suit the literary, moral, religious, rhetorical, and philosophical culture of the high Roman Empire, and does not hesitate to diverge from the usual versions of the story in order to craft his own narrative vision.
This edition of the Posthomerica replaces the earlier Loeb Classical Library edition by A. S. Way (1913) with an updated text based on that of F. Vian, and fresh translation, introduction, and bibliography that take account of more than a century of intervening scholarship.
Ancient Rome’s longest epic.
Silius Italicus (T. Catius, AD 25–101), was consul in 68 and governor of the province of Asia in 69; he sought no further office but lived thereafter on his estates as a literary man and collector. He revered the work of Cicero, whose Tusculan villa he owned, and that of Virgil, whose tomb at Naples he likewise owned and near which he lived. His epic Punica, in seventeen books, on the second War with Carthage (218–202 BC), is based for facts largely on Livy’s account. Conceived as a contrast between two great nations (and their supporting gods), championed by the two great heroes Scipio and Hannibal, his poem is written in pure Latin and smooth verse filled throughout with echoes of Virgil above all (and other poets); it exploits with easy grace, but little genius, all the devices and techniques of traditional Latin epic.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Silius Italicus is in two volumes.
Ancient Rome’s longest epic.
Silius Italicus (T. Catius, AD 25–101), was consul in 68 and governor of the province of Asia in 69; he sought no further office but lived thereafter on his estates as a literary man and collector. He revered the work of Cicero, whose Tusculan villa he owned, and that of Virgil, whose tomb at Naples he likewise owned and near which he lived. His epic Punica, in seventeen books, on the second War with Carthage (218–202 BC), is based for facts largely on Livy’s account. Conceived as a contrast between two great nations (and their supporting gods), championed by the two great heroes Scipio and Hannibal, his poem is written in pure Latin and smooth verse filled throughout with echoes of Virgil above all (and other poets); it exploits with easy grace, but little genius, all the devices and techniques of traditional Latin epic.
The Loeb Classical Library edition of Silius Italicus is in two volumes.
Traditionally united by une foi, une loi, un roi (one faith, one law, one king), France under Henri IV was cleaved into warring factions of Catholics and Huguenots. The country suffered episodes of bloodshed such as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, even as attempts were made to attenuate the violence through frequent edicts, including those of St. Germain (1570) and Nantes (1598). Maynard examines the rich and often dismissed body work written during these bloody decades: Pierre de Ronsard’s Franciade, Guillaume Salluste Du Bartas’s La Judit and La Sepmaine, Sébastian Garnier’s La Henriade, Agrippa d’Aubigné’s Les Tragiques, and others. She traces how French poets, taking classics such as Virgil’s Aeneid and Homer’s Iliad as their models, reimagined possibilities for French reconciliation and unity.
Composed in Germany by a monastic poet steeped in classical lore and letters, the Satires of Amarcius (Sextus Amarcius Gallus Piosistratus) unrelentingly attack both secular vices and ecclesiastical abuses of the late eleventh century. The verses echo Horace and Prudentius, are laced with proverbs and polemic, and portray vividly aspects of contemporary life—the foppery of young nobles, the vainglory of the nouveaux riches, the fastidiousness of debauched gluttons. This is the first English translation of the Satires.
The Eupolemius is a late-eleventh-century Latin epic that recasts salvation history, from Lucifer’s fall through Christ’s resurrection. The poem fuses Greek and Hebrew components within a uniquely medieval framework. At once biblical, heroic, and allegorical, it complements the so-called Bible epics in Latin from late antiquity and the refashionings of biblical narrative in Old English verse. It emulates classical Latin epics by Virgil, Lucan, and Statius and responds creatively to the foundational personification allegory by the Christian poet Prudentius. The poem was composed by an anonymous German monk, possibly the author who used the pseudonym Amarcius. Although it focuses on events of both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, it is also rooted in its own momentous times.
“This perceptive and accessible edition brings Tulsidas’s version [of the Ramayana], the most widely read across Northern India, to English-speaking audiences, giving readers a fresh glimpse into the tale’s impressive energy.”—Publishers Weekly
Tulsidas’s Rāmcaritmānas, written in the sixteenth century in a literary dialect of classical Hindi, has become the most beloved retelling of the ancient Ramayana story across northern India. The revered masterpiece recounts the epic story of Ram’s exile and his journeys, and it is recited by millions of Hindus today.
