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The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis by Petronius
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The Norton Book of Classical Literature
Bernard Knox - 1993
300-250 B.C.) Erinna (4th century B.C.?)From the Greek anthologyAnonymousPlatoAnyte (early 4th century B.C.?) Antipater of Sidon (2nd century B.C.)Diotimos NikarchosAsclepiades of Samos (c.320-?B.C.)Leonidas of Tarentum (1st half of 3rd century B.C.)Alexander AetolusDioskorides Meleager (c.100 B.C.)Glaukos Anonymous PhilodemosKrinagorasAutomedonAnonymousEruciusAntipater of Salonica (1st century B.C.-1st Century A.D.?)Marcus Argentarius (1st century B.C.-1st century A.D.?)Pompeius Lucilius NikarchosPaulus Silentiarius (6th century A.D.)Lucretius (98-c.55 B.C.) Catullus (c.84-c.54 B.C.) Horace (65-8 B.C.) Virgil (70-19 B.C.) Livy (59 B.C.-A.D.17)Propertius (c.50 B.C.-after 16 B.C.)Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17) Tacitus (A.D. 56/7after 117) Petronius Arbiter (?-A.D. 65)Juvenal (55?-138?)Marcus Aurelius (121-180; Emperor, 161-180)Aurelius Augustinus (St Augustine (354-530)For futher readingPermissionsIndex
Candide
Voltaire - 1759
Fast, funny, often outrageous, the French philosopher's immortal narrative takes Candide around the world to discover that -- contrary to the teachings of his distinguished tutor Dr. Pangloss -- all is not always for the best. Alive with wit, brilliance, and graceful storytelling, Candide has become Voltaire's most celebrated work.
Catch-22
Joseph Heller - 1961
In recent years it has been named to “best novels” lists by Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer.Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.
The Death of Virgil
Hermann Broch - 1945
Out of the last hours of Virgil's life and the final stirrings of his consciousness, the Austrian writer Hermann Broch fashioned one of the great works of twentieth-century modernism, a book that embraces an entire world and renders it with an immediacy that is at once sensual and profound.Begun while Broch was imprisoned in a German concentration camp, The Death of Virgil is part historical novel and part prose poem - and always an intensely musical and immensely evocative meditation on the relation between life and death, the ancient and the modern.
On Great Writing (On the Sublime)
Dionysius Cassius Longinus
The complete translation, from the Greek of A. O. Prickard's Oxford text, features an introduction by Grube, establishing the historical and critical context of the work, and a biographical index.
From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 BC to AD 68
H.H. Scullard - 1959
More than forty years after its first publication this masterful survey remains the standard textbook on the central period of Roman history.
Cyrano de Bergerac
Edmond Rostand - 1897
Set in Louis XIII's reign, it is the moving and exciting drama of one of the finest swordsmen in France, gallant soldier, brilliant wit, tragic poet-lover with the face of a clown. Rostand's extraordinary lyric powers gave birth to a universal hero--Cyrano De Bergerac--and ensured his own reputation as author of one of the best-loved plays in the literature of the stage.This translation, by the American poet Brian Hooker, is nearly as famous as the original play itself, and is generally considered to be one of the finest English verse translations ever written.
An Imaginary Life
David Malouf - 1978
From these sparse facts, one of our most distinguished novelists has fashioned an audacious and supremely moving work of fiction.Marooned on the edge of the known world, exiled from his native tongue, Ovid depends on the kindness of barbarians who impale their dead and converse with the spirit world. But then he becomes the guardian of a still more savage creature, a feral child who has grown up among deer. What ensues is a luminous encounter between civilization and nature, as enacted by a poet who once catalogued the treacheries of love and a boy who slowly learns how to give it.
The Guide
R.K. Narayan - 1958
Mistaken for a holy man, he plays the part and succeeds so well that God himself intervenes to put Raju's newfound sanctity to the test. Narayan's most celebrated novel, The Guide won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, his country's highest literary honor.
Les Liaisons dangereuses
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - 1782
The subject of major film and stage adaptations, the novel's prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they must win. This new translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able a judge whether the novel is as "diabolical" and "infamous" as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about the kind of world we ourselves live in. David Coward's introduction explodes myths about Laclos's own life and puts the book in its literary and cultural context.
The Plays of Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov - 1905
by such theatrical directors as Lee Strasberg, Elizabeth Swados, Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson. Critics have hailed these translations as making Chekhov fully accessible to American audiences. They are also accurate -- Schmidt has been described as "the gold standard in Russian-English translation" by Michael Holquist of the Russian department at Yale University.Swan song --The bear --The proposal --Ivanov --The seagull --A reluctant tragic hero --The wedding reception --The festivities --Uncle Vanya --Three sisters --The dangers of tobacco --The cherry orchard.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon - 1776
Volume 1 was published in 1776, going thru six printings; 2-3 in 1781; 4-6 in 1788-89. It was a major literary achievement of the 18th century, adopted as a model for the methodologies of historians.The books cover the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from 180 to 1590. They take as their material the behavior & decisions that led to the eventual fall of the Empire in East & West, offering explanations.Gibbon is called the 1st modern historian of ancient Rome. By virtue of its mostly objective approach & accurate use of reference material, his work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19-20th century historians. His pessimism & detached irony was common to the historical genre of his era. Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life (1772-89) to this one work. His Memoirs of My Life & Writings is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually became his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn.Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task difficult because of few comprehensive written sources, tho he wasn't the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are taken from what few relevant records were available: those of Roman moralists of the 4-5th centuries. According to Gibbon, the Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions because of lost of civic virtue. They'd become weak, outsourcing defence to barbarian mercenaries, who became so numerous & ingrained that they took over. Romans had become effeminate, incapable of tough military lifestyles. In addition, Christianity created belief that a better life existed after death, fostering indifference to the present, sapping patriotism. Its comparative pacifism tended to hamper martial spirit. Lastly, like other Enlightenment thinkers, he held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious, dark age. It wasn't until his age of reason that history could progress.
Helena
Evelyn Waugh - 1950
Based on the life of St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine and finder of the true cross, this spiritual adventure brings to life the political intrigues of ancient Rome and the early years of Christianity.
Collected Ancient Greek Novels
B.P. Reardon - 1989
Popular in the Renaissance, these stories have been less familiar in later centuries. Translations of the Greek stories were not readily available in English before B.P. Reardon’s excellent volume. Nine complete stories are included here as well as ten others, encompassing the whole range of classical themes: ideal romance, travel adventure, historical fiction, and comic parody. A new foreword by J.R. Morgan examines the enormous impact this groundbreaking collection has had on our understanding of classical thought and our concept of the novel.