Penguin Classics: Poetry

Robin Kirkpatrick's superb translation of the most famous work of Italian literature, in a one-volume edition. The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and 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...

Rilke's powerfully touching letters to an aspiring young poet, now in Penguin Classics. At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering, and the nature of advice itself. These profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for writers and artists...

The great epic of Western literature, translated by the acclaimed classicist Robert Fagles. A Penguin Classic Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning modern-verse translation. "Sing to me of the...

The Iliad, authored by Homer, stands as the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilisation and is now available in a stunning new clothbound edition. The Iliad plunges readers into the throes of the legendary Trojan War. Set during the conflict's final year, this epic poem paints a vivid picture of bloodshed, glory, and the immortal struggles of heroes. The tale...

One of the major poets of Romanticism, Wordsworth epitomized the spirit of his age with his celebration of the natural world and the spontanous expression of feeling. This volume contains a rich selection from the most creative phase of his life, including extracts from his masterpiece, The Prelude, and the best-loved of his shorter poems such as 'Composed Upon Westminster...

The Aeneid by Virgil, inspired by Homer and an inspiration for Dante and Milton, is an immortal poem at the heart of Western life and culture. Virgil chose as his hero Aeneas, the legendary survivor of the fall of Troy and father of the Roman race. In telling a story of dispossession and defeat, love and war, he portrayed human...

The Odyssey by Homer is a monumental epic that has enthralled readers for centuries with its rich tapestry of adventure and human struggle. It chronicles the perilous journey of Odysseus, the cunning King of Ithaca, as he strives to return home after the fall of Troy. During this ten-year odyssey, Odysseus confronts myriad dangers, both natural and supernatural, that test...

The Erotic Poems by Ovid explores the multifaceted nature of sexual desire through a collection of poems that range from passionate declarations of eternal love to light-hearted justifications for promiscuity. In the Amores, Ovid expresses his feelings through a series of elegies dedicated to Corinna, his captivating and elusive mistress. These early poems reveal an intimate and vulnerable side of...

Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world's oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh's adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the...

For the first time in Penguin Classics, a new translation of Sappho's complete poetry. More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is present-day Turkey. Little remains today of her writings, which are said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library at Alexandria some...

Reflecting the voices of poets, soldiers, the families they left behind, and their comrades who would never return, The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, previously published as In Flanders Fields, is edited with an introduction by George Walter in Penguin Classics. Unrivalled for its range and intensity, the poetry of the First World War continues to have a...

The complete collection of Donne's poems, including his famous Holy Sonnets, 'The Flea' and 'The Sun Rising'. No poet has been more wilfully contradictory than John Donne, whose works forge unforgettable connections between extremes of passion and mental energy. From satire to tender elegy, from sacred devotion to lust, he conveys an astonishing range of emotions and poetic moods. Constant...

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. Yet, by placing a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his...

The Little Black Classics series introduces 46 new books to celebrate the first-ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Love That Moves the Sun and Other Stars by Dante Alighieri evokes happiness beyond all words, portraying a life filled with peace and love, entire and whole.

46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946 'It's coming - the postponeless Creature'

A luminous tour through the poems of one of nature's most brilliant and devoted observers. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I...

The Romanticism that emerged after the American and French revolutions of 1776 and 1789 represented a new flowering of the imagination and the spirit, and a celebration of the soul of humanity with its capacity for love. This extraordinary collection sets the acknowledged genius of poems such as Blake's Tyger, Coleridge's Khubla Khan and Shelley's Ozymandias alongside verse from less...

An anthology of some of the greatest poetry in the English language. Poetry and music have been associated with each other from the very beginning. The Penguin Book of English Song draws together a great variety of English poetry (including Irish, Scots and Welsh writers) that has reached a wider audience through the magic of music. Richard Stokes's rich anthology...

A new collection of Pushkin's great narrative and lyric verse, translated by Antony Wood WINNER OF THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2020 Alexander Pushkin established what we know as Russian literature. This collection includes his strongly personal lyric verse, which springs spontaneously from his everyday life – his numerous loves, his exile, his hectic life in St Petersburg – while the...

