Vintage Verse Rhapsody: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Vintage Verse Rhapsody, credited to Various, 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 Vintage Verse Rhapsody, a collection of poetry selected and performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode. Rhapsodes of Ancient Greece were "song-stitchers", performing selections from the epics of Homer and Hesiod. The contemporary rhapsode performs the classical poetry of his or her language, culture, and tradition. Any particular collection and arrangement of poems for performance I term a ârhapsody.â In general terms, a rhapsody is an ecstatic expression of feeling and enthusiasm. In music, a rhapsody is an instrumental composition irregular in form and suggestive of improvisation. The poems in this rhapsody comprise a number of poems that I have performed in public and known for much of my life as well as several recent additions to my repertory. They are arranged in chronological order from the 16th century to the early 20th century. Some of the poets represented here are Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton, Alexander Pope, William Blake, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Lewis Carroll, and Robert Frost.

Recording facts

• Recording title: Vintage Verse Rhapsody
• Author credits: Various
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 33
• Listed recording duration: 1:44:10

Catalogue topics

• audio book
• lyric
• narrative
• dramatic
• metaphysical
• inspirational
• contemplative
• philosophical

Opening tracks: first 24 of 33

1. 01-What is Our Life? by Sir Walter Raleigh — 1:05
2. 02-Two Poems by Anonymous — 1:27
3. 03-Three Sonnets from Amoretti by Edmund Spenser — 3:26
4. 04-My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is by Sir Edward Dyer — 3:01
5. 05-Five Sonnets by William Shakespeare — 5:21
6. 06-Three Psalms from King James Version — 5:18
7. 07-Three Poems by John Donne — 5:11
8. 08-The Glories of Our Blood and State by James Shirley — 1:29
9. 09-Sonnet 19 On His Blindness by John Milton — 1:13
10. 10-The Constant Lover by Sir John Suckling — 1:07
11. 11-To His coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell — 2:42
12. 12-On a Fly Drinking Out of His Cup by William Oldys — 0:52
13. 13-Solitude by Alexander Pope — 1:25
14. 14-Two Poems by William Blake — 2:31
15. 15-Two Sonnets by William Wordsworth — 2:14
16. 16-Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge — 3:18
17. 17-The River of Life by Thomas Campbell — 1:29
18. 18-Three Poems by Leigh Hunt — 3:50
19. 19-The First Kiss of Love by George Gordon, Lord Byron — 2:18
20. 20-Two Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley — 2:12
21. 21-Five Poems by John Keats — 8:52
22. 22-Two Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — 3:46
23. 23-The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe — 2:30
24. 24-Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — 4:45

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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.