In "Original Sonnets on Various Subjects; and Odes Paraphrased from Horace," Anna Seward masterfully weaves personal reflection and philosophical inquiry through a collection of sonnets and odes. Her verse utilizes the traditional form of the sonnet while engaging with Enlightenment themes such as nature, emotion, and human experience, showcasing her command of both language and structure. Seward's poetic style is characterized by its elegance and emotional depth, reflecting both the Roman...

Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another. Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition ...

The language of Poetry is an art that most of us attempt at some point in our lives. Although its commonplace exposure has been somewhat marginalised in today’s often fast-paced lives we all recognise good verse that can empathise with our thoughts or open us up to experience new things in new ways, to better understand and to enjoy the many strands of our lives.But finding a starting point can be overwhelming, even off-putting, so in this series we offer up our Top 10 classic poet...

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem written by Lord Byron. The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a can...

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (ca. 4 BCE 65 AD), known commonly as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman and dramatist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He is most noted for developing a new type of drama, the Senecan tragedy, which differed greatly from Greek tragedy. While the Greek tragedies were expansive and periodic, Senecan tragedies are more succinct and balanced. In Senecan tragedy, characters do not undergo much change, there is little or no catharsis in the end, and viol...

One of the most important poets of the eighteenth century, William Cowper’s nature poetry explored everyday life and scenes of the English countryside, establishing him as a forerunner of Romantic poetry. The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature's finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents the complete poetical works of William Cowper, with beautiful illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)* Beautifully illustrated with ...

Born in 1572 in London England, John Donne was an English Jacobean poet of exceptional skill, whose poetry was known for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor. While Donne was well educated and his poetic talents considerable he struggled for much of his life to provide for his family. Having published only two volumes during his lifetime, he was not a professional poet. Despite this his legacy on the world of poetry is a significant one. In this volume you will find a rep...

The Odyssey of Homer is an epic poem that intricately weaves the tale of Odysseus's arduous journey home following the Trojan War. Renowned for its vivid narrative and richly layered storytelling, the poem employs a blend of formal and colloquial language, capturing the oral tradition of ancient Greek literature. This masterpiece not only explores profound themes of loyalty, perseverance, and the longing for home but also reflects the socio-cultural fabric of its time, revealing insights i...

Ovid's The Metamorphoses is an epic and narrative poem of fifteen books, a stunning arrangement of countless mythological tales masterfully connected by the theme of transformation and love.

Selected verse from the Iliad and the Odyssey, edited by David Hopkins.

Euripides (480 BC-406 BC) is revered as one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, and produced the largest body of extant work by any ancient playwright. He is considered to be the most modern of the three, and his works laid the foundation for Western theatre. His writing sticks out from that of his contemporaries because of his colloquial vocabulary, meter and syntax, distinct from the grandiose language of his predecessors. In writing "Or...

Vida's Art of Poetry is an 18th century translation of the famous poet Marco Vida's work. Vida authored many poems in Latin in the 16th century.