An award-winning collection from one of America's most distinguished twentieth-century poets. Blessing the Boats draws together poems from across Lucille Clifton's career, showcasing the stunning simplicity and grace with which she addressed the whole of human experience—birth, death, children, family, illness, sexuality, and injustice in antebellum and contemporary America. Hers is a poetry that is passionate and wise, not afraid...

First Penguin volume Of best Japanese haiku Vivid translations Now a global poetry, the haiku was originally a Japanese verse form that flourished from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Although renowned for its brevity, usually running over three lines in seventeen syllables, and by its use of natural imagery to make Zen-like observations about reality, in fact, the haiku is...

A wonderful edition of Herbert's poetry, edited by his acclaimed biographer John Drury, and including elegant new translations of his Latin verse by Victoria Moul. George Herbert wrote, but never published, some of the very greatest English poetry, recording in an astonishing variety of forms his inner experiences of grief, recovery, hope, despair, anger, fulfilment and—above all else—love. This volume,...

An enchanting collection of the very best of Russian poetry, edited by acclaimed translator Robert Chandler. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, poetry's pre-eminence in Russia was unchallenged, with Pushkin and his contemporaries ushering in the 'Golden Age' of Russian literature. Although prose briefly gained the high ground, poetry again became dominant with the 'Silver Age', which held...

The comprehensive guide to a deeply human tradition of memory, mourning and consolation. Elegy is among the world's oldest forms of literature. Born in Ancient Greece, practised by the Romans, revitalised by the poets of the Renaissance and continuing down to the present day, it speaks eloquently and affectingly of the experience of loss and the yearning for consolation. It...

A major new anthology of Percy Bysshe Shelley's work, edited by Jack Donovan and Cian Duffy. Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the leading English Romantics and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language. His major works include the long visionary poems Prometheus Unbound and Adonais, an elegy on the death of John Keats. His...

An important new selection of First World War poetry, edited by Jon Stallworthy and Jane Potter. This new selection brings together the poetry of three of the most distinctive and moving voices to emerge from the First World War. Here are the controlled passion and rich metaphors of Wilfred Owen's celebrated verses such as Anthem for Doomed Youth and Strange...

An exciting new selection of poems exploring faith, the divine and doubt, written by poets across the world from antiquity to the present Poets have always looked to the skies for inspiration and have written as a way of getting closer to the power and beauty they sense in nature, in each other and in the cosmos. This anthology is...

Published for the centenary of his birth, a gathering of lucid, intensely lyrical poetry from one of the twentieth century's pre-eminent literary voices. be courageous when reason fails you be courageous in the final reckoning it is the only thing that counts Zbigniew Herbert was one of the best-known and most-translated poets of post-war Poland, opposed alike to Communism, Fascism,...

A light revision of our definitive collection, translated with an introduction by Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite. Poetry remains a living part of the culture of Japan today. The clichés of everyday speech are often to be traced to famous ancient poems, and the traditional forms of poetry are widely known and loved. This congenial attitude comes from a poetical...

Poems: 1968-2020 presents a new selection of Nikki Giovanni's poetry, spanning from 1968 to the present day. For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. Emerging from the Black Arts Movement in the late 1960s, she quickly became one of the most celebrated and controversial poets of the era. Now considered a living legend, this...

A new selection of John Donne's endlessly innovative and fascinating verse, from the witty conceit of 'The Flea' to the instense spirituality of his divine poems. Regarded by many as the greatest of the Metaphysical poets, John Donne (1572-1631) was also among the most intriguing figures of the Elizabethan age. A sensualist who composed erotic and playful love poetry in...

A new verse translation of one of the foundational ancient Greek works by the award-winning poet Alicia Stallings. The ancient Greeks revered Hesiod, believing he had beaten Homer in a singing contest, and that after his dead body was thrown to sea it was brought back by dolphins. His Works and Days is one of the most important early works...

