Best Epic Poetry Books
Here you will get Best Epic Poetry Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. The Odyssey
Author: by Homer
0140268863
Penguin Classics
English
The great epic of Western literature, translated by the acclaimed classicist Robert FaglesA 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 man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.” So begins Robert Fagles’ magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in the New York Times Book Review hails as “a distinguished achievement.” If the Iliad is the world’s greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature’s grandest evocation of an everyman’s journey through life.
Odysseus’ reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.
2. The Odyssey
Author: by Homer
English
592 pages
0393356256
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 “Wilson’s language is fresh, unpretentious and leanIt is rare to find a translation that is at once so effortlessly easy to read and so rigorously considered.” Madeline Miller, author of CirceComposed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home.
This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the complicated hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this version as a more fully rounded human being than ever before.
Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, Emily Wilson’s Odyssey sings with a voice that echoes Homer’s music; matching the number of lines in the Greek original, the poem sails along at Homer’s swift, smooth pace. A fascinating, informative introduction explores the Bronze Age milieu that produced the epic, the poem’s major themes, the controversies about its origins, and the unparalleled scope of its impact and influence.
3. The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso)
Author: by Dante Alighieri
Berkley
English
928 pages
The authoritative translations of The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradisotogether in one volume. Belonging in the immortal company of the great works of literature, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradisethe sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.
Now, for the first time, John Ciardi’s brilliant and authoritative translations of Dante’s three soaring canticlesThe Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradisohave been gathered together in a single volume. Crystallizing the power and beauty inherent in the great poet’s immortal conception of the aspiring soul, The Divine Comedy is a dazzling work of sublime truth and mystical intensity.
4
Coming Home to Her: Poems about love, sexuality, and being human
Author: by Emily Juniper
English
127 pages
1697643655
Coming Home to Her is a celebration of being human. It is a coming out journey, an exploration of sexuality, femininity, loving, and being loved. “This book reads as much about a love letter to a person as it does about being a love letter to life.
I can’t wait to share with people. The words and concepts are beautiful.” “This book made me feel at home in my own skin. These poems are beautifully written, mostly longer pieces, and a much needed break from typical instapoetry
5. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition)
Author: by Seamus Heaney
0393320979
English
256 pages
New York Times bestseller and winner of the Costa Book Award. Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel’s mother.
He then returns to his own country and dies in old age in a vivid fight against a dragon. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath. In the contours of this story, at once remote and uncannily familiar at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney finds a resonance that summons power to the poetry from deep beneath its surface.
Drawn to what he has called the “four-squareness of the utterance” in Beowulf and its immense emotional credibility, Heaney gives these epic qualities new and convincing reality for the contemporary reader.
6. The Iliad
Author: by Homer
0140275363
Penguin Classics
English
The great war epic of Western literature, translated by acclaimed classicist Robert Fagles, and featured in the Netflix series The OAA Penguin Classic Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War.
Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, 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, brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic.
He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer’s poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad’s mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls an astonishing performance. This Penguin Classics Deluxe edition also features French flaps and deckle-edged paper.
7. Grendel
Author: by John Gardner
Vintage (May 14, 1989)
English
192 pages
The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic Beowulf, tells his own side of the story in this frequently banned book. This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic.
This is the book William Gass called “one of the finest of our contemporary fictions.”
8. The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora
Author: by Pablo Cartaya
Puffin Books
English
272 pages
A 2018 Pura Belpr Author Honor BookSave the restaurant.Save the town.Get the girl.Make Abuela proud. Can thirteen-year-old Arturo Zamora do it all or is he in for a BIG, EPIC FAIL? For Arturo, summertime in Miami means playing basketball until dark, sipping mango smoothies, and keeping cool under banyan trees.
And maybe a few shifts as junior lunchtime dishwasher at Abuela’s restaurant.Maybe. But this summer also includes Carmen, a poetry enthusiast who moves into Arturo’s apartment complex and turns his stomach into a deep fryer. He almost doesn’t notice the smarmy land developer who rolls into town and threatens to change it.
Arturo refuses to let his family and community go down without a fight, and as he schemes with Carmen, Arturo discovers the power of poetry and protest through untold family stories and the work of Jos Mart. Funny and poignant, The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora is the vibrant story of a family, a striking portrait of a town, and one boy’s quest to save both, perfect for fans of Rita Williams-Garcia.
9. The Aeneid (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Author: by Virgil
ISBN: 978-0143105138
Published at: Penguin Classics; Illustrated edition (January 29, 2008)
From the award-winning translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey comes a brilliant new translation of Virgil’s great epicFleeing the ashes of Troy, Aeneas, Achilles’ mighty foe in the Iliad, begins an incredible journey to fulfill his destiny as the founder of Rome.
His voyage will take him through stormy seas, entangle him in a tragic love affair, and lure him into the world of the dead itself-all the way tormented by the vengeful Juno, Queen of the Gods. Ultimately, he reaches the promised land of Italy where, after bloody battles and with high hopes, he founds what will become the Roman empire.
An unsparing portrait of a man caught between love, duty, and fate, the Aeneid redefines passion, nobility, and courage for our times. Robert Fagles, whose acclaimed translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were welcomed as major publishing events, brings the Aeneid to a new generation of readers, retaining all of the gravitas and humanity of the original Latin as well as its powerful blend of poetry and myth.
