Compiled by Reader Advisor Tom Sweterlitsch
Heaney, Seamus
Beowulf
RC 49742
Nobel laureate Heaney presents a bilingual edition of the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon epic, which includes the original poem in Old English along with his new modern English verse translation. The poem chronicles the feats of Scandinavian warrior Beowulf, who battles with monsters and brings wisdom to leadership. Whitbread Award. 2000.
Homer
The Iliad
RC 51266,
CL 6745
This epic Greek poem, drawn from legends of the Trojan War, deals with Achilles' wrath against Agamemnon and its dire consequences.
Homer
The Odyssey
RC 43541,
CL 206
A Greek epic poem attributed to Homer recounts the adventures of Odysseus during his ten-year journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. This prose translation by Robert Fitzgerald won the 1961 Bollingen Award for the best translation of a poem into English. 1961.
Dante Alighieri
The Divine Comedy
RC 30589,
CL 6663
A translation of Dante's classic epic poem in its entirety. Dante describes being lost in a frightening forest, meeting the poet Virgil, and being conducted by Virgil through hell (The Inferno), purgatory (The Purgatorio), and paradise (The Paradiso). 1970.
Milton, John
Paradise Lost
RC 31889,
CL 6491
An epic poem using the fall of mankind and the story of Paradise Lost as sought for in the life of man as its main theme. Richly elaborate symbolism is employed in describing Satan's battle with God, descent to Hell, and his seduction of Adam and Eve. 1969.
Pound, Ezra
Selected Poems
RC 52448
A selection of Pound's poems and translations, spanning his whole career. Includes parts of his best-known works: the Hugh Selwyn Mauberley sequence, "Homage to Sextus Propertius," and large portions of The Cantos. 1957.
Sandars, N.K.
The Epic of Gilgamesh
RC 19137
English version of the adventures of the great King of Uruk in the third millennium B.C. including his fruitless search for immortality and his friendship with Enkidu, the wild man from the hills. Also alludes to the legend of the Flood, agreeing in many details with the Biblical story of Noah.
Spenser, Edmund
The Faerie Queene
RC 29266
Dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I. Spenser wrote this epic sixteenth-century romance as an allegory of moral virtue founded on the manners and customs of chivalry. 1978.
Virgil
The Aeneid
RC 64204
Epic Latin poem composed by Virgil during the last ten years of his life, 29 to 19 B.C.E. Beginning with the legend of Aeneas, a Trojan hero who founded a settlement in Italy, celebrates the Roman Empire's expansion and the achievements of Emperor Augustus. Verse translation by Robert Fagles. 2006.
Walcott, Derek
Omeros
RC 33192
'Omeros' is the Greek form for Homer, the inspiration of this epic poem told in a circular narrative design. The main subjects of the poem are Achilles and his friend Philoctete, fishermen from Saint Lucia who set out for their ancestral home in West Africa. Their journey, both in the present and in the classical past, is a lament on behalf of all those who have personally experienced the suffering of exile. 1990.
Williams, William C.
Paterson: Revised Edition
RC 38546
First published in separate volumes between 1946 and 1958, this edition gathers the five books that comprise Williams's magnum opus. The title refers to a city in New Jersey. And the epic poem, composed of fragments of lyrics, prose, narrative, and letters, is an extended metaphor for the mind of modern humanity. Similarly, the Passaic River and its central feature, the Passaic Falls, depict the course of the poet's life. 1992.
Revised February 2009