A collectible new Penguin Classics series—beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. The Tower was W. B. Yeats's first major collection of poetry as Nobel Laureate after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of his most influential collections. The title refers to Thoor Ballylee Castle, a Norman tower that Yeats purchased in 1917...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. The Survivor presents a selection of poetry from the author of If This is a Man and The Periodic Table. "Back, away from here, drowned people, go. I haven't stolen anyone's place."

C. P. Cavafy is one of the most singular and poignant voices of twentieth-century European poetry, conjuring a magical interior world through lyrical evocations of remembered passions, imagined monologues, and dramatic retellings of his native Alexandria's ancient past. Figures from antiquity speak with telling interruptions from the author in such poems as Anna Comnena and You did not understand, while...

Fifty new books at €1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. 'I have lived in important places, times When great events were decided . . .' By turns comical, grouchy and exalted, and including his tragic masterpiece The Great Hunger, some of the key poems by the...

Member of Parliament, tutor to Oliver Cromwell's ward, satirist and friend of John Milton, Andrew Marvell was one of the most interesting and important poets of the seventeenth century. The Complete Poems demonstrates his unique skill and immense diversity to the full, and includes lyrical love-poetry, religious works and biting satire. From the passionately erotic To his Coy Mistress, to...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Television Was a Baby Crawling Toward That Deathchamber 'Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! - and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing by the watermelons?' Profane and prophetic verses about sex, death, revolution...

Michael Hamburger's distinguished translation of a selection of poems by German poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) is now recognised as one of Europe's supreme poets. He first found his true voice in the epigrams and odes he wrote when transfigured by his love for the wife of a rich banker. He later embarked on an extraordinarily ambitious sequence of...

Browning was one of the greatest of English poets, whose intense and original imagination enabled him to transform any subject he chose—whether everyday or sublime—into startling, memorable verse. In his work, he brought to life the personalities of a diverse range of characters and introduced a new immediacy, colloquial energy, and psychological complexity to the poetry of his day. Selected...

Part of a series of new editions of Lawrence's works From early, rhyming works in Love Poems and Others (1913) to the ground-breaking exploration of free verse in Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923), the poems of D. H. Lawrence challenged convention and inspired later poets. This volume includes extensive selections from these and other editions, and contains some of his...

The 100th title in the phenomenally successful and much-loved Penguin Clothbound Classics series. This selection of Poe's stories, poetry, and other writing demonstrates the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. The Fall of the House of Usher describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of...

Together, the poetry of Hesiod and Theognis offers a superb introduction to the life and thought of ancient Greece. Hesiod's Theogony (c. 725 BCE) is a powerful creation myth: an epic, bloody tale of dark forces, sex, and violence, tracing the history of the world from primeval Chaos to the establishment of Zeus as supreme king of the gods. In...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. Sadder than salad. From apples to artichokes, these glittering, fragmented, painterly portraits of food by the avant-garde pioneer Gertrude Stein are redolent of sex, laughter, and the joy of everyday life.

A beautiful, skilfully crafted work of chivalric romance. Written by an unknown author in the twelfth century, this powerful tale of murder and revenge reaches back to the earliest epochs of German antiquity, transforming centuries-old legend into a masterpiece of chivalric drama. Siegfried, a great prince of the Netherlands, wins the hand of the beautiful princess Kriemhild of Burgundy by...

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. I Have More Souls Than One showcases the poignant poetry of Fernando Pessoa. In these verses: 'But no, she's abstract, is a bird Of sound in the air of air soaring, And her soul sings unencumbered...

Byron's exotic poem on the love life and adventures of Don Juan. Byron's exuberant masterpiece tells of the adventures of Don Juan, beginning with his illicit love affair at the age of sixteen in his native Spain and his subsequent exile to Italy. Following a dramatic shipwreck, his exploits take him to Greece, where he is sold as a slave,...

A fine collection of the greatest French tales about the legend of Arthur. Taking the legends surrounding King Arthur and weaving in new psychological elements of personal desire and courtly manner, Chrétien de Troyes fashioned a new form of medieval Romance. The Knight of the Cart is the first telling of the adulterous relationship between Lancelot and Arthur's Queen Guinevere,...