10. The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos Book 2)
Author: by Dan Simmons
B004JHY6OQ
Gateway
English
The mysterious Time Tombs are opening and the Shrike that has risen from them may well control the fate of all mankind. The Ousters are laying seige to the Hegemony of Man and the AIs we created have turned against us to build the Ultimate Intelligence: God.
The God of Machines. His genesis could mean annihilation for man. Something is drawing the hegemony, the Ousters, the AIs, the entire universe to the Shrike. Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1991
11. Beowulf the Warrior (Living History Library)
Author: by Ian Serrailier
English
48 pages
1883937035
Master storyteller Ian Serraillier has rewoven in modern narrative verse the story of Beowulf, the oldest epic in the English language. He succeeds in making this classic tale accessible to today’s youth.
12. The Iliad of Homer
Author: by Richmond Lattimore
English
608 pages
0226470490
“Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus / and its devastation.” For sixty years, that’s how Homer has begun the Iliad in English, in Richmond Lattimore’s faithful translationthe gold standard for generations of students and general readers. This long-awaited new edition of Lattimore’s Iliad is designed to bring the book into the twenty-first centurywhile leaving the poem as firmly rooted in ancient Greece as ever.
Lattimore’s elegant, fluent verseswith their memorably phrased heroic epithets and remarkable fidelity to the Greekremain unchanged, but classicist Richard Martin has added a wealth of supplementary materials designed to aid new generations of readers. A new introduction sets the poem in the wider context of Greek life, warfare, society, and poetry, while line-by-line notes at the back of the volume offer explanations of unfamiliar terms, information about the Greek gods and heroes, and literary appreciation.
A glossary and maps round out the book. The result is a volume that actively invites readers into Homer’s poem, helping them to understand fully the worlds in which he and his heroes livedand thus enabling them to marvel, as so many have for centuries, at Hektor and Ajax, Paris and Helen, and the devastating rage of Achilleus.
13. The Epic of Gilgamesh
Author: by Anonymous
Penguin Classics
English
128 pages
N.K.Sandars’s landmark translation of one of the first and greatest works of Western literatureA Penguin ClassicGilgamesh, King of Uruk, and his companion Enkidu are the only heroes to have survived from the ancient literature of Babylon, immortalized in this epic poem that dates back to the third millennium BC.
Together they journey to the Spring of Youth, defeat the Bull of Heaven and slay the monster Humbaba. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh’s grief and fear of death are such that they lead him to undertake a quest for eternal life.
A timeless tale of morality, tragedy and pure adventure, The Epic of Gilgamesh is a landmark literary exploration of man’s search for immortality.N.K. Sandars’s lucid, accessible translation is prefaced by a detailed introduction that examines the narrative and historical context of the work.
In addition, there is a glossary of names and a map of the Ancient Orient. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines.
14. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Author: by Simon Armitage
English
208 pages
0393334155
The classic story that inspired the film starring Dev Patel and Alicia VikanderA medieval romancebut also an outlandish ghost story, a gripping morality tale and a weird thriller. I couldn’t put down Simon Armitage’s compulsively readable… Energetic, free-flowing, high-spirited version.
Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book ReviewOne of the founding stories of English literature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight narrates the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse who rudely interrupts Camelot’s Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a pall of unease over the company and challenging one of their number to a wager.
The virtuous Gawain accepts and decapitates the intruder with his own axe. Gushing blood, the knight reclaims his head, orders Gawain to seek him out a year hence, and departs. The following Yuletide, Gawain dutifully sets forth. His quest for the Green Knight involves a winter journey, a seduction scene in a dreamlike castle, a dire challenge answeredand a drama of enigmatic reward disguised as psychic undoing.
15. The Iliad
Author: by Gareth Hinds
Candlewick
English
272 pages
In a companion volume to his award-winning adaptation of The Odyssey, the incomparable graphic novelist Gareth Hinds masterfully adapts Homer’s classic wartime epic. More than three thousand years ago, two armies faced each other in an epic battle that rewrote history and came to be known as the Trojan War.
The Iliad, Homer’s legendary account of this nine-year ordeal, is considered the greatest war story of all time and one of the most important works of Western literature. In this stunning graphic novel adaptation a thoroughly researched and artfully rendered masterwork renowned illustrator Gareth Hinds captures all the grim glory of Homer’s epic.
Dynamic illustrations take readers directly to the plains of Troy, into the battle itself, and lay bare the complex emotions of the men, women, and gods whose struggles fueled the war and determined its outcome. This companion volume to Hinds’s award-winning adaptation of The Odyssey features notes, maps, a cast of characters, and other tools to help readers understand all the action and drama of Homer’s epic.
16. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Pearl; [and] Sir Orfeo
Author: by J.R.R. Tolkien
Del Rey (July 1, 1988)
English
214 pages
Three masterpieces of medieval poetry, translated by the author of The Lord of the Rings Comparable to the works of Chaucer, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo weave a bright tapestry of stories from a remote age of chivalry and wizards, knights and holy questsbut unlike The Canterbury Tales, the name of the poet who wrote them is lost to time.
Masterfully translated from the original Middle English by J.R.R. Tolkien, the language of these great poems comes to life for modern readers. At the center of this collection is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a tale as lush and dark as England’s medieval forests.
Mixing romance and adventure, Sir Gawain follows King Arthur’s most noble knight on an adventure of epic enchantment, temptation, and destiny.
