-
Falstaff
- Give Me Life
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Falstaff
Buy for $11.17
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 24
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
Iago
- The Strategies of Evil
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A Moor's Not Nice Guy - friend
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history - and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime.
By: Harold Bloom
-
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 24
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
Iago
- The Strategies of Evil
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A Moor's Not Nice Guy - friend
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history - and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime.
By: Harold Bloom
-
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
Possessed by Memory
- The Inward Light of Criticism
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
What an endowment!
- By Norman on 04-03-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Ruin the Sacred Truths
- Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Mort Crim
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Harold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or "J") writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Illiad, the Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's Prelude, and works by Freud, Kafka, and Beckett.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Not one of Bloom's best
- By Benjamin Myers on 03-31-17
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 133
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
- The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 16
The last book written by the most famous literary critic of his generation, on the sustaining power of poetry.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Culmination of Bloom’s Wisdom
- By Jesse on 12-24-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies
- By: Professor Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Professor Harold Bloom
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Lowest WPM Ever
- By Ronald on 11-16-11
-
The Iliad & The Odyssey
- By: Homer
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 911
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 530
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 531
Little is known about the Ancient Greek oral poet Homer, the supposed 8th century BC author of the world-read Iliad and his later masterpiece, The Odyssey. These classic epics provided the basis for Greek education and culture throughout the classical age and formed the backbone of humane education through the birth of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Worth the price, worth the time
- By Sam on 12-31-04
By: Homer
-
Our Oriental Heritage
- The Story of Civilization, Volume 1
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,285
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,144
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,136
The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wonderful
- By Michael on 11-30-13
By: Will Durant
-
This Is Shakespeare
- By: Emma Smith
- Narrated by: Emma Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 19
A genius and prophet whose timeless works encapsulate the human condition like no other. A writer who surpassed his contemporaries in vision, originality, and literary mastery. A man who wrote like an angel, putting it all so much better than anyone else. Is this Shakespeare? Well, sort of. But it doesn't tell us the whole truth. So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent and accessible listen
- By Amanda L. Hughes on 01-05-21
By: Emma Smith
-
Shakespeare
- The World as Stage
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,839
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,270
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,258
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Too Little, Too Short
- By Charles L. Burkins on 11-30-07
By: Bill Bryson
-
A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
- 1599
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: James Shapiro
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 142
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Note!--Abridged version
- By Scott on 01-05-16
By: James Shapiro
-
The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis
- By: Louis Markos, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Louis Markos
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 517
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 454
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 450
What can we still learn from C.S. Lewis? Find out in these 12 insightful lectures that cover the author's spiritual autobiography, novels, and his scholarly writings that reflect on pain and grief, love and friendship, prophecy and miracles, and education and mythology.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Basically a collection of sermons
- By Richard on 11-20-13
By: Louis Markos, and others
-
A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Amanda Root, David Harewood, Roy Hudd
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 374
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 333
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 331
When Oberon, King of the Fairies, uses his magic upon four runaway lovers in a midsummer wood outside Athens, chaos ensues. Who really loves whom? Meanwhile, a band of well-meaning but bungling local actors have their rehearsal sabotaged by the mischievous Puck, who bewitches their leader, Bottom, and Titania, the Fairy Queen. The result is a lively and anarchic comedy that can only be resolved by an elaborate disentangling of spells.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Shakespeare is rolling in his grave.
- By Zombie Gil 007 on 02-14-15
Publisher's summary
Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays: Henry IV; Henry IV, Part One and Henry IV, Part Two; and Henry V. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him - some innocent, some cruel. Falstaff can be lewd, funny, careless of others, a bad creditor, an unreliable friend, and in the end, devastatingly reckless in his presumption of loyalty from the new king.
Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom examines Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal. Just as we encounter one type of Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are young adults and another when we are middle-aged, Bloom examines his own shifting understanding of Falstaff over the course of his lifetime. Ultimately we come away with a deeper appreciation of this profoundly complex character, and this "poignant work" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) as a whole becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 24
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
King Lear
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Paul Scofield, Alec McCowen, Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
The tragedy of King Lear receives an outstanding performance in an all-star cast led by Britain’s senior classical actor, Paul Scofield. He is joined by Alec McCowen as Gloucester, Kenneth Branagh as The Fool, Harriet Walter as Gonerill, Sara Kestelman as Regan and Emilia Fox as Cordelia. This is the ninth recording of Shakespeare plays undertaken by Naxos AudioBooks in conjunction with Cambridge University Press, and is directed by John Tydeman. It was released to mark the 80th birthday of Paul Scofield in January 2002.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This cold night will turn us all to fools & madmen
- By Darwin8u on 11-01-17
-
King Lear
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Paul Scofield, Rachel Roberts, Cyryl Cusak, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
I am a man more sinned against than sinning.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A true classic
- By Stanley Hauer on 07-09-08
-
Don Quixote (Adapted for Modern Listeners)
- By: Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 202
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 161
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 161
Quixotic is a word that the dictionary defines as "extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary...." and that is a fitting definition, indeed, for this charming retelling of Don Quixote, the 17t- century Spanish classic by Miguel de Cervantes, now updated for the modern listener. The gallant and fragile Quixote will touch listeners, as will his faithful squire Sancho Panza and the tragically beautiful heroine of the gentle Don’s chivalries, the fair Dulcinea.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great way in
- By pxriver on 07-12-18
-
Don Quixote
- By: John Ormsby - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 36 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,070
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 915
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 910
The most influential work of the entire Spanish literary canon and a founding work of modern Western literature, Don Quixote is also one of the greatest works ever written. Hugely entertaining but also moving at times, this episodic novel is built on the fantasy life of one Alonso Quixano, who lives with his niece and housekeeper in La Mancha. Quixano, obsessed by tales of knight errantry, renames himself ‘Don Quixote’ and with his faithful servant Sancho Panza, goes on a series of quests.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
More than funny
- By Colin on 08-21-11
By: John Ormsby - translator, and others
-
The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Keith Moore, Toby Leonard Moore, Colin McPhillamy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
WOW
- By Mitchell Drimmer on 02-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 24
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
King Lear
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Paul Scofield, Alec McCowen, Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
The tragedy of King Lear receives an outstanding performance in an all-star cast led by Britain’s senior classical actor, Paul Scofield. He is joined by Alec McCowen as Gloucester, Kenneth Branagh as The Fool, Harriet Walter as Gonerill, Sara Kestelman as Regan and Emilia Fox as Cordelia. This is the ninth recording of Shakespeare plays undertaken by Naxos AudioBooks in conjunction with Cambridge University Press, and is directed by John Tydeman. It was released to mark the 80th birthday of Paul Scofield in January 2002.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This cold night will turn us all to fools & madmen
- By Darwin8u on 11-01-17
-
King Lear
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Paul Scofield, Rachel Roberts, Cyryl Cusak, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
I am a man more sinned against than sinning.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A true classic
- By Stanley Hauer on 07-09-08
-
Don Quixote (Adapted for Modern Listeners)
- By: Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 202
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 161
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 161
Quixotic is a word that the dictionary defines as "extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary...." and that is a fitting definition, indeed, for this charming retelling of Don Quixote, the 17t- century Spanish classic by Miguel de Cervantes, now updated for the modern listener. The gallant and fragile Quixote will touch listeners, as will his faithful squire Sancho Panza and the tragically beautiful heroine of the gentle Don’s chivalries, the fair Dulcinea.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great way in
- By pxriver on 07-12-18
-
Don Quixote
- By: John Ormsby - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 36 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,070
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 915
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 910
The most influential work of the entire Spanish literary canon and a founding work of modern Western literature, Don Quixote is also one of the greatest works ever written. Hugely entertaining but also moving at times, this episodic novel is built on the fantasy life of one Alonso Quixano, who lives with his niece and housekeeper in La Mancha. Quixano, obsessed by tales of knight errantry, renames himself ‘Don Quixote’ and with his faithful servant Sancho Panza, goes on a series of quests.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
