John Ashbery’s most renowned collection of poetry -- Winner of The Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award First released in 1975, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is today regarded as one of the most important...

Selections from the first three decades of the poetry of John Ashbery, author of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book AwardThe late John Ashbery was a poet whose “teasing, delicate, soulful lines made him...

The great war epic of Western literature, in a stunning translation by acclaimed classicist Robert FaglesA Penguin ClassicDating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with...

One of the finest of epic poems, and the only one to have survived from medieval Spain, The Poem of the Cid recounts the adventures of the warlord and nobleman Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar - 'Mio Cid'. A forceful combination of heroic fiction and historical...

Composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran, Attar's great mystical poem is among the most significant of all works of Persian literature. A marvellous, allegorical rendering of the Islamic doctrine of Sufism - an esoteric system concerned with...

Philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, Khayyam as a poet possesses a singular originality. His poetry is richly charged with evocative power and offers a view of life characteristic of his stormy times, with striking relevance to the present day.For...

This collection of Ovid's poems deals with the whole spectrum of sexual desire, ranging from deeply emotional declarations of eternal devotion to flippant arguments for promiscuity. In the Amores, Ovid addresses himself in a series of elegies to Corinna,...

One of the greatest epic poems of the Italian Renaissance, Orlando Furioso is an intricate tale of love and enchantment set at the time of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne's conflict with the Moors. When Count Orlando returns to France from Cathay with...

Together these two poets-Hesiod, the epic poet, and Theognis, the elegist-offer a superb introduction to the life and thought of ancient Greece.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the...

The poems of two of China’s most influential classical poets: Tu Fu, called “China’s Shakespeare” (BBC), and Li Po, the subject of Ha Jin’s The Banished Immortal and “China’s most beloved poet” (The New Yorker)   A Penguin ClassicLi Po (AD 701–62) and Tu...

The inspiration for the major motion picture The Green Knight starring Dev Patel.‘Be prepared to perform what you promised, Gawain; Seek faithfully till you find me …’ A New Year’s feast at King Arthur’s court is interrupted by the appearance of a...

On 15 August 778, Charlemagne’s army was returning from a successful expedition against Saracen Spain when its rearguard was ambushed in a remote Pyrenean pass. Out of this skirmish arose a stirring tale of war, which was recorded in the oldest extant...

The greatest surviving Old English poem rendered into modern proseBeowulf stands at the head of English literature; a poem of historical interest and epic scope. Although the first manuscript of Beowulf dates from around the year 1000 CE, it is thought...

First published in July 1850, shortly after Wordsworth's death, The Prelude was the culmination of over fifty years of creative work. The great Romantic poem of human consciousness, it takes as its theme 'the growth of a poet's mind': leading the reader...

This selection gives equal weight to the two aspects of Robert Burns's reputation, as a lyricist and as a much-loved Scottish poet. Placing works in probable order of composition, it includes lyrics to his most well known songs, such as the nostalgic...

The complete poems of an English masterKeats's first volume of poems, published in 1817, demonstrated both his belief in the consummate power of poetry and his liberal views. While he was criticized by many for his politics, his immediate circle of...

'The first poet in the world in some things', is how John Donne was described by his contemporary Ben Jonson. Yet it is only this century that Donne has been indisputably established as a great poet—and even, many feel, the greatest love poet of them all...

“I am large, I contain multitudes”A Penguin Classic   When Walt Whitman self-published his Leaves of Grass in July 1855, he altered the course of literary history. One of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, it redefined the rules of poetry...

“Teems with sharp observation, profound moral insight, high satiric wit, and all manner of aesthetic delight.” –The New York Times Book ReviewA Penguin ClassicThis definitive edition brings together all the works that Pulitzer Prize-winning Marianne...

An acclaimed translation of the best work of the passionate Russian poetAn admired contemporary of Rilke, Akhmatova, and Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva was a witness to the political turmoil and the social devastation wrought by the Russian Revolution and...