Poetry

A delightful variation on the long tradition of bestiary writing, Jules Renard’s short verse and prose poems have captured the imagination of readers and artists since they were originally written in 1894, with Ravel famously setting five of them to...
By: Jules Renard

Dante’s best friend and a major exponent of the dolce stil novo , Guido Cavalcanti has had a lasting influence upon Italian poetry and is best known to English readers through the essays, translations and adaptations of Ezra Pound. Born from the...
By: Guido Cavalcanti

Dante’s dramatic journey through the circles of hell in search of redemption – and his encounter with devils, monsters and the souls of some of the greatest sinners who ever walked on earth – is one of the cornerstones of Western literature, the...
By: Dante Alighieri

The present selection traces the development of Yeats’s verse, encompassing the poet’s interest in Irish folklore and national identity, his engagement with the political situation of his day and the rich symbolism that is the hallmark of his work...
By: W.B. Yeats

Written in 1727, The Art of Sinking in Poetry was one of Alexander Pope’s contributions to the literary output of the legendary Scriblerus club – a circle of writers dedicated to mocking what they perceived as a culture of mediocrity and false...
By: Alexander Pope

Published for the first time in 1972, this verse collection reveals lesser-known facets of the novelist Alexander Trocchi’s writing. The poems included span a long period of time, and range from the lyricism of his early love poetry and reflections...
By: Alexander Trocchi

The Canterbury Tales have enthralled readers since the fourteenth century, inspiring countless films, plays and television adaptations. Unfinished at the time of Chaucer’s death, this inimitable collection of fables, romances and sermons has...
By: Geoffrey Chaucer

Following in the footsteps of Horace’s Ars Poetica , Boileau’s Art of Poetry lays down, in four entertaining books dealing with all forms and genres of poetry, the codes and rules for good versification. This beautiful translation proved to have a...
By: Nicolas Boileau

Cecco Angiolieri, the enfant terrible of Italian literature, loved women, gambling, food and wine. It is said that he found comfort for his bad luck at the dice and with Becchina, his unreciprocating lover, only by pouring venomous scorn upon his...
By: Cecco Angiolieri