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Will in the World
- How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's summary
It is impossible to have any understanding of literature and not be familiar with William Shakepeare. He has influenced Western culture more than any other author. But how were Shakespeare's remarkable accomplishments even possible? How could a man without wealth, connections, or a university education move to London and quickly become the greatest playwright of all time? In this emerging narrative, Elizabethan England is reawakened, and we at last understand how Shakespeare became a legendary figure.
Critic reviews
"This wonderful study, built on a lifetime's scholarship and a profound ability to perceive the life within the texts, creates as vivid and full portrait of Shakespeare as we are likely ever to have." (Publishers Weekly)
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 65
Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
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5 out of 5 stars
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JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 09-30-14
By: Leo Damrosch
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The Man Who Invented Fiction
- How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 42
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Interesting and Informative, but Poorly Read
- By LCorSMT on 06-21-23
By: William Egginton
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The Creation of Anne Boleyn
- A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen
- By: Susan Bordo
- Narrated by: Barbara Rosenblat
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 406
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 371
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 369
Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Most Enjoyable Biography--Win!
- By Roswatheist on 03-29-14
By: Susan Bordo
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Shakespeare and the Resistance
- By: Clare Asquith
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent scholarship unveiling hidden history
- By Anonymous User on 07-03-23
By: Clare Asquith
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 334
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 151
Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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God’s Secretaries
- The Making of the King James Bible
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 294
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 259
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 258
It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not what I was expecting
- By Greg on 12-29-13
By: Adam Nicolson
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The Winter's Tale
- Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Sinead Cusack, Ciaran Hinda, Eileen Atkins, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 52 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 323
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 288
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 290
King Leontes of Sicilia is seized by sudden and terrible jealousy of his wife Hermione, whom he accuses of adultery. He believes the child Hermione is bearing was fathered by his friend Polixenes, and when the baby girl is born he orders her to be taken to some wild place and left to die. Though Hermione's child escapes death, Leontes' cruelty has terrible consequences. Loss paves the way for reunion, and life and hope are born out of desolation and despair.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Snapper-Up of Unconsidered Trifles
- By John on 06-10-17
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The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 358
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 299
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 294
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
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The Roman Way
- By: Edith Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 193
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 146
Edith Hamilton shows us Rome through the eyes of the Romans. Plautus and Terence, Cicero and Caesar, Catullus, Horace, Virgil, and Augustus come to life in their ambitions, their work, their loves and hates. In them we see reflected a picture of Roman life very different from that fixed in our minds through schoolroom days, and far livelier.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not so bad
- By steve on 04-25-11
By: Edith Hamilton
-
Heroes
- From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 66
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
In this enlightening and entertaining work, Johnson presents heroism through examples in history. From Alexander to Joan of Arc and George Washington to Marilyn Monroe, here are men and women from every age and corner of the world who have inspired and transformed their cultures and the world itself.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, but deeply flawed
- By Kennet on 12-27-07
By: Paul Johnson
-
Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Colm Toibin
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 35
Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Eminently re-readable
- By Ellen-A on 01-02-19
By: Colm Toibin
-
King Richard III
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh, Geraldine McEwan, Nicholas Farrell, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 193
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 132
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 130
Written in 1593, King Richard III is one of Shakespeare's earliest plays. This play differs from its predecessors, being amore structured piece, examining the development and motivations of a single character, Richard Duke of Gloucester, who will stop at nothing to gain control of the throne occupied by his brother Edward IV.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end
- By Darwin8u on 03-16-17
-
Tyrant
- Shakespeare on Politics
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 188
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 185
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Too Close for Comfort
- By C. Gross on 05-10-18
-
Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
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Tyrant
- Shakespeare on Politics
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 188
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 185
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Too Close for Comfort
- By C. Gross on 05-10-18
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The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 151
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
Bolder even than the ambitious books for which Stephen Greenblatt is already renowned, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve explores the enduring story of humanity's first parents. Comprising only a few ancient verses, the story of Adam and Eve has served as a mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole long history of our fears and desires, as both a hymn to human responsibility and a dark fable about human wretchedness.
