“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” is a poem by American modernist poet William Carlos Williams. It was first published in 1960 in The Hudson Review and later appeared in Williams’s last poetry collection, Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems, published in 1962. The poem, with its use of concise, vivid imagery and direct language, draws on the 20th-century literary movements of modernism and imagism.Williams’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” is an example of... Read Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Summary

Lavinia is a 2008 novel by American author Ursula K. Le Guin. As her last novel, it tells part of the story of Virgil’s Aeneid from the perspective of Aeneas’s wife, Lavinia, who appears in the Aeneid as only a minor character. Although primarily a retelling of myth, the novel also attempts to explore what little is known about the people of the Italian peninsula before the founding of Rome. The subject matter of Lavinia... Read Lavinia Summary

“Leda and the Swan” is a sonnet by William Butler Yeats, Ireland’s most celebrated poet. The poem was first published in the June 1924 issue of The Dial and was included in the collection The Cat and the Moon and Certain Poems, which appeared that same year. In the poem, Yeats offers a retelling of a moment from Classical Greek mythology, in which Leda—the mother of Helen of Troy—conceives Helen through an act of rape... Read Leda and the Swan Summary

Lore by Alexandra Bracken (2021) is a stand-alone urban fantasy novel that follows the titular character and her friends as they struggle to survive the Agon hunt, where gods and humans alike are in constant mortal danger. Lore spent 15+ weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, following in the footsteps of Bracken’s The Darkest Minds series. The novel is also a popular read on BookTok, a community of readers and book content creators... Read Lore Summary

Lore Olympus Volume One is the first graphic novel adaptation of the online comic of the same name by New Zealand author, illustrator, and folklorist Rachel Smythe. The ongoing series has been running since 2018 on the WEBTOONS website and has won much acclaim from fans and critics alike. After previous nominations, Lore Olympus won an Eisner Award in 2022 for best web comic—the first WEBTOONS comic to do so. Lore Olympus Volume One reached... Read Lore Olympus: Volume One Summary

Lovely War is a work of historical fiction by Julie Berry. This Young Adult novel has won numerous awards, including the Golden Kite Award for Young Adult Fiction, the Whitney Award, and the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. Berry’s book tells the stories of two couples involved in the Great War (World War I). These stories are told through a frame narrative, recounted by the Greek goddess Aphrodite to a group of fellow Olympian gods and... Read Lovely War Summary

David R. Slavitt’s 2015 translation of the Mahabharata is an abridged, modern English rendition of the ancient Indian epic. Slavitt, an American poet, novelist, and translator, is experienced in translating classical texts for contemporary audiences. His translation seeks to make this foundational work of South Asian literature accessible to modern readers.The Mahabharata is traditionally attributed to the sage Vyasa and was composed between approximately 400 BCE and 400 CE. As one of the longest epic... Read Mahabharata Summary

Man and His Symbols, published in 1964, is a compilation of essays on archetypes and dream analysis. It was written by Carl G. Jung and co-written by Joseph L. Henderson, Marie-Louise von Franz, Aniela Jaffé, and Jolande Jacobi. Each writer provides a unique perspective on understanding the unconscious mind.Jung was a psychologist and psychiatrist who worked with hundreds of patients, travelled the world, interacted with various cultures, and studied a wide array of fields. Each... Read Man and His Symbols Summary

Medea is a tragic play written by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. It was composed in 431 BCE as Euripides’s entry for the Dionysia, an important religious festival and theatrical competition in the city of Athens. Though Medea placed third in the competition that year, it has since become one of Euripides’s most popular works, enjoying special attention for its nuanced treatment of revenge and domestic strife and for the complexity of its lead character... Read Medea Summary

Medea is a Classical Roman tragedy, written by the philosopher and playwright Seneca around 50 CE. The play is an example of the “fabula crepidata” genre, meaning it draws on Greek mythology for its plot. The play recounts the story of Medea, a mythological figure famous for killing her own children as an act of revenge when her husband, Jason, betrays her. This myth had already been recounted by other Classical authors, such as Euripides... Read Medea Summary