The Sea of Separation presents some of the poem’s most renowned episodes—Ram’s battles with demons, the kidnapping of his wife Sita by Ravana, his alliance with a troop of marvelous monkeys, and, finally, the god Hanuman’s heroic journey to the island city of Lanka to find and comfort Sita.
This new translation into free verse conveys the passion and momentum of the inspired poet and storyteller.
The adventures and challenges of Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew and a knight at the Round Table, including his duel with the mysterious Green Knight, are among the oldest and best known of Arthurian stories. Here the distinguished author and poet John Gardner has captured the humor, elegance, and richness of the original Middle English in flowing modern verse translations of this literary masterpiece. Besides the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, this edition includes two allegorical poems, “Purity” and “Patience”; the beautiful dream allegory “Pearl”; and the miracle story “Saint Erkenwald,” all attributed to the same anonymous poet, a contemporary of Chaucer and an artist of the first rank.
Winner, Arab American National Museum's 2015 George Ellenbogen Poetry Award
Tahrir Suite is a book-length poem that contemplates immigration, homeland, and diaspora in the twenty-first century. The poem, inspired by recent events in Egypt, cycles through the journey of two Egyptians moving across borders, languages, cultures, landscapes, and political systems while their life in the U.S. diaspora evolves and their home country undergoes revolutionary change.
Written from a perspective and about a place that is virtually unexplored in contemporary American poetry, Tahrir Suite works to capture the complicated essence of what it means to be from a specific place that is experiencing such radical change and how our understandings of “home” and “place” constantly evolve. Tahrir Suite is a musical meditation on what it means to be a global citizen in contemporary times.
Fraternal strife.
Statius published his Thebaid in the last decade of the first century. This epic recounting the struggle between the two sons of Oedipus for the kingship of Thebes is his masterpiece, a stirring exploration of the passions of civil war. The extant portion of his unfinished Achilleid is strikingly different in tone: this second epic begins as a charming account of Achilles’ life.
Statius was raised in the Greek cultural milieu of the Bay of Naples, and his Greek literary education is reflected in his poetry. The political realities of Rome in the first century are also evident in the Thebaid, in representations of authoritarian power and the drive for domination. Shackleton Bailey’s new edition of the two epics, with a highly skillful translation, addresses a number of puzzles in the text and its interpretation and provides essential information on mythological and other references. Kathleen M. Coleman, Professor of Latin at Harvard University, contributes a survey of recent scholarship on Statius’ epics.
The new Loeb Classical Library edition of Statius is complete in three volumes.
Fraternal strife, and the young Achilles.
Statius published his Thebaid in the last decade of the first century. This epic recounting the struggle between the two sons of Oedipus for the kingship of Thebes is his masterpiece, a stirring exploration of the passions of civil war. The extant portion of his unfinished Achilleid is strikingly different in tone: this second epic begins as a charming account of Achilles’ life.
Statius was raised in the Greek cultural milieu of the Bay of Naples, and his Greek literary education is reflected in his poetry. The political realities of Rome in the first century are also evident in the Thebaid, in representations of authoritarian power and the drive for domination. Shackleton Bailey’s new edition of the two epics, with a highly skillful translation, addresses a number of puzzles in the text and its interpretation and provides essential information on mythological and other references. Kathleen M. Coleman, Professor of Latin at Harvard University, contributes a survey of recent scholarship on Statius’ epics.
The new Loeb Classical Library edition of Statius is complete in three volumes.
A thousand-year-old story of Krishna and his wife Satyabhama retold by the most famous court poet of the Vijayanagara Empire.
Legend has it that the sixteenth-century Telugu poet Nandi Timmana composed Theft of a Tree, or Pārijātāpaharaṇamu, which he based on a popular millennium-old tale, to help the wife of Krishnadevaraya, king of the south Indian Vijayanagara Empire, win back her husband’s affections.
Theft of a Tree recounts how Krishna stole the pārijāta, a wish-granting tree, from the garden of Indra, king of the gods. Krishna does so to please his favorite wife, Satyabhama, who is upset when he gifts his chief queen a single divine flower. After battling Indra, Krishna plants the tree for Satyabhama—but she must perform a rite temporarily relinquishing it and her husband to enjoy endless happiness. The poem’s narrative unity, which was unprecedented in the literary tradition, prefigures the modern Telugu novel.
Theft of a Tree is presented here in the Telugu script alongside the first English translation.