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4 out of 5 stars
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For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return
- By Darwin8u on 02-11-18
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The Swerve
- How the World Became Modern
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,397
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,938
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,929
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
-
Shakespeare
- The Biography
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 181
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
Only Peter Ackroyd can combine narrative and unique observation with a sharp eye for the fascinating fact. His method is to position Shakespeare in the close context of his world. In this way, he not only richly conjures up the texture of Shakespeare’s life, but also imparts an amazing amount of vivid, interesting material about place, period and background.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd
- By Four Bears on 10-16-06
By: Peter Ackroyd
-
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 141
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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 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
-
Tyrant
- Shakespeare on Politics
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 188
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 185
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 Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 173
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
Bolder even than the ambitious books for which Stephen Greenblatt is already renowned, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve explores the enduring story of humanity's first parents. Comprising only a few ancient verses, the story of Adam and Eve has served as a mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole long history of our fears and desires, as both a hymn to human responsibility and a dark fable about human wretchedness.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return
- By Darwin8u on 02-11-18
-
The Swerve
- How the World Became Modern
- By: Stephen Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,397
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,938
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 2,929
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Very compelling history, a less compelling thesis
- By A reader on 05-01-12
-
Shakespeare
- The Biography
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 181
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
Only Peter Ackroyd can combine narrative and unique observation with a sharp eye for the fascinating fact. His method is to position Shakespeare in the close context of his world. In this way, he not only richly conjures up the texture of Shakespeare’s life, but also imparts an amazing amount of vivid, interesting material about place, period and background.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd
- By Four Bears on 10-16-06
By: Peter Ackroyd
-
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 141
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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 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
-
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 1,834
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,266
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,254
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.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Too Little, Too Short
- By Charles L. Burkins on 11-30-07
By: Bill Bryson
-
Falstaff
- Give Me Life
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays. 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. 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.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Falstaff brooks no rebuttal.
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
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 39
-
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.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
-
The Year of Lear
- Shakespeare in 1606
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 184
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 155
In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare's great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past. But that year, at age 42, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn - King Lear - then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Detailed and satisfying
- By Tad Davis on 02-24-16
By: James Shapiro
-
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.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Moor's Not Nice Guy - friend
- By Darwin8u on 02-13-20
By: Harold Bloom
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Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 23
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.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
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.
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Othello
- By: William Shakespeare, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Bill Rauch - director
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 2 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 191
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 173
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 172
In Shakespeare’s most intimate tragedy, director Bill Rauch explores racism, religious bias, xenophobia, and the more disturbing aspects of relationships in the context of our society’s ongoing struggle with polarizing differences. Consumed by their bigotry, those who praised the Moorish general Othello’s military successes now reject his marriage to Desdemona. The newlyweds are determined to overcome all obstacles, but Othello’s assignment in an exotic new location draws them into the web of his lieutenant Iago, whose resentment and demons know no bounds.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Tremendous Production
- By Robert Taylor on 05-30-21
By: William Shakespeare, and others
-
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent and accessible listen
- By Amanda L. Hughes on 01-05-21
By: Emma Smith
-
Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 18
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16
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 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 516
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 453
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 449
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.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Basically a collection of sermons
- By Richard on 11-20-13
By: Louis Markos, and others
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The Modern Scholar
- Shakespeare: Ten Great Comedies
- By: Prof. Raphael Shargel
- Narrated by: Prof. Raphael Shargel
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 22
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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.
What listeners say about Will in the World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Donald
- 10-26-04
Make That 3 Stars
While the author's bias is evident, I did find the book interesting.
Could have been a 5 star. Take it with a grain of salt. Very good reader.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Geoff
- 12-11-17
More fiction than biography
Whilst the narrator does a good job of pumping a bit of authority into this story it really is just a bit of storytelling. The author has a background in literature and is quite florid in his speculations about the meanings and motivations in various of Shakespeare's plays poems and Sonnets, seeking to weave a coherent account of the Stratford man's personal life in this book. Unfortunately there is so little known about Shakespeare's personal life that Greenblatt ends up playing the same game as virtually all Shakespeare biographers before him - speculating, supposing and surmising his way throughout. I was hoping for a reasonably rigorous biography from this otherwise scholarly author. Alas, he lacks any sound methodology and compensates with flourishing literary interpretive dance across the biographical page!
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
- Donald
- 09-29-04
Politically Motivated
What a disappointment! Here i was, hoping to learn something. It soon became clear, this was a pc professor (of the Howard Zinn strain), pushing his pc political agenda.
I feel terible that I helped put $$$ in this man's pocket.....
Do yourself a favor.....skip this OR do a "Google" search on the author BEFORE purchasing. I wish I had.
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52 people found this helpful