The greatest classic of Vietnamese literature in a stunning new verse translation. "This manuscript is ancient, priceless, bamboo-rolled, perfumed with musty spices. Sit comfortably by this good light, that you may learn the hard-won lesson that these characters contain." The Song of Kieu is the greatest classic of Vietnamese literature. It tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thoy Kieu,...

First time in Black Classics Nonsense is the breath of my nostrils, wrote Edward Lear (1812-88), and this collection demonstrates the wonderfully varied ways in which he pursued his philosophy of life. He created an extraordinary world filled with bizarre creatures - from the Dong with a luminous nose to the Pobble who has no toes - who misbehave with...

Selected Poetry by Goethe marks the first verse translation of Goethe's poetry to be featured in Penguin Classics. This new translation replaces Luke's own 1964 prose translation, which has remained in print continuously, with life sales reaching 43,000 copies.

The poems of Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) are among the most haunting and tender in Indian and world literature, expressing a profound and passionate human yearning. His ceaselessly inventive works deal with such subjects as the interplay between God and the world, the eternal and transient, and with the paradox of an endlessly changing universe that is in tune with unchanging...

On Love and Barley by Matsuo Basho presents the work of one of the greatest Japanese poets, a master of haiku. Known not only for his literary genius, Basho was also a Buddhist monk and a lifelong traveller. His poems embody 'karumi', or lightness of touch, and embrace the Zen ideal of oneness with creation. Each verse beautifully evokes aspects...

One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each offers a new translation of the most widely known and popular collection of Japanese poetry. The best-loved and most widely read of all Japanese poetry collections, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu contains 100 short poems on nature, the seasons, travel, and, above all, love. Dating back to the seventh century, these elegant, precisely observed waka...

A wonderful collection of Housman's much-loved poetry, new to Penguin Classics. A. E. Housman was one of the best-loved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss. They are expressed in simple rhythms, yet show a fine ear for the subtleties of metre and alliteration. His scope...

Beautifully designed, clothbound edition 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. When this volume of Shakespeare's poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous. The...

New to the Penguin Pocket Hardbacks series - books that have changed the history of thought, in sumptuous, clothbound editions. In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. When he composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North he was a serious student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a...

In his perfectly crafted haiku poems, Basho described the natural world with great simplicity and delicacy of feeling. These travel writings not only chronicle Basho's perilous journeys through Japan, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches showcases Basho's exceptional ability to portray...

Composed for recitation at festivals, these 33 songs were written in honour of the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greek pantheon. They recount the key episodes in the lives of the gods and dramatise the moments when they first appear before mortals. Together, they offer a vivid picture of the Greek view of the relationship between the divine and...

One of the great figures of English Romanticism, Coleridge's poems show diversity and imaginative genius. One of the major figures of English Romanticism, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) created works of remarkable diversity and imaginative genius. The period of his creative friendship with William Wordsworth inspired some of Coleridge's best-known poems, from the nightmarish vision of the Rime of the Ancient...

In 1855, Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, the work which defined him as one of America's most influential voices, and which he added to throughout his life. A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful Song of Myself and I Sing the Body...

In her introduction, Janet Gezari discusses issues of dating and authenticity that arise with Brontë's poems, and the ways in which the Gondal poems relate to the lost prose narratives on the same subject. The poems of Emily Jane Brontë are passionate and powerful works that convey the vitality of the human spirit and of the natural world. Only twenty-one...

One of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake (1757-1827) was an artist, poet, mystic, and visionary. His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience—which juxtapose poems such as 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger', and 'The Blossom' and 'The Sick Rose'—to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton, and...

Published to coincide with the release of the film Bright Star, written and directed by Oscar Winner Jane Campion (The Piano, In the Cut), starring Abbie Cornish (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and Ben Whishaw (Brideshead Revisited, Perfume). John Keats died aged just twenty-five. He left behind some of the most exquisite and moving verse and love letters ever written, inspired...

