Autore: Raffel Burton Raffel

No poem in German literature is so well known and studied in Germany and Europe as the 800-year-old Das Nibelungenlied. In the English-speaking world, however, the poem has remained little known, lan …

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most read and beloved of all stage works. Now the most extensively annotated version of the play to date makes it completely accessible to readers in the …

In this new translation of Voltaire’s Candide, distinguished translator Burton Raffel captures the French novel’s irreverent spirit and offers a vivid, contemporary version of the 250-yea …

In this restructured and greatly expanded version of Burton Raffel’s out-of-print classic, Poems from the Old English, Raffel and co-editor Alexandra H. Olsen place the oldest English writings in an …

In this outstanding new translation of Lancelot, Burton Raffel brings to English language readers the fourth of Chretien’s five surviving romantic Arthurian poems. This poem was the first to introduc …

One of the most influential storytellers in Western literature, French poet Chretien de Troyes helped to shape the ever-fascinating legend of King Arthur and the Round Table. Of Chretien’s five survi …

King Lear, one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most savage plays, tells the story of the foolish and Job-like Lear, who divides his kingdom, as he does his affections, according to vanity and whim. Lear …

Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s funniest plays and also one of his most romantic. A young noblewoman, Viola,   shipwrecked in a foreign land and separated from her twin brother, dresses as …

French poet and critic Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711) was by turns venerated (in the eighteenth century) and reviled (in the nineteenth century) as the lawgiver of French classicism. Toda …

In one of Shakespeare’s bawdier comedies, contemporary audiences still take great pleasure in the rapid-fire verbal battles between the shrewish Katharina and the canny Petruchio, determined to subdu …

In this lively comedy of love and money in sixteenth-century Venice, Bassanio wants to impress the wealthy heiress Portia but lacks the necessary funds. He turns to his merchant friend, Antonio, who …

Perhaps no other Shakespearean drama so engulfs its readers in the ruinous journey of surrender to evil as does Macbeth. A timeless tragedy about the nature of ambition, conscience, and the human hea …

One of the most powerful dramas ever written for the stage, Othello is a story of revenge, illusion, passion, mistrust, jealousy, and murder. If in Iago Shakespeare created the most compelling villai …

Shakespeare’s valedictory play is also one of his most poetical and magical. The story involves the spirit Ariel, the savage Caliban, and Prospero, the banished Duke of Milan, now a wizard living on …

Treacherous, power-hungry, untempered by moral restraint, and embittered by physical deformity, Richard, the younger brother of King Edward IV, is ablaze with ambition to take England’s throne. Richa …