The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems, credited to Aldous Huxley, 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 Defeat of Youth and Other Poems by Aldous Huxley. Read in English by Arthur Krolman; bundy98; Renkotsu; Larry Wilson; J. McDougall Though later known for his essays and novels, Aldous Huxley started his writing career as a poet. Published in 1918, The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems is his third compilation of poetry. The volume begins with "The Defeat of Youth", a sequence of twenty-two sonnets that explores irreconcilability of the ideal and the disappointing reality. Jerome Meckier called it “the century’s most successful sonnet sequence, better than Auden’s or Edna St. Vincent Millay’s.” In the rest of the volume, Huxley continues to explore themes started in The Burning Wheel, his first volume of poetry, including vision, blindness, and other contrasts. The volume concludes with two English translations by Huxley of two French poems: Stéphane Mallarmé’s 1876 poem “L’Après-midi d’un faune" and Arthur Rimbaud’s (1871) poem “Les Chercheuses de poux,” translated as “The Louse Hunters.” Summary by Mary Kay.

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems
• Author credits: Aldous Huxley
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 42
• Listed recording duration: 1:23:18

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• nature
• French
• poem
• huxley
• love
• sonnets
• poems

Opening tracks: first 24 of 42

1. 01 - The Defeat of Youth: Under the Trees — 5:10
2. 02 - The Defeat of Youth: In the Hay-Loft — 2:15
3. 03 - The Defeat of Youth: Mountains — 2:16
4. 04 - The Defeat of Youth: In the Little Room — 6:54
5. 05 - The Defeat of Youth: In the Park — 3:08
6. 06 - The Defeat of Youth: Self Torment — 2:11
7. 07 - The Defeat of Youth: The Quarry in the Wood — 1:20
8. 08 - Song of Poplars — 2:07
9. 09 - The Reef — 3:42
10. 10 - Winter Dream — 1:53
11. 11 - The Flowers — 1:06
12. 12 - The Elms — 1:14
13. 13 - Out of the Window — 1:50
14. 14 - Inspiration — 0:53
15. 15 - Summer Stillness — 0:48
16. 16 - Anniversaries — 2:50
17. 17 - Italy — 2:15
18. 18 - The Alien — 0:49
19. 19 - A Little Memory — 0:55
20. 20 - Waking — 2:13
21. 21 - By the Fire — 2:11
22. 22 - Valedictory — 2:40
23. 23 - Love Song — 1:38
24. 24 - Private Property — 1:11

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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.