More than funny
- By Colin on 08-21-11
By: John Ormsby - translator, and others
-
The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Keith Moore, Toby Leonard Moore, Colin McPhillamy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
WOW
- By Mitchell Drimmer on 02-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
-
Samson Agonistes
- By: John Milton
- Narrated by: David de Keyser, Philip Madoc, Matthew Morgan, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
Samson Agonistes, the 'dramatic poem' by John Milton, was published in 1671, three years before the poet's death. Written in the form of a Greek tragedy, with the Chorus commenting on the action, it follows the biblical story of the blind Samson as he wreaks his revenge on the Philistines who have imprisoned him. A powerful subject, with a personal resonance for the blind Milton, it is a perfect work for the medium of audiobook where poetry and drama can be balanced equally.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Unbelievable
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-20
By: John Milton
-
Waverley
- By: Sir Walter Scott
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 118
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 117
Waverley by Sir Walter Scott is an enthralling tale of love, war and divided loyalties. Taking place during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the novel tells the story of proud English officer Edward Waverley. After being posted to Dundee, Edward eventually befriends chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. He then renounces his former loyalties in order actively to support Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England. The book depicts stunning, romantic panoramas of the Highlands.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Loved it
- By Tad Davis on 04-12-18
By: Sir Walter Scott
-
Medea
- By: Euripides
- Narrated by: Jonathan Waters
- Length: 1 hr and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the "barbarian" kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering Jason's new wife as well as her own children, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great Narrator makes this story work
- By cosmitron on 08-02-18
By: Euripides
-
Gargantua and Pantagruel
- By: François Rabelais
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 34 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 50
Here is a grotesque and carnivalesque collection of exuberant, fantastical stories that takes us from the ancient world through to the European Renaissance. At the heart of these tall tales are the giant Gargantua and his equally seismic son, Pantagruel. Containing magical adventures, maniacal punning, slapstick humor, erudite allusions, and just about any bodily function one can think of, here is quite possibly the zaniest, most risqué book ever written.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The king of all the narrators
- By amazon on 02-13-20
-
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Terry Jones
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 717
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 605
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 603
A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
An absolute delight!
- By Shannon Slee on 07-15-18
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
-
Candide (AudioGO Edition)
- By: Voltaire
- Narrated by: Jack Davenport
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,661
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,477
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,476
When first published in 1759, Candide became an instant best seller and is now regarded as one of the key texts of the Enlightenment. Voltaire’s preoccupations with evil and with various kinds of human folly and intolerance found a perfect vehicle in this philosophical tale. A master storyteller, he combined often wildly entertaining action with profoundly serious sense, parodying the traditional chivalric and oriental tales with which his public was more familiar.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Guaranteed to keep you smiling if not LOL
- By Robert on 08-09-12
By: Voltaire
-
Don Quixote
- By: Tobias Smollett - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 36 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,091
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 658
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 654
Don Quixote, the world's first novel and by far the best-known book in Spanish literature, was originally intended by Cervantes as a satire on traditional popular ballads, yet he also parodied the romances of chivalry. By happy coincidence he produced one of the most entertaining adventure stories of all time and, in Don Quixote and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, two of the greatest characters in fiction.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A MUST READ CLASSIC
- By Randall on 04-25-09
By: Tobias Smollett - translator, and others
-
Tales from Shakespeare
- By: Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb is a retelling of 20 of Shakespeare’s most beloved stories. Within the pages of this book, the 19th-century authors bring to life the Shakespearean plots and characters of another age in an easy-to-understand prose of a newer generation.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A classic
- By Jacque Eddy on 10-07-19
By: Charles Lamb, and others
-
The Decameron
- By: Giovanni Boccaccio
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Gunnar Cauthery, Alison Pettitt, and others
- Length: 28 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 231
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 201
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 202
The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Not Up to the Usual Naxos Standard
- By John on 11-15-17
-
Don Quixote
- By: Miguel de Cervantes, Gerald J. Davis - translator
- Narrated by: John Hanks
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 174
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 148
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. This is the story that a Nobel Prize Committee survey of one hundred of the world's best writers named "the greatest book of all time."
