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Audiobooks Narrated by Full Cast Dramatization
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The Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, brings Richard III to life with this new full-length, full-cast dramatic recording of its definitive Folger Edition.
In Richard III, Shakespeare invites us on a moral holiday. The play draws us to identify with Richard and his fantasy of total control of self and domination of others. Not yet king at the start of the play, Richard presents himself as an enterprising villain as he successfully plans to dispose of his brother Clarence. Richard achieves similar success in conquering the woman he chooses to marry. He carves a way to the throne through assassination and executions.
But Richard also meets resistance, most threateningly from Queen Margaret, widow of King Henry VI, whom he killed before the play’s beginning. Margaret issues a stream of curses, including one on Richard.
Gradually, the curses are fulfilled, suggesting the curse on Richard may come true, too. Increasingly, the play directs our sympathies away from Richard. His supporters desert him; his victims pile up. We may begin to share in the desire for vengeance voiced by Margaret.
This new unabridged audio recording of the well-respected edition of Shakespeare’s classic—expertly produced by the Folger Theatre—is perfect for students, teachers, and the everyday listener.
The Folger Shakespeare Library, home to the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, brings Julius Caesar to life with this new full-length, full-cast dramatic recording of its definitive Folger Edition.
Shakespeare may have written Julius Caesar as the first of his plays to be performed at the Globe, in 1599. For it, he turned to a key event in Roman history: Caesar’s death at the hands of friends and fellow politicians. Renaissance writers disagreed over the assassination, seeing Brutus, a leading conspirator, as either hero or villain. Shakespeare's play keeps this debate alive.
This new unabridged audio recording of the well-respected edition of Shakespeare’s classic—expertly produced by the Folger Theatre—is perfect for students, teachers, and the everyday listener.
In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare creates a violent world in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud. This play, set in an extraordinary world, has become the quintessential story of young love.
In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended the English throne, becoming James I of England. London was alive with an interest in all things Scottish, and Shakespeare turned to Scottish history for material. He found a spectacle of violence and stories of traitors advised by witches and wizards, echoing James's belief in a connection between treason and witchcraft. In depicting a man who murders to become king, Macbeth teases us with huge questions. Is Macbeth tempted by fate, or by his or his wife's ambition? Why does their success turn to ashes?
Hamlet is Shakespeare's most popular, and most puzzling, play. It follows the form of a revenge tragedy, in which the hero, Hamlet, seeks vengeance against his father's murderer, his uncle Claudius, now the king of Denmark. Much of its fascination, however, lies in its uncertainties.
In Othello, Shakespeare creates powerful drama from a marriage between the exotic Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona. Shakespeare builds many differences into his hero and heroine, including race, age, and cultural background. Yet most audiences believe the couple's strong love would overcome these differences were it not for Iago, who sets out to destroy Othello.
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare stages the workings of love. Theseus and Hippolyta, about to marry, are figures from mythology. In the woods outside Theseus' Athens, two young men and two young women sort themselves out into couples, but not before they form first one love triangle, and then another.
Also in the woods, the king and queen of fairyland, Oberon and Titania, battle over custody of an orphan boy; Oberon uses magic to make Titania fall in love with a weaver named Bottom, whose head is temporarily transformed into that of a donkey by a hobgoblin or "puck," Robin Goodfellow. Finally, Bottom and his companions ineptly stage the tragedy of "Pyramus and Thisbe."
