“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—the three fates of the deceased become the three pillars of an epic poem. The Divine Comedy, written by Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the fourteenth century, is considered the foremost work in Italian literature. The journey begins with Dante’s descent into the depths of Hell where he witnesses those eternally separated from God. Then he climbs the mountain of Purgatory where Christian souls undergo final purification, before finally touring the celestial circles of Heaven where he is filled with the image of God. An allegorical work, the comedy is representative of the soul’s journey towards God. Influential for seven centuries, this classic is a must have for lovers of great literature, and the luxurious leather-bound edition from Canterbury Classics will make a stunning addition to any library. Read more

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The Wanderer's Hávamál features Jackson Crawford’s complete, carefully revised English translation of the Old Norse poem Hávamál, newly annotated for this volume, together with facing original Old Norse text sourced directly from the Codex Regius manuscript.Rounding out the volume are Crawford’s classic Cowboy Hávamál and translations of other related texts central to understanding the character, wisdom, and mysteries of Óðinn (Odin). Portable and reader-friendly, it makes an ideal companion for both lovers of Old Norse mythology and those new to the wisdom of this central Eddic poem wherever they may find themselves. Read more

Brought to you by Penguin.The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide, his ascent of Mount Purgatory and his encounter with his dead love Beatrice, and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption. This major translation is published here for the first time in a single volume. Read more

AMA Audiolibros presenta la Narración del Audiolibro en Español (acento Castellano) de "La Divina Comedia" de Dante Alighieri en la voz de nuestro narrador Artur Mas a partir de la traducción en verso de Bartolomé Mitre.La Divina Comedia está considerada como una de las obras maestras de la literatura italiana y mundial. Está compuesta por más de 14.000 versos distribuídos en 100 cantos. Relata el viaje de Dante por el Infierno, el Purgatorio y el Paraíso, guiado por el poeta Virgilio. El objetivo de dicho viaje es redimir los pecados que ha cometido en el mundo terrenal para obtener la gloria divina.Esta obra es un fiel reflejo del conocimiento medieval dónde se entrelazan temas como la fe en Dios, la ética y la moral. Read more

The Canterbury Tales are the unfinished magnum opus of the great English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Written in Middle English between 1387 and 1400, the tales are a collection of stories told by pilgrims en route from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. The stories, told as part of a competition amongst the travelers are frequently bawdy, violent and humorous, painting a critical portrait of English life in the middle ages. This epic poem is thought to be an important contribution to vernacular English as a legitimate literary language, as opposed to the prevailing French and Latin of the times. Read more

The classic story that inspired the film starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander“A medieval romance…but also an outlandish ghost story, a gripping morality tale and a weird thriller.… I couldn’t put down Simon Armitage’s compulsively readable...energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version.” ― Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book ReviewOne of the founding stories of English literature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight narrates the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse who rudely interrupts Camelot’s Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a pall of unease over the company and challenging one of their number to a wager. The virtuous Gawain accepts and decapitates the intruder with his own axe. Gushing blood, the knight reclaims his head, orders Gawain to seek him out a year hence, and departs. The following Yuletide, Gawain dutifully sets forth. His quest for the Green Knight involves a winter journey, a seduction scene in a dreamlike castle, a dire challenge answered―and a drama of enigmatic reward disguised as psychic undoing.Preserved on a single surviving manuscript dating from around 1400, composed by an anonymous master, this Arthurian epic was rediscovered only two hundred years ago and published for the first time in 1839. Following in the tradition of Ted Hughes, Marie Borroff, and J.R.R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage―one of England’s leading poets―has produced an inventive translation that resounds with both clarity and spirit. His work, presented here with facing original text and a note by Harvard scholar James Simpson, is meticulously responsible to the sophistication of the original but succeeds equally in its ambition to be read as a totally new poem. It is as if two poets, six hundred years apart, set out on a journey through the same mesmerizing landscapes―acoustic, physical, and metaphorical―to share in and double the pleasure of this enchanting classic. 2 illustrations Read more

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonising torture, Dante encounters doomed souls including the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicide Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all. For it is only by encountering Satan, in the heart of Hell, that he can truly understand the tragedy of sin. Read more

