Today, I completed my thirty-sixth -- and final -- hour of Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, the audiobook.
I've tried (and failed) to complete Tom Jones the "old-fashioned" way on two earlier occasions, but only managed success by marrying the wonder of spoken word to a hand-eye task just routinely dull enough to make the novel comparably exciting.
To celebrate, I'm posting a few of the early modern English works I've found on Librivox. Librivox -- a site that provides audiobooks of works in the public domain -- is a surprisingly decent resource for early modern literature, since (of course) it's all already in the public domain. (It's okay for medieval, too, but great for nineteenth-century stuff.) Unfortunately, the site's search is limited to, more or less, "Author," "Title" and "Category," making it difficult to stumble across works in your period unless you know to look for them. Having users curate private collections of "favorite listening" could fill in the gaps. This list is a step in that direction.
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum
--------------, Essays
George Chapman, "Hero and Leander"
Richard Crashaw, "Love's Horoscope", from Short Poetry Collection 019
John Donne, "Death Be Not Proud"
------------, "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"
------------, Holy Sonnets I-XIX, other divine poems
------------, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", from Short Poetry Collection 088
George Herbert, Selections from The Temple
Robert Herrick, "Cherry-Ripe", from Short Poetry Collection 057
---------------, "The Night-piece: To Julia", from Short Poetry Collection 060
---------------, "Saint Distaff's Day"
---------------, "To Anthea", from Short Poetry Collection 017
---------------, "To Violets", from Short Poetry Collection 036
---------------, "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time", from Short Poetry Collection 052
---------------, "To the Western Wind", from Short Poetry Collection 036
---------------, "Upon Julia's Clothes," from Short Poetry Collection 020
---------------, "The Vine," from Short Poetry Collection 039
---------------, "Whenas in Silks", from Short Poetry Collection 029
Ben Jonson, The Forest
-----------, "Farewell to the World", from Short Poetry Collection 083
Christopher Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love", from Romantic Poetry 001
Andrew Marvell, "The Definition of Love", from Short Poetry Collection 013
----------------, "The First Anniversary of the Government Under His Highness the Lord Protector", from Short Poetry Collection 083
----------------, "An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell's Return From Ireland", from Short Poetry Collection 083
----------------, "On a Drop of Dew", from Short Poetry Collection 065
----------------, "To His Coy Mistress"
----------------, "The Garden", from Short Poetry Collection 086
John Milton, Areopagitica
------------, Paradise Lost
------------, Paradise Regained
------------, Samson Agonistes
Sir Thomas More, Utopia
Dorothy Osborne, Love Letters
Katherine Philips, Poems
Sir Walter Raleigh, "The Lie"
William Shakespeare, "As You Like It"
---------------------, "Fidele"
---------------------, "Hamlet"
---------------------, "Julius Caesar"
---------------------, "King Lear"
---------------------, "Measure for Measure"
---------------------, "The Merchant of Venice"
---------------------, "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
---------------------, "Much Ado About Nothing"
---------------------, "Othello"
---------------------, "The Passionate Pilgrim"
---------------------, "Richard II"
---------------------, "Richard III"
---------------------, "Romeo and Juliet" (other versions available)
---------------------, Sonnets (other versions available)
Sir Philip Sydney, Astrophil and Stella
-----------------, "My True Love"
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (all 6 books)
-----------------, Prothalamion, from Long Poems 005
Sir John Suckling, "The Constant Lover"
John Wilmot, "A Song of a Young Lady to her Ancient Lover"
Have any others to add?
6 comments:
Wow, this is great! Although the guy reading Novum Organum is just ripping through it--I don't think my ears could keep up!
I just found Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus: http://librivox.org/pamphilia-to-amphilanthus-by-lady-mary-wroth/
Now if someone would record Urania and Arcadia, I would be all set...
Excellent addition!
Yes, I should have warned that some of the readers are . . . not trained voice actors. Librivox seems to make some effort to weed out the worst, but a few are quite bad still.
I stumbled across your blog less than an hour ago, while searching for blogs to read on my subject area. (I recently decided to turn my hobby into a blog.) I am glad that I did! I am going to the website now, to see what I can find in the way of John Dryden. I will let you know what the results are! Thanks for this post!
I found two of his short poems, "Happy the Man," and "Fair Iris I Love and Hourly I Die," and both were well-spoken.
Thanks again for posting this, I could (and probably will) spend hours poking around on this site.
I didn't think to look up Dryden -- thanks, Christopher!
Also just noticed Aphra Behn is represented; Oroonoko (http://librivox.org/oroonoko-or-the-royal-slave-by-aphra-behn/) and two short poems (http://librivox.org/newcatalog/search.php?title=&author=behn&status=all&action=Search).
I don't have anything to add, but I am in awe of this post. My iPod listening for the rest of the year is now sorted! Thank you so much.
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