A new edition of the finest poems by Tennyson Tennyson's poetry epitomises the Victorian age, for which he became a spokesman. His finest poems are often steeped in a sensuous melancholy, as in Maud, or are chivalric, heroic and allegorical, as in The Lady of Shalott and Morte d'Arthur.

With an introduction that discusses Blake's life and career, his reputation, and the major themes of his work, and explores the relationship between the poetry and the illustrations. Writer and religious rebel, William Blake (1757-1827) sowed the seeds for Romanticism in his innovative poems concerning faith and the visions that inspired him throughout his life. Whether describing his own spirituality,...

A selection of Baudelaire's explicit and unsettling poems The poems of Charles Baudelaire are filled with explicit and unsettling imagery, depicting with intensity everyday subjects ignored by French literary conventions of his time. Tableaux parisiens portrays the brutal life of Paris's thieves, drunkards, and prostitutes amid the debris of factories and poorhouses. In love poems such as Le Beau Navire,...

Rossetti is unique among Victorian poets for the sheer range of her subject matter and the variety of her verse form. This collection brings together fantasy poems, such as Goblin Market, and terrifyingly vivid verses for children, love lyrics and sonnets, and the vast body of her devotional poetry. Rossetti's poems weave connections between love and death, triumph and loss,...

Writing in the eleventh century, Khayyam was one of the most accomplished masters of the new and increasingly popular ruba'i, or two-line stanza, that had been adopted by poets to help them shake off the artifice of conventional court poetry and express their personal feelings with wit and clarity. Khayyam ranges in his stanzas through the most fundamental aspects of...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. In this inspirational, allegorical guide, Al Mustafa the prophet delivers spiritual yet practical homilies on the work of living—covering beauty, truth, possessions, sorrow, joy, death, and more. Translated into more than fifty languages and among the...

New translation by Alicia Stallings, with an introduction by Richard Jenkyns. On the Nature of Things by Lucretius is a poem that blends scientific inquiry and philosophical exploration with some of the greatest poetry ever written. With intense moral fervour, Lucretius seeks to show humanity that there is nothing to fear in death, as the soul is mortal and the...

A work of tremendous influence that has inspired writers from his ancient Greek contemporaries to modernist writers such as T.S. Eliot, Homer's epic poem The Iliad is translated by Robert Fagles with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox in Penguin Classics. One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's The Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode...

'The most moving lines literature has achieved' – Jorge Luis Borges. In The Divine Comedy & Paradise, having plunged to the uttermost depths of Hell and climbed the Mount of Purgatory, Dante ascends to Heaven, continuing his soul's search for God, guided by his beloved Beatrice. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise, he grows in understanding, until he...

Keats' poetic genius was first seen in 1816 when he published the first of a series of great works. He was variously hailed as an important poetical figure, the natural heir to the Romantic throne and, like Shelley before him, criticised for his politics. In his short life, he proved to be one of the greatest and most original thinkers...

Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to the very depths of Hell and embarks on his arduous journey towards God. Together they descend through the twenty-four circles of the underworld and encounter the tormented souls of the damned—from heretics and pagans to gluttons, criminals, and seducers—who tell of their sad fates and predict events still to come in Dante's...

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories, and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight's account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of...

One of the great masterworks of English literature, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition. 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. In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature,...

From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil's great epic. Fleeing the ashes of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles' mighty foe in the Iliad, begins an incredible journey to fulfil his destiny as the founder of Rome. His voyage will take him through stormy seas, entangle him in a tragic love affair, and...

From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil's great epic. Fleeing the ashes of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles' mighty foe in The Iliad, begins an incredible journey to fulfil his destiny as the founder of Rome. His voyage will take him through stormy seas, entangle him in a tragic love affair, and...

New translation of Dante's masterpiece by acclaimed Robin Kirkpatrick In Purgatorio Dante, having described his journey into Hell, narrates his ascent of Mount Purgatory with Virgil, as he encounters penitents who toil through physical agonies, starvation and flames to assuage their earthly vices. Only by learning from them can he achieve his final enlightened transition to the lost Earthly Paradise...