Ancient, Classical & Medieval Literature

The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for 10 whole and very bloody years.... 

When the mysterious Green Knight arrives unbidden at the Round Table one Christmas, only Gawain is brave enough to take up his challenge....

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide, his ascent of Mount Purgatory and his encounter with his dead love Beatrice, and finally, his arrival in Heaven....

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are unquestionably two of the greatest epic masterpieces in Western literature....

With this stunning modern verse translation, Robert Fagles reintroduces Virgil's Aeneid to a whole new generation....

Anger be now your song, immortal one, Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous, that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss....

When you join Professor Vandiver for this lecture series on the Iliad, you'll come to understand what has enthralled and gripped so many people....

Goethe’s two-part dramatic work, Faust, based on a traditional theme, and finally completed in 1831, is an exploration of that restless intellectual and emotional urge which found its fullest expression in the European Romantic movement....

These lectures make classical mythology fresh, absorbing, and often surprising....

In this book, for the first time, Philip Freeman brings together the best stories of Celtic mythology....

A lean, fleet-footed translation that recaptures Homer’s “nimble gallop” and brings an ancient epic to new life....

The Divine Comedy was born in a time of troubling transition, which is why it still speaks today. In this narrative retelling and guide, Mark Vernon offers a vivid introduction and interpretation of a book that, 700 years on, continues to open minds and change lives....

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce....

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent and is a major text of Hinduism....

Charged with treason under Theodoric the Great in sixth-century Rome, Boethius served one year's imprisonment, awaiting trial and eventual execution. During this time, he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy, which would go on to be one of the most popular philosophical works....

This is a summary of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Meditations is essentially a scrapbook of thoughts written over a 19-year period; it’s not ordered and it repeats itself frequently as ideas reoccurred to the author at different times....

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War....

Hardly anyone who was educated was unaware of at least some of the more famous stories of Roman myth and history as told by Titus Livius....

Along with Virgil, Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was the greatest poet produced by Rome....

Meditations is former U.S. President Bill Clinton's favorite book. This audio consists of a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161-180 AD, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy....

In this BBC full-cast production of Much Ado About Nothing, some handsome soldiers return from battle. Yet one soldier finds himself locked in a merry war of his own....

Robert Fitzgerald's translation of The Odyssey has been the standard translation for more than three generations of students and poets....

Epictetus (c. AD 50-135) was a former Roman slave (he was also lame in one leg, and walked with a crutch) who went on to become a great teacher....

Infamously known as the cursed Scottish play, Macbeth is perhaps Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy....

Thomas à Kempis' collection of meditative writings from the Bretheren of the Common Life is the most widely read book in the world after the Bible....