Journey with Dante into the bowels of the earth and the profoundest depths of the human soul. The Inferno, the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy, has captivated readers for over seven centuries. This modern translation in terza rima captures the true essence of the Italian poem.This edition also includes:Notes: A single page of commentary for each canto, providing enough context for the modern reader to follow Dante's historical references and literary allusions, without getting bogged down by excessive notes. An extended commentary can be found online, at no additional cost, on the book's companion website (Dante's Afterlife).Bibliography and Further Reading: A detailed list of relevant primary and secondary sources (including online and multimedia resources), with short descriptions of each.Glossary: Concise descriptions and phonetic pronunciation guides for every person and place in the book. For each time a person or place is mentioned in the text, a canto and line number is provided in the glossary. It's easy to look up someone you're unfamiliar with, and it's equally easy to see where Dante refers to them in the text (even if they're unnamed).Illustrations, Maps, and Diagrams: Over a dozen original images and diagrams created by the translator, including a map of medieval Florence, a map of Tuscany and northern Italy, maps of Dante's Hell, a zodiac showing the positions of the planets at the start of Dante's journey, a timeline and schematic of the journey, and more.Dante's Afterlife: For readers and students of Dante who want to explore beyond the confines of the book, J. Simon Harris has created a companion website called Dante's Afterlife (a QR code and url are found at the back of the book). Here, the translator will publish extended commentary on the poem, historical background (a history of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and the life of Dante), unique images, brief essays, translations of Dante's lyric poems and those of his contemporaries, and more. The website will be added to continually, and it will always remain free of charge. Read more

This deluxe, full color edition of the Rubáiyát contains the original and acclaimed illustrations by Edmund Dulac, plus the first and fifth editions of the text.The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám attained fame when it was translated and introduced to a Western audience by the author and poet Edward Fitzgerald. Selected for their lyrical beauty, the poems within the Rubáiyát are attributed to the Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám. Writing in the eleventh century, Khayyám was revered as a master of the poetic form, and his works have since been much-quoted by artists and admirers.The collection received its name from the word ruba'i, which connotes a two-line stanza comprised of two parts. These quatrains are the way in which the entire collection is written. The first edition contains 75 quatrains, while the later, revised edition has 101. Additionally, the fifth edition appended a series of notes explaining the meaning behind various portions of the text.Over his lifetime, Edward Fitzgerald produced several revisions of his original 1859 translation. Scholars have since come to regard Fitzgerald's effort as containing some of his own poetic input; aspects of the original verses are paraphrased or exchanged with the English poet's own. However, the beauty and succinctness present in many of these verses led to the collection retaining its status as the classic, definitive version - sometimes nicknamed as the 'Rubáiyát of FitzOmar'.The intricate and beautiful illustrations of Edmund Dulac, which were first appended to the text in 1909, are in this edition reproduced in full color. Read more

With his journeys through Hell and Purgatory complete, Dante is at last led by his beloved Beatrice to Paradise. Where his experiences in the Inferno and Purgatorio were arduous and harrowing, this is a journey of comfort, revelation, and, above all, love-both romantic and divine. Robert Hollander is a Dante scholar of unmatched reputation and his wife, Jean, is an accomplished poet. Their verse translation with facing-page Italian combines maximum fidelity to Dante's text with the artistry necessary to reflect the original's virtuosity. They have produced the clearest, most accurate, and most readable translation of the three books of The Divine Comedy, with unsurpassable footnotes and introductions, likely to be a touchstone for generations to come. Read more

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Featuring both the original text and a modern, translated version, this fourteenth-century Arthurian poem tells the legendary tale of the mysterious Green Knight and Sir Gawain, a great knight of the Round Table.The knights of the Round Table are celebrating Yuletide when their festivities are interrupted by the mystifying Green Knight riding on his green horse. The Green Knight challenges King Arthur’s legendary men to a wager. He who takes a blow at the Green Knight must be prepared to accept a return attack one year and one day later. It is the gallant Sir Gawain who takes this challenge on. He raises his axe and strikes off the head of the Green Knight. Yet, the intruder is undefeated. Still alive, he picks up his head, and promises he will see Sir Gawain in a year and a day.In stanzas of alliterative verse ending in a rhyming bob and wheel, the poem chronicles Sir Gawain’s heroic quest. This high-quality edition features both William Allan Neilson’s 1917 translated text and the original version by the anonymous writer, known as the ‘Pearl Poet’ or the ‘Gawain Poet’.Ragged Hand has proudly republished this classic poem in a beautiful new edition, complete with an introduction by K. G. T. Webster. This volume is not to be missed by fans of the famous legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Read more

