Following the success of his translation of Dante's Purgatorio and of his most recent collection, The River Sound (hailed by Richard Howard as "the most intimate, the most vulnerable of all Merwin's work, " and by Peter Davison as "Astonishing . . . Engages the underground stream of our lives at depths that only two or three living poets can match."), W.S. Merwin gives us a new collection of poetry, written in his mesmerizing voice. The poems in...

Following The Second Four Books, this collection returns to print a large body of work by one of the premier poets of this century. W.S. Merwin was the first recipient of the Tanning Prize. "The terms of the Tanning Prize stipulate that it be given to 'a master' ... here be fore us, and for many years to come, we have in William Merwin an embodied emblem of the best we can hope for, both as artist and citizen of the world". -- James Merrill.

The play revolves around Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek coalition before and during the Trojan War, and his decision to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis and allow his troops to set sail to preserve their honour in battle against Troy. The conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles over the fate of the young woman presages a similar conflict between the two at the beginning of the Iliad. In his depiction of the experiences...

Beowulf is the foundation of English literature. It celebrates the courage and leadership of the mythical Anglo-Saxon warlord in his battles with supernatural monsters. The Nibelungenlied endures as a remarkable fusion of history and poetry that is avital component of German literature. Goerthe maintained that knowledge of the work constituted an integral part of the country's education. The Song of Roland extolling the chivalric ideals in the...