Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
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By:
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Harold Bloom
About this listen
Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in history - and thanks to Shakespeare, one of the most intriguing personalities in literature. She is the lover of Marc Antony, defender of Egypt, and, perhaps most enduringly, a champion of life. Cleopatra is supremely vexing, tragic, and complex. She has fascinated audiences for centuries and has been played by the greatest actresses of their time, from Elizabeth Taylor to Vivien Leigh to Janet Suzman to Judi Dench.
Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Cleopatra with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. 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. The book becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our own humanity.
Bloom is mesmerizing in the classroom, wrestling with the often tragic choices Shakespeare's characters make. With Cleopatra, he delivers exhilarating clarity and invites us to look at this character as a flawed human who might be living in our world. The result is an invaluable resource from our greatest literary critic.
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WOW
- By Mitchell Drimmer on 02-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
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Tales from Shakespeare
- By: Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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A classic
- By Jacque Eddy on 10-07-19
By: Charles Lamb, and others
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Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained
- By: John Milton
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Paradise Lost, along with its companion piece, Paradise Regained, remain the most successful attempts at Greco-Roman style epic poetry in the English language. Remarkably enough, they were written near the end of John Milton's amazing life, a bold testimonial to his mental powers in old age. And, since he had gone completely blind in 1652, 15 years prior to Paradise Lost, he dictated it and all his other works to his daughter.
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SELL YOUR SHIRT FOR THIS AUDIO BOOK!
- By thomas on 04-23-11
By: John Milton
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The Scarlet Plague [Classic Tales Edition]
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Twelve billionaires rule the United States, while those called freemen are forced to serve the rich. But that was 60 years ago, before the Scarlet Plague. In this post-apocalyptic novella, a ragged and tattered old man tells his progeny of what life was like before The Scarlet Plague appeared - and wiped out civilization as they knew it.
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wonderful listen very relevant today!
- By Johnny on 12-02-17
By: Jack London
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Terry Jones
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour.
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An absolute delight!
- By Shannon Slee on 07-15-18
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Talisman
- By: Sir Walter Scott
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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a simple story but a joy to listen to
- By Adele Lemmon on 08-23-19
By: Sir Walter Scott
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The Talisman
- By: Sir Walter Scott
- Narrated by: Robert Whitfield
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Crusaders, led by Richard I of England, are encamped in the Holy Land, and torn by the dissensions and jealousies of the leaders, including, besides Coeur de Lion himself, Philip of France, the duke of Austria, the Marquis of Montferrat, and the Grand Master of the Templars. The army's impotence is accentuated by the illness of Richard.
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Surprisingly enjoyable adventure!
- By GoryDetails on 10-19-05
By: Sir Walter Scott
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Idylls of the King
- By: Alfred Tennyson
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Arthurian legend of Camelot has been told many times, but never better than by Alfred Tennyson. Employing some of the most stirring and beautiful blank verse ever written, Tennyson crafted his version of the Knights of the Round Table over the course of nearly fifty years, completing it in 1885. Despite the length of time, Tennyson managed to maintain a high level of style and continuity throughout.
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Beautiful poetry
- By Roger on 01-15-08
By: Alfred Tennyson
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Don Quixote (Adapted for Modern Listeners)
- By: Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Great way in
- By pxriver on 07-12-18
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Falstaff
- Give Me Life
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Falstaff brooks no rebuttal.
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
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Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
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How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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"Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom begins this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threatens to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom.
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Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
By: Harold Bloom
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The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.....
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A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Falstaff
- Give Me Life
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Narrative choices at odds with text
- By Bill Bleuel on 04-23-24
By: Harold Bloom
-
Lear
- The Great Image of Authority
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Bloom being Bloom
- By C. Yuen on 10-05-23
By: Harold Bloom
-
How To Read and Why
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Information is endlessly available to us; where shall wisdom be found?" is the crucial question with which renowned literary critic Harold Bloom begins this impassioned book on the pleasures and benefits of reading well. For more than forty years, Bloom has transformed college students into lifelong readers with his unrivaled love for literature. Now, at a time when faster and easier electronic media threatens to eclipse the practice of reading, Bloom draws on his experience as critic, teacher, and prolific reader to plumb the great books for their sustaining wisdom.
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-
Like a review of my graduate English degree
- By Barbara on 10-01-12
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.....
-
-
A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.