The first English translation of a thousand-year-old story of Krishna and his wife Satyabhama, retold by the most famous court poet of the Vijayanagara Empire.
Legend has it that the sixteenth-century Telugu poet Nandi Timmana composed Theft of a Tree, or Pārijātāpaharaṇamu, to help the wife of Krishnadevaraya, king of the south Indian Vijayanagara Empire, win back her husband’s affections. Timmana based his work on a popular millennium-old Krishna tale.
Theft of a Tree recounts how Krishna stole the wish-granting pārijāta tree from the garden of Indra, king of the gods. Krishna takes the tree to please his favorite wife, Satyabhama, who is upset when he gifts his chief queen a single divine flower. After battling Indra, he plants the pārijāta for Satyabhama—but she must perform a rite temporarily relinquishing it and her husband to enjoy endless happiness.
This is the first English translation of the poem, which prefigures the modern Telugu novel with its unprecedented narrative unity.
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth explores the huge creative endeavor behind Tolkien’s enduring popularity. Lavishly illustrated with three hundred images of his manuscripts, drawings, maps, and letters, the book traces the creative process behind his most famous literary works—The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion—and reproduces personal photographs and private papers, many of which have never been seen before in print.
Six essays introduce the reader to the person of J. R. R. Tolkien and to main themes in his life and work, including the influence of northern languages and legends on the creation of his own legendarium; his concept of “Faërie” as an enchanted literary realm; the central importance of his invented languages in his fantasy writing; his visual imagination and its emergence in his artwork; and the encouragement he derived from his close friend C. S. Lewis and their literary group the Inklings.
The book brings together the largest collection of original Tolkien material ever assembled in a single volume. Drawing on the extensive archives of the Tolkien collections at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, which stretch to more than five hundred boxes, and Marquette University, Milwaukee, as well as private collections, this hugely ambitious and exquisitely produced book draws together the worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien – scholarly, literary, creative, and domestic—offering a rich and detailed understanding and appreciation of this extraordinary author.
This landmark publication, produced on the occasion of a major exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford in 2018 and at the Morgan Library in New York in 2019, is set to become a standard work in the literature on J. R. R. Tolkien.
The 105-day war between Finland and the Soviet Union in the winter of 1939-1940 has been overshadowed by the larger conflicts of the Second World War, which followed closely after it. The courageous resistence of the only neighbor of Stalin's Russia, which fought the Red Army and survived as a free and independent nation merits this closer look. Although the diplomatic background of the Winter War has been covered before, this is the first substantial English-language study of its dramatic military encounters.
In the 1930s, Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord, two pioneering scholars of oral poetry, conducted adventurous fieldwork in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and northern Albania, collecting singularly important examples of Albanian epic song. Wild Songs, Sweet Songs presents these materials, which have not previously been published, for the first time.
Nicola Scaldaferri and his collaborators provide a complete catalogue of the Albanian texts and recordings collected by Parry and Lord; a selection of twelve of the most significant texts, including the longest Albanian epic ever collected, in Albanian with accompanying English translations; four essays contextualizing the materials and outlining their significance; and an assortment of related photographs and documents. The book is an authoritative guide to one of the most significant collections of Balkan folk epic in existence.
Women, Epic, and Transition in British Romanticism argues that early nineteenth-century women poets contributed some of the most daring work in modernizing the epic genre. The book examines several long poems to provide perspective on women poets working with and against men in related efforts, contributing together to a Romantic movement of large-scale genre revision. Women poets challenged longstanding categorical approaches to gender and nation in the epic tradition, and they raised politically charged questions about women’s importance in moments of historical crisis.
While Romantic epics did not all engage in radical questioning or undermining of authority, this study calls attention to some of the more provocative poems in their approach to gender, culture, and history. This study prioritizes long poems written by and about women during the Romantic era, and does so in context with influential epics by male contemporaries. The book takes its cue from a dramatic increase in the publication of epics in the early nineteenth-century. At their most innovative, Romantic epics provoked questions about the construction of ideological meaning and historical memory, and they centralized women’s experiences in entirely new ways to reflect on defeat, loss, and inevitable transition. For the first time the epic became an attractive genre for ambitious women poets.
The book offers a timely response to recent groundbreaking scholarship on nineteenth-century epic by Herbert Tucker and Simon Dentith, and should be of interest to Romanticists and scholars of 18th- and 19th-century literature and history, gender and genre, and women’s studies.
Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
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