Classical & Historical Poetry

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The Odyssey

By Homer , Robert Fagles , Bernard Knox

The Odyssey is the ancient Greek epic of Odysseus, the clever king of Ithaca, and his long, dangerous journey home after the Trojan War. At home, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus struggle to hold the household together against a crowd of suitors. The poem moves between sea monsters, enchantresses, the land of the dead and a tense domestic reckoning. It asks what it takes to survive, to be recognized and to belong somewhere. This Penguin Classics edition presents Robert Fagles's modern verse translation, with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox. It is one of the classic books that shaped Western storytelling, and it is a natural anchor for any serious reading list.

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The Divine Comedy

Volume 1: Inferno

By Dante Alighieri , Mark Musa

Inferno, the first of the three parts of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, follows a lost pilgrim named Dante as he descends through an imagined Hell under the guidance of the Roman poet Virgil. Along the way he meets lovers, politicians, popes, advisers, thieves and traitors, each placed in a torment that mirrors the sin. This Penguin Classics paperback presents Mark Musa's English verse translation of that first volume, together with his introduction and commentary on each canto. Written in the early fourteenth century by a Florentine exile, the poem is at once a Christian moral drama, a bitter commentary on Italian politics and a foundation of Italian vernacular poetry. It is one of the classic books that most readers first meet in translation, and among the poetry books that shape discussion of world literature.

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Paradise Lost

By John Milton , John Leonard

Paradise Lost is John Milton's seventeenth-century epic in blank verse, a retelling of the biblical Fall of humankind on a cosmic scale. The poem moves between Hell, where Satan and the defeated rebel angels regroup, Heaven, where divine authority is explained and defended, and Eden, where Adam and Eve are tempted and lose their home. Milton uses the story to ask why a good God permits disobedience and suffering, and he builds the argument through some of the most memorable characters and speeches in English poetry. This Penguin Classics edition, with an introduction and notes by John Leonard, supports modern readers through a demanding text. It remains one of the classic books of English literature, valued for its argumentative force, its imagery and its long influence on later writers.

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The Canterbury Tales

By Geoffrey Chaucer , Jill Mann

Geoffrey Chaucer's unfinished late-medieval masterpiece is a storytelling contest set on a pilgrimage from Southwark to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Around thirty travellers from very different walks of life, among them a knight, a miller, a prioress, a pardoner and the Wife of Bath, entertain one another with tales. The tales include courtly romance, bawdy comedy, saints' legends, beast fable and sermon. Each speaker is shaped by a vivid portrait and by the quarrels that break out between stories. The result is both a survey of medieval literary forms and a lively picture of English society in the 1380s and 1390s. It is one of the classic books of English literature. This Penguin Classics edition presents the Middle English text with reader aids and notes by Jill Mann.

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The Iliad

By Homer , Robert Fagles , Bernard Knox

The Iliad is the foundational war epic of the Greek tradition. It is set in the tenth year of the Trojan War and concentrates on a few charged weeks rather than the whole conflict. Its subject is the anger of Achilles, the Greek warrior who withdraws from battle after a humiliating quarrel with Agamemnon, and the cost of that withdrawal for his friends, his enemies and the gods who watch. This edition presents Robert Fagles's modern verse translation with an introduction and notes by Bernard Knox. Among classic books, the poem stands out for refusing to make war simple: it admires courage while showing grief, waste and the shared mortality of Greeks and Trojans. Readers approaching world literature books for the first time will find a text that is violent, formal and often surprisingly humane.

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The Aeneid

By Virgil , David West

The Aeneid is the Latin epic in which Virgil follows the Trojan hero Aeneas from the fall of Troy to a hard-won foothold in Italy, the land from which Rome would eventually grow. Written in the age of Augustus, it gives Rome a founding story to set beside Homer's. It also keeps asking what that destiny costs: lost homes, abandoned lovers, dead young men, and a closing act of violence that leaves victory uneasy. This Penguin Classics paperback offers David West's prose translation with his introduction, notes and short prefaces to each of the twelve books. That makes one of the most influential classic books of Western literature approachable for readers who have no Latin.