An extraordinary new verse translation of Dante's masterpiece, by poet, scholar, and lauded translator Anthony Esolen"Professor Esolen's translation of Dante's Inferno is the best one I have seen, for two reasons. His decision to use unrhymed blank verse allows him to come nearly as close to the meaning of the original as any prose reading could do, and allows him also to avoid the harrowing sacrifices that the demand for rhyme imposes on any translator. And his endnotes and other additions provoke answers to almost any question that could arise about the work." —A. Kent HieattArguably the greatest of poets, Dante is one of the most elusive and therefore one of the most difficult to adequately render into English verse. In the Inferno, Dante not only judges sin but strives to understand it so that the reader can as well. With this major new translation, Anthony Esolen has succeeded brilliantly in marrying sense with sound, poetry with meaning, capturing both the poem's line-by-line vigor and its allegorically and philosophically exacting structure, yielding an Inferno that will be as popular with general readers as with teachers and students. For, as Dante insists, without a trace of sentimentality or intellectual compromise, even Hell is a work of divine art.In addition to a masterful verse translation, Esolen provides in each book of The Divine Comedy a critical Introduction, endnotes, and appendices containing Dante's most important sources—from Virgil to Saint Thomas Aquinas and more —that deftly illuminate the cultural and poetic universe the poet inhabited. Read more

A new Middle English edition of the original Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, based on Richard Morris's (1833-1894) 1869 edition published as part of the Early English Text Society. Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance that is among the best known Arthurian legends. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess.This edition features the original Middle English of the original 14th-century poem, so is not easy reading for the casual reader, though it will be of interest to students and enthusiasts for the genre. This edition features line numbering to assist in scholarly analysis and cross-referencing with other editions. Read more

The inspiration for the major motion picture The Green Knight starring Dev Patel.An early English poem of magic, chivalry and seduction Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthur's Camelot in deep mid-winter. The mighty knight presents a challenge to the court: he will allow himself to be struck by one blow, on the condition that he will be allowed to return the strike on the following New Year's Eve. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge, decapitating the stranger - only to see the Green Knight seize up his own severed head and ride away, leaving Gawain to seek him out and honour their pact. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Gawain is among the greatest Middle English poems: a tale of magic, chivalry and seduction.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Read more

Robert Durling's spirited new prose translation of the Paradiso completes his masterful rendering of the Divine Comedy. Durling's earlier translations of the Inferno and the Purgatorio garnered high praise, and with this superb version of the Paradiso readers can now traverse the entirety of Dante's epic poem of spiritual ascent with the guidance of one of the greatest living Italian-to-English translators. Reunited with his beloved Beatrice in the Purgatorio, in the Paradiso the poet-narrator journeys with her through the heavenly spheres and comes to know "the state of blessed souls after death." As with the previous volumes, the original Italian and its English translation appear on facing pages. Readers will be drawn to Durling's precise and vivid prose, which captures Dante's extraordinary range of expression--from the high style of divine revelation to colloquial speech, lyrical interludes, and scornful diatribes against corrupt clergy. This edition boasts several unique features. Durling's introduction explores the chief interpretive issues surrounding the Paradiso, including the nature of its allegories, the status in the poem of Dante's human body, and his relation to the mystical tradition. The notes at the end of each canto provide detailed commentary on historical, theological, and literary allusions, and unravel the obscurity and difficulties of Dante's ambitious style . An unusual feature is the inclusion of the text, translation, and commentary on one of Dante's chief models, the famous cosmological poem by Boethius that ends the third book of his Consolation of Philosophy. A substantial section of Additional Notes discusses myths, symbols, and themes that figure in all three cantiche of Dante's masterpiece. Finally, the volume includes a set of indexes that is unique in American editions, including Proper Names Discussed in the Notes (with thorough subheadings concerning related themes), Passages Cited in the Notes, and Words Discussed in the Notes, as well as an Index of Proper Names in the text and translation. Like the previous volumes, this final volume includes a rich series of illustrations by Robert Turner. Read more