The Anniversary Poems: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Anniversary Poems, credited to John Donne, 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 The Anniversary Poems by John Donne. Read in English by Thomas A. Copeland. Elizabeth Drury, daughter of Donne's patron, Sir Robert Drury, died in 1610. A year later Donne laments her hyperbolically as the soul of the created universe. In "An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary," he poetically scrutinizes that year-old corpse, the world, as if he were performing an autopsy (an "anatomy"). He finds it corrupt in every part, the dead woman having carried with her every spark of goodness it once contained. To commemorate the second anniversary of Miss Drury's death, Donne's "Progress of the Soul" (1612) celebrates her liberation from this world, urges readers to follow her example, and performs a cheerful spiritual meditation upon the process of death, burial, and corruption—cheerful because death frees us from the inconveniences of this life and serves as a portal to the next. Each poem is introduced by an encomium that, though purporting to be written by another hand, appears to be the poet's own work. (Summary by Thomas Copeland)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Anniversary Poems
• Author credits: John Donne
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 2
• Listed recording duration: 1:10:03

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• wit
• cosmology
• metaphysical
• lamentation
• heroic couplets
• eschatology

Track guide

1. 01 - First Anniversary — 37:26
2. 02 - Second Anniversary — 32:37

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

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.