Characters of Shakespeare's Plays: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, credited to William Hazlitt, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Characters of Shakespeare's Plays by William Hazlitt. Read in English by Nemo; Eva Davis This famous Shakespearean exploration illuminates its plays through the frame of character, while also weighing theme, mood, structure and poetics. In it, 19th-century critic William Hazlitt unveils Shakespeare's genius in creating and infusing characters with a life-likeness that often challenges, if not overshadows, more material human nature -- in both inner and outer worlds. As he writes: "The characters breathe, move, and live, ... think and speak and act just as they might do, if left entirely to themselves." The first printing sold out in weeks, and the second sold briskly, until a harsh and antagonistic appraisal in The Quarterly Review quelled sales altogether -- and unraveled Hazlitt's critical cachet in the eyes of the general public. Not until the mid-twentieth century were Hazlitt and his works re-evaluated, when he was finally recognized as one of Shakespeare's foremost critics of all time. In literary criticism, the renowned Harold Bloom ranks Hazlitt second only to Dr. Johnson. - Summary by Nemo

Recording facts

• Recording title: Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
• Author credits: William Hazlitt
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 36
• Listed recording duration: 10:15:40

Catalogue topics

• plays
• Shakespeare
• literary criticism

Opening tracks: first 24 of 36

1. 00 - Introduction — 31:26
2. 01 - Preface — 27:15
3. 02 - Cymbeline — 19:01
4. 03 - Macbeth — 28:03
5. 04 - Julius Caesar — 15:10
6. 05 - Othello — 32:07
7. 06 - Timon of Athens — 10:53
8. 07 - Coriolanus — 26:02
9. 08 - Troilus and Cressida — 17:12
10. 09 - Antony and Cleopatra — 11:23
11. 10 - Hamlet — 18:42
12. 11 - The Tempest — 17:25
13. 12 - The Midsummer Night's Dream — 13:34
14. 13 - Romeo and Juliet — 30:34
15. 14 - Lear — 47:02
16. 15 - Richard II — 17:39
17. 16 - Henry IV in Two Parts — 27:25
18. 17 - Henry V — 20:34
19. 18 - Henry VI in Three Parts — 17:35
20. 19 - Richard III — 16:26
21. 20 - Henry VIII — 9:38
22. 21 - King John — 22:05
23. 22 - Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will — 14:32
24. 23 - The Two Gentlemen of Verona — 5:04

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.