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A wonderful, magical listen
- By K on 12-01-13
By: Miguel de Cervantes, and others
-
The Talisman
- By: Sir Walter Scott
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
The Talisman revolves around the Third Crusader's camp in the Holy Land whereby there exists a truce between the Christians and the Muslims. The camp, which is led by King Richard I of England (the Lion-heart) who is grievously ill, is being torn apart by tensions between rival leaders.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a simple story but a joy to listen to
- By Adele Lemmon on 08-23-19
By: Sir Walter Scott
-
The Plays of Sophocles
- Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone
- By: Sophocles
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 55
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Sophocles was born at Colonus, near Athens in about 496 BC and is considered to be one of the premier playwrights of Greek tragedy. His stories may have been filled with strife, but Sophocles himself was prosperous and came from a good family. It is said that he was handsome, wealthy, and a highly respected citizen of Athens. During his life, he wrote over 120 plays and was instrumental in how plays would eventually be performed, including the addition of stage props.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Bad Dialogue
- By Zoe Olvera on 08-12-18
By: Sophocles
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 24
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
-
Iago
- The Strategies of Evil
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A Moor's Not Nice Guy - friend
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history - and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime.
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies
- By: Professor Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Professor Harold Bloom
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Lowest WPM Ever
- By Ronald on 11-16-11
-
The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 24
King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare's most moving, tragic hero. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
Macbeth: A Dagger of the Mind
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
-
Iago
- The Strategies of Evil
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In all of literature, few antagonists have displayed the ruthless cunning and unscrupulous deceit of Iago, the antagonist to Othello. Often described as Machiavellian, Iago is a fascinating psychological specimen: at once a shrewd expert of the human mind and yet, himself a deeply troubled man.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
A Moor's Not Nice Guy - friend
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 17
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history - and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character: Just as we encounter one Anna Karenina or Jay Gatsby when we are in high school and college and another when we are adults, Bloom explains his shifting understanding of Cleopatra over the course of his own lifetime.
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: The Seven Major Tragedies
- By: Professor Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Professor Harold Bloom
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 93
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Shakespeare's seven great tragedies contain unmistakable elements that set them apart from any other plays ever written. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare embodied in the character of Juliet the world's most impressive representation ever of a woman in love. With Julius Caesar, the great playwright produced a drama of astonishing and perpetual relevance.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Lowest WPM Ever
- By Ronald on 11-16-11
-
The Bright Book of Life
- Novels to Read and Reread
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Classic Bloom, but a curious reading of him
- By J. J. Kuzma on 09-10-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles
- The Power of a Reader's Mind over a Universe of Death
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 16
The last book written by the most famous literary critic of his generation, on the sustaining power of poetry.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Culmination of Bloom’s Wisdom
- By Jesse on 12-24-20
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: Ten Great Comedies
- By: Prof. Raphael Shargel
- Narrated by: Prof. Raphael Shargel
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 22
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 22
Professor Raphael Shargel channels his passion for teaching and expertise as a Shakespearean scholar into this illuminative study of the Immortal Bard's 10 great comedies. Shakespeare's genius is as readily apparent in these comedies as in his timeless tragedies. Often marked by internal and external conflicts, young lovers struggling for union, mistaken identities, and intertwining plots, Shakespeare's comedies to this day reveal the master's unparalleled insight into the human condition.
-
Tyrant
- Shakespeare on Politics
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 219
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 191
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 188
As an aging, tenacious Elizabeth I clung to power, a talented playwright probed the social causes, the psychological roots, and the twisted consequences of tyranny. In exploring the psyche (and psychoses) of the likes of Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, Coriolanus, and the societies they rule over, Stephen Greenblatt illuminates the ways in which William Shakespeare delved into the lust for absolute power and the catastrophic consequences of its execution.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Too Close for Comfort
- By C. Gross on 05-10-18
-
The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 133
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 144
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor at Harvard. He has written more than 20 books of literary criticism. From a lifetime of writing and teaching about literature, this great scholar exhorts readers to consider the pleasures and benefits of reading well.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
-
Possessed by Memory
- The Inward Light of Criticism
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
What an endowment!
