Poetry: Did you mean...?

Women in the Middle Ages were frequently characterized as second-class citizens by the Church and the patriarchal aristocracy. Women's status was somewhat elevated in the High and Late Middle Ages by the cult...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his...

The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant is a literary work from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2040-1782 BCE) which illustrates the value society placed on the concept of justice and equality under the law. In the story...

The ancient Celtic pantheon consisted of over 400 gods and goddesses who represented everything from rivers to warfare. With perhaps the exception of Lugh, the Celtic gods were not universally worshipped across Iron Age...

A symbol is an image or object which represents an abstract concept, often having to do with one's religious beliefs. Every civilization, from the most ancient to the present, has made use of symbols to make the abstract...

Enheduanna (circa 2300 BCE) is the world's first author and was the daughter (either literally or figuratively) of the great empire-builder Sargon of Akkad (reign 2334-2279 BCE...

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is a narrative poem of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) inspired by the love affair between Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE), the seventh emperor of the dynasty, and his consort Lady Yang. It was written...

Women in ancient Greece, outside of Sparta, had almost no rights and no political or legal power. Even so, some women broke through the social and cultural restrictions to make their mark on history. All...

Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) is the only full-length work by Thomas Jefferson (l. 1743-1826) published in his lifetime and was written in response to questions from France regarding the thirteen states that...

Horace's Epodes is a book of 17 poems, published around 30-29 BCE. It contains many of the earliest poems of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, better known as Horace (65-8 BCE); some were written before his acquaintance with Maecenas...