Publius Ovidius Naso, known more commonly today as Ovid, originally composed his Metamorphoses in Latin and completed the work around 8 CE. The Metamorphoses combines hundreds of Greco-Roman mythological tales into 15 books of poetry, brief summaries of which follow.This guide follows A. D. Melville’s 1986 translation for Oxford World’s Classics, and citations reference page numbers rather than line numbers. This guide follows Melville’s divisions of the various myths, although not all editions will make... Read Metamorphoses Summary

Written by T.S. Eliot, “Mr. Mistoffelees” is a humorous, whimsical poem from the children’s poetry collection Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939), which tells the story of a group of cats, each with a unique personality and character traits. Eliot initially authored the poems to entertain his godchildren, but once published, the collection became one of his best-selling works, eventually inspiring composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famous musical Cats. Though Eliot earned his place in... Read Mr. Mistoffelees Summary

Originally published in 1942, Mythology is primarily a compendium of Greek and Roman myths, with a brief final section on Norse mythology, written by American educator and classicist Edith Hamilton. Hamilton engages with the myths as both a storyteller and a literary critic. She organizes and retells the myths narrated in ancient sources, and she assesses those ancient sources as works of literature. Her approach is grounded in the assumptions that Greek and Roman civilizations... Read Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes Summary

Neon Gods is a 2021 fantasy romance by Katee Robert, who uses she/they pronouns and is a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author known for romances that openly explore sex and sexuality. Neon Gods is the first entry in her Dark Olympus series of modern retellings of Greek myths focused on political intrigue, gender, and power. Besides Dark Olympus, they are well-known for their Wicked Villains series of romantic fairy tale retellings and... Read Neon Gods Summary

Sometimes referred to as the “German Iliad,” Nibelungenlied is a 13th-century German epic poem that combines historical events with German heroic legend. The epic’s poet is unknown—though some clues within the text suggest that he was from Passau, Germany. The epic, which literally translates to “The Song of the Nibelungs” in English, portrays the Burgundians’ historic defeat by the Huns in the 5th century—the tragic result of the mythical queen Kriemhild’s desire to avenge her... Read Nibelungenlied Summary

Njal’s Saga is a late medieval Icelandic family saga authored around 1280 but set around the year 1000. It combines legend and history—many of its protagonists were historical figures, and other historical sources corroborate some of the major events the saga mentions. However, the author also embellishes characters and events as he describes them in the saga.The saga recounts intermarriage, friendships, and tragic blood feuds between multiple Icelandic families who trace their ancestry back to... Read Njals Saga Summary

No Great Mischief is a 1999 bildungsroman by Canadian novelist Alistair MacLeod. The story begins with Alexander MacDonald, a successful Canadian orthodontist, driving to Toronto to visit his brother, Calum. He searches for his brother’s apartment through the city’s seedier districts and eventually finds the right place. Calum is an alcoholic, one of many people left behind by the modern world. They speak together in English and Gaelic, reminiscing about their family. As Calum becomes... Read No Great Mischief Summary

“No Second Troy,” by William Butler Yeats, was first published as part of the 1910 collection Green Helmet and Other Poems. Composed after decades of Yeats’s unrequited love for Maud Gonne, “No Second Troy” evokes the mythological Trojan War and the figure of Helen of Troy to depict love as a battlefield. Its form demonstrates the tension between Yeats’s early, traditionally structured poetry and his later, more experimental poetry, which grew freer in style as... Read No Second Troy Summary

Odd and the Frost Giants is a 2008 novella by acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman, illustrated by New York Times bestselling artist Chris Riddell. Odd and the Frost Giants was originally released for World Book Day in Great Britain, an annual event where children’s books are released at low prices to encourage reading. Neil Gaiman has written many other notable works of fantasy, including adult novels like Stardust and American Gods and children’s novels like... Read Odd and the Frost Giants Summary

Oedipus by Seneca is a play written sometime during the first century CE. Oedipus is a fabula crepidata, or a Roman tragedy with traditional Greek subject matter. The earliest written account of any part of the Oedipus myth is in Homer’s Odyssey. In the epic, Homer briefly summarizes the story of Oedipus and the prophecy, but his retelling ends with Oedipus remaining king, not blind or sent into exile. The most well-known dramatization of this... Read Oedipus Summary