- By Norman on 04-03-21
By: Harold Bloom
-
Will in the World
- How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 550
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 348
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 348
Award-winning author Stephen Greenblatt is one of the most influential literary thinkers in the world. An acclaimed interpreter of Shakespeare's works, his ideas have changed the way countless people approach the classics. Now Greenblatt's uniquely brilliant voice delivers a magnificent biography of the Bard himself.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Politically Motivated
- By Donald on 09-29-04
-
Macbeth
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: James Marsters, Joanne Whalley, Josh Cooke, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 454
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 408
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 407
Infamously known as the cursed Scottish play, Macbeth is perhaps Shakespeare’s darkest tragedy. When General Macbeth is foretold by three witches that he will one day be King of Scotland, Lady Macbeth convinces him to get rid of anyone who could stand in his way – including committing regicide. As Macbeth ascends to the throne through bloody murder, he becomes a tyrant consumed by fear and paranoia.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Might want to Read Along
- By Syd Young on 02-03-14
-
The Modern Scholar
- Dante and His Divine Comedy: The Modern Scholar
- By: Professor Timothy B. Shutt
- Narrated by: Professor Timothy B. Shutt
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
Kenyon College professor Dr. Timothy B. Shutt examines Dante's greatest work, The Divine Comedy, both in terms of its autobiographical elements and its allegorical meaning for the human race.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Tour de Force on a Tour de Force
- By John on 05-19-14
-
The Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis
- By: Louis Markos, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Louis Markos
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 517
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 454
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 450
What can we still learn from C.S. Lewis? Find out in these 12 insightful lectures that cover the author's spiritual autobiography, novels, and his scholarly writings that reflect on pain and grief, love and friendship, prophecy and miracles, and education and mythology.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Basically a collection of sermons
- By Richard on 11-20-13
By: Louis Markos, and others
-
Ruin the Sacred Truths
- Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Mort Crim
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
Harold Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett. He provocatively rereads the Yahwist (or "J") writer, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, the Illiad, the Aeneid, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, the Henry IV plays, Paradise Lost, Blake's Milton, Wordsworth's Prelude, and works by Freud, Kafka, and Beckett.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Not one of Bloom's best
- By Benjamin Myers on 03-31-17
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Modern Scholar: Rediscovering Shakespeare - The Tragedies
- By: Professor Matthew Wagner
- Narrated by: Professor Matthew Wagner
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 9
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7
A greater emphasis on situations than characters (this numbs the audience's connection to the characters, so that when characters experience misfortune, the audience still finds it laughable) A struggle of young lovers to overcome difficulty, often presented by elders Separation and re-unification Deception among characters (especially mistaken identity) A clever servant Disputes between characters, often within a family Multiple, intertwining plots. Use of all styles of comedy (slapstick, puns, dry humour, earthy humour, witty banter, practical jokes) Pastoral element (courtly people living an idealized, rural life), originally an element of Pastoral Romance, exploited by Shakespeare for his comic plots and often parodied therein for humorous effects Happy Ending.
Love Books? You'll Love Audible.
Transform your day
Replace endless scrolling with endless listening. Chores can be fun.
Listen everywhere
Download titles to listen offline, wherever you are in the world.
Carry your entire Library
Your stories go where you go. Audiobooks don’t weigh a thing.
Listen and learn
Discover stories that can change your mind, your well-being, and your life.
Reach your reading goals
You can’t turn pages while you drive—but you can press play.
Find your niche
WIth thousands of titles to explore, there’s something for everyone.
What listeners say about Falstaff
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Darwin8u
- 02-06-20
Falstaff brooks no rebuttal.
"Falstaff brooks no rebuttal. His cascade of language blooms into a glowing radiance. He is the custodian of Shakespeare's word hoard."
- Harold Bloom, Falstaff
I know there are those that criticize Bloom’s approach to Shakespeare. He inserts himself too much into his text. He approaches Shakespeare as a poet and not necessarily as a scholar. He is no dramatist. He sees things that aren’t there and builds labyrinthine castles about Shakespeare from small, ambiguous clues.
I agree with much of it. But I love Bloom’s love for both Shakespeare and Falstaff. His book may not be perfect, but his love for Sir John is. I also love Bloom’s creativity. He might be just spinning webs and dancing with himself, but it feels like literary Jazz. If it ain’t your tune, well life is imperfect and short, so dance, watch, or drink some sack.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall1 out of 5 stars
-
Performance1 out of 5 stars
-
Story4 out of 5 stars
- Bill Bleuel
- 01-20-24
Narrative choices at odds with text
I felt that the narrative choices made didn't match the critical analysis of the text.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!