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Jerusalem – The Emanation of the Giant Albion

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Epics, Poetry, Religion
Chapter: 9 | Listen: 1

The epic poem Jerusalem was in Blake’s own opinion his masterpiece. It is the last of the great prophetic books. Originally produced as an engraved book of 100 pages (only one copy of which was every fully finished in the colouring), the poem develops and unifies many of the themes Blake had been exploring in earlier works. It is a complex and powerful work, full of dramatic imagery and sublime poetry. You might think of it like a poetic version of a Wagner opera. The edition read here is the first printed version of the poem – which was impossibly hard to read in the original. This then was the first opportunity to really explore it. However in his introduction Blake implies that the way to experience this work is to read it aloud rather than in your head. I can only agree, and I can also understand why few will do it. Although, somewhat inevitably, it is hard to do justice to the original, I hope this will give a flavour of this neglected gem. (Introduction by Nick Duncan) [chương_files]

Beowulf (version 2)

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Epics
Chapter: 14 | Listen: 4

Beowulf was composed by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet. Francis Barton Gummere translates this beautiful poem. Beowulf is an epic poem. The main character, Beowulf, proves himself a hero as he battles against supernatural demons and beasts. (Summary by Tad E.) [chương_files]

Giaour

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Epics, Poetry
Chapter: 1 | Listen: 2

“The Giaour” is a poem by Lord Byron first published in 1813 and the first in the series of his Oriental romances. “The Giaour” proved to be a great success when published, consolidating Byron’s reputation critically and commercially. (Summary by Wikipedia) [chương_files]

Beowulf (Hall translation)

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Epics
Chapter: 15 | Listen: 3

The most famous piece of Old English literature, Beowulf was written by an unknown poet at least 1000 years ago and tells how the eponymous hero who is a great warrior defeats the monster Grendel and his mother. He later goes on to rule the Geats before dying killing another foe, a dragon. This metered translation was made by John Lesslie Hall – Summary by clarinetcarrot [chương_files]

Sohrab and Rustum: An Episode

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Epics, Narratives
Chapter: 1 | Listen: 4

A young soldier born among Tartars but sired by the mighty Persian lord Rustum, serves in the Tartar army, seeking his great father. To this end, he persuades his general to call a truce and arrange for him to challenge the Persians to single combat. Should he prevail, his father will learn his whereabouts and come to him, or so he thinks, for Sohrab is unaware that his mother, fearing to lose her son, wrote to Rustum that their child was a girl. The Persians agree but have no champion until it is learned that they have recently been joined by Rustum. Although the great hero is contemplating retirement, he reluctantly agrees to be the Persians’ champion provided that he may fight unknown. As a result the two warriors engage in a contest that must lead to their mutual grief regardless of who wins—unless they happen to discover their relationship before it is too late. They continually approach but fail to make this discovery until it can no longer give them joy. This tragic poem, like Oedipus Rex, is a sustained piece of dramatic irony, but it differs from that play both in that it is in epic style (though only a episode) and in that the secret which hovers so close to disclosure would produce a happy ending were it ever to break forth. (Summary by T. A. Copeland) [chương_files]

Jerusalem Delivered

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Epics, Poetry
Chapter: 20 | Listen:

The First Crusade provides the backdrop for a rich tapestry of political machinations, military conflicts, martial rivalries, and love stories, some of which are complicated by differences in religion. The supernatural plays a major role in the action. Partly on this account, and partly because of the multilayered, intertwined plots, the poem met with considerable contemporary criticism, so Tasso revised it radically and published the revision under a new name, La Gerusalemme Conquistata, or “Jerusalem Conquered,” which has remained virtually unread, a warning to authors who pay attention to the critics. The original poem influenced Edmund Spenser, whose unfinished epic, The Faerie Queene, is still more complicated in plot than Tasso’s poem and, being an allegory, affords the supernatural an even greater share in the action. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the council in hell (first half of Book II) owes much to Tasso’s similar scene in Book IV. (Someone with sufficient background in Old English might profitably compare the tirade of Satan in Book IV to the remarkably similar speech of Satan in the Anglo-Saxon Genesis.) Moreover, Milton’s decision to write in English rather than in Latin, then the language of international discourse, was due in part to his visit to Tasso’s patron, Giovanni Battista Manso, who advised him as he had advised Torquato Tasso before him, to dignify his native language by employing his talents in bold defiance of custom and precedent. Had Petrarch had the benefit of Manso’s advice, his great epic, The Africa, might now eclipse his […]

Adam and Eve

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Epics, Multi-version (Weekly and Fortnightly poetry), Poetry
Chapter: 15 | Listen: 4

LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Adam and Eve (From “Paradise Lost,” Fourth Book) by John Milton. This was the Weekly Poetry project for Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 (though written nearly ten years earlier) in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil’s Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification; most of the poem was written while Milton was blind, and was transcribed for him. Milton first presents Adam and Eve in Book IV with impartiality. The relationship between Adam and Eve is one of “mutual dependence, not a relation of domination or hierarchy.” While the author does place Adam above Eve in regard to his intellectual knowledge, and in turn his relation to God, he also grants Eve the benefit of knowledge through experience. ( Summary from Wikipedia) [chương_files]

Balder Dead (version 2)

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Epics, Narratives
Chapter: 3 | Listen: 4

The poem begins with the beloved god Balder, thought to be invulnerable, dead at the hands of the inoffensive blind god Hoder, in a game. Loki, whose deceit brought about this catastrophe, is promptly punished with exile, and Odin, Balder’s father, sponsors a heroic quest to rescue his son from the land of the dead. This desperate venture unexpectedly meets with partial success, a conditional agreement to release Balder if everyone in the land of the living mourns his death. And even though over every hope hangs the threat of the ultimate end of the reign of the Norse gods, the mother of the gods points out that “much must yet be tried which shall but fail.” – Summary by T. A. Copeland [chương_files]

Faerie Queene (version 2)

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Epics
Chapter: 75 | Listen: 3

Spenser planned a 24-book romance-epic consisting of two parts, of which he completed half of the first. The first twelve books were to illustrate the development of virtues within the individual soul, and the second twelve were to depict the application of these moral virtues to remedying evils that afflict the world. Each of the first set of quests was to begin at the court of the Fairy Queen, Gloriana, and the knights were to return thither after having defeated some foe representing a personal weakness. Having thus proved themselves, they were qualified to undertake the second quests, in the world. The neat plan becomes somewhat muddled by Book 3, which nevertheless contains the philosophical core of the poem’s allegorical structure: the Platonic notion that love (grace) unifies the cosmos and draws the will, through the pursuit of beauty, into virtuous action, returning to God at last in worship. The plot structure of the poem is rich and complex, with many strands interlinked and overlapping, each replete with allegorical significance. (Summary by Thomas Copeland) [chương_files]

Lusiads

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Epics, Historical Fiction
Chapter: 12 | Listen: 1

The Lusiads (Os Lusíadas) is a Portuguese epic poem, written in the 16th century by Luis Vaz de Camões. The poem tells the tale of the Portuguese discoveries in the 15th and 16th centuries, specially the voyage to India by Vasco da Gama. Modelled after the classic epic tradition, Camões’ Lusiads are considered not only the first literary text in Modern Portuguese, but also a national epic of the same level as Vergil’s Aeneid. In the 19th century, Sir Richard Francis Burton translated Camões’ Lusiads, in what he considered “the most pleasing literary labour of his life”. (Summary by Leni) [chương_files]