The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the extraordinary story of the final days of England's legendary hero, King Arthur.

The Fall Of Arthur, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur King of Britain, may well be regarded as his finest and most skilful achievement in the use of the Old English alliterative metre, in which he brought to his transforming perceptions of the old narratives a pervasive sense of the grave and fateful nature of all that is told: of Arthur s expedition overseas into distant heathen lands, of Guinevere's flight from Camelot, of the great sea-battle on Arthur's return to Britain, in the portrait of the traitor Mordred, in the tormented doubts of Lancelot in his French castle.

Unhappily, The Fall Of Arthur was one of several long narrative poems that he abandoned in that period. In this case he evidently began it in the earlier nineteen-thirties, and it was sufficiently advanced for him to send it to a very perceptive friend who read it with great enthusiasm at the end of 1934 and urgently pressed him "You simply must finish it"!

But in vain: he abandoned it, at some date unknown, though there is some evidence that it may have been in 1937, the year of the publication of The Hobbit and the first stirrings of The Lord Of The Rings.

Years later, in a letter of 1955, he said that he hoped to finish a long poem on The Fall Of Arthur; but that day never came. Associated with the text of the poem, however, are many manuscript pages: a great quantity of drafting and experimentation in verse, in which the strange evolution of the poem's structure is revealed, together with narrative synopses and very significant if tantalising notes. In these latter can be discerned clear if mysterious associations of the Arthurian conclusion with The Silmarillion, and the bitter ending of the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, which was never written.

"Iambi et Elegi Graeci" contains in two volumes all that survives and has been published of pre-Alexandrian elegy and iambus, with the relevant testimonia and critical apparatus. Many papyri and other manuscript sources have been re-examined, and advantage has been taken of modern editions of authors who preserve fragments in quotation. Since its appearance in 1971-2, the work has been widely acknowledged as the standard critical edition of the early Greek iambic poets. A considerable amount of new material has also since then come to light. For this new edition of Vol 2, complementing the second edition of Vol 1 which was published in 1989, Dr West has thoroughly revised and updated all the material. There are some completely new fragments, and a great many others appear in a more correct form.

For over seventy years there has been no new English edition of the lively and vigorously-written Middle English verse romance of Hauelok, despite the need for a text to meet modern standards of editing. In this new and thorough edition of the poem. Professor Smithers has done much to elucidate the text, providing a detailed glossary, textual notes, and an introduction that contains an account of the main manuscript and of the Cambridge fragments, of the relations of Hauelok to the other main versions of the story, and of the language, the sources, the date of composition. In addition, Smithers supplies a full commentary which goes well beyond those of previous editions in range, scale, and detail.

‘Just as a stag flees before the hounds,
So the pagans take flight before Roland’

On 15 August 778, Charlemagne’s army was returning from a successful expedition against Saracen Spain when its rearguard was ambushed in a remote Pyrenean pass. Out of this skirmish arose a stirring tale of war, which was recorded in the oldest extant epic poem in French. The Song of Roland, written by an unknown poet, tells of Charlemagne’s warrior nephew, Lord of the Breton Marches, who valiantly leads his men into battle against the Saracens, but dies in the massacre, defiant to the end. In majestic verses, the battle becomes a symbolic struggle between Christianity and paganism, while Roland’s last stand is the ultimate expression of honour and feudal values of twelfth-century France.

Glyn Burgess’s lucid translation is designed to assist the reader in understanding the original French of the Chanson de Roland, of which a substantial portion is included as an appendix in this volume. This edition also includes notes and an updated list for further reading.

Cas Vos is ‘n bekende op die gebied van digkuns. Sy vorige werke sluit in: Die goddelike komedie (2017) en Il Paradiso (2018).

In albei het hy homself bewys as meestervertaler van die wêreld se meesterstukke. Sy nuutste bundel, Inferno, is die eerste rymende versvertaling van die meester Dante Alighieri in Afrikaans.

Hierdie bundel is ‘n prestasie wat in die voorsienbare toekoms onherhaalbaar is en lank ‘n standaardwerk sal wees.

Alongside famous long works such as "Beowulf, " Old English poetry offers a large number of shorter compositions, many of them on explicitly Christian themes. This volume of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library presents twenty-nine of these shorter religious poems composed in Old and early Middle English between the seventh and twelfth centuries. Among the texts, which demonstrate the remarkable versatility of early English verse, are colorful allegories of the natural world, poems dedicated to Christian prayer and morality, and powerful meditations on death, judgment, heaven, and hell.

Previously edited in many different places and in some instances lacking accessible translations, many of these poems have remained little known outside scholarly circles. The present volume aims to offer this important body of texts to a wider audience by bringing them together in one collection and providing all of them with up-to-date translations and explanatory notes. An introduction sets the poems in their literary-historical contexts, which are further illustrated by two appendices, including the first complete modern English translation of the so-called "Old English Benedictine Office."

"Raoul de Cambrai" is one of the most violent and passionate poems of the cycle of barons in revolt. The three relationships that structure medieval society - companionship, feudalism and the family - are here seen in crisis. Conflicts of interest, and the competition for resources, result in social disintegration, wholesale loss of life and the collapse of authority. The poem, probably composed around the turn of the 13th century, results from successive reworkings that weave a many-layered commentary on its own moral and political themes. This edition draws on some material unknown to the text's previous, 19th-century editors. It is prefaced by a scholarly introduction and accompanied by an annotated translation in English prose.

Five poems from the height of Babylonian civilization reflect the cyclical nature of the lives and beliefs of the Mesopotamian culture. Included are The Babylonian Creation, The Sumerian Underworld, Inanna's Journey to Hell, Adapa: The Man, and A Prayer to the Gods of Night.

This book presents translations of four major practitioners of octosyllabic verse, the dominant literary form of 12th- and 13th-century France. The introduction discusses the varying views of women and love in the texts and their place in the courtly tradition.;From Chretien de Troyes Terry includes an early work, "Philomena". The other great writer of this period was Marie de France, the first woman in the European narrative tradition. "Lanval" is newly translated for this edition, which also features four of Marie's other poems. The collection includes "The Reflection" by Jean Renart, known for his real settings; and the anonymous "Chatelaine of Vergi", a fatalistic and perhaps more modern depiction of love.