Art and Drama Audio Books to Download

| V-Chip.Org | Audio Books Home | Fiction Audio Books | Children's Audio Books | Language Audio Books | Tv and Film Audio Books | Radio Audio Books | Self-Help Audio Books| Arts & Drama Audio Books |

 | Biographical | Classic Literature | Dramatizations | Music Related | Poetry | Shakespeare FREE Audio Books - Courtesy of the audiobookquest.com

Download Audio Books from our partner company Talking Bookstore

Google


WWW v-chip

 

Canterbury Tales - Volume I, The
Play Windows Media Sample  Play Real Sample

Canterbury Tales - Volume I, The

Author : Geoffrey Chaucer
Performed By : Full Cast Production
Publisher : NAXOS
Runtime : 3 hours 20 minutes
Type : Poetry
Classic Literature
Dramatizations
Classics
Short Stories
Our Price : $14.99
Buy Now...

The Prologue
The Knight's Tale
The Miller's Tale
The Pardoner's Tale
The Merchant's Tale
The Franklin's Tale

Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of The Knight's Tale to the joyous bawdy of The Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigour in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

The Canterbury Tales, written near the end of Chaucer's life and hence towards the close of the fourteenth century, Is perhaps the greatest English literary work of the Middle Ages: yet it speaks to us today with almost undimmed clarity and relevance.

Chaucer imagines a group of twenty-nine pilgrims who meet in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, intent on making the traditional journey to the martyr's shrine of St Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. Harry Bailly landlord of the Tabard, proposes that the company should entertain themselves on the road with a storytelling competition. The teller of the best tale will be rewarded with a supper at the others' expense when the travellers return to London. Chaucer never completed this elaborate scheme - each pilgrim was supposed to tell four tales, but in fact we only have twenty-four altogether - yet, with the pieces of linking narrative and the prologues to each tale, the work as a whole constitutes a marvellously varied evocation of the medieval world which also goes beyond its period to penetrate (humorously, gravely tolerantly) human nature itself.

Chaucer, as a member of this company of pilgrims, presents himself with mock innocence as the admiring observer of his fellows, depicted in the General Prologue. Many of these are clearly rogues - the coarse, cheating Miller, the repulsive yet compelling Pardoner - yet in each of them Chaucer finds something human, often a sheer vitality or love of life which is irresistible: the Monk may prefer hunting to prayer, but he is after all a manly man, to be an abbot able. Perhaps only the unassuming, devoted Parson and his humbly labouring brother the Ploughman rise entirely above Chaucer's teasing irony; certainly the Parson's fellow clergy and religious officers belong to a Church riddled with gross corruption. Everyone, it seems, is on the make, in a world still recovering from the ravages of the Black Death.

Other titles you may be interested in

Sonnets, The

Sonnets, The

Author : William Shakespeare
Performed By : Sir John Gielgud
Publisher : Harper Collins US
Runtime : 2 hours
Type : Shakespeare
Poetry
Our Price : $25.00 $10.95
As read by the legendary Sir John Gielgud-- perhaps the greatest interpreter of the Bard we shall ever know-- the sonnets in this selection come alive... See full description...
Pied Piper of Hamelin, The

Pied Piper of Hamelin, The

Author : Various
Performed By : Various
Publisher : NAXOS
Runtime : 2 hours
Type : Classics
Poetry
Our Price : $11.49
Here are 60 of the finest and most entertaining poems for younger listeners. There are nonsense poems (The Jumblies) classic animal poems (The Snail ) stories of adventure (The Ballad of Sir... See full description...
Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, The

Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, The

Author : Robert Burns
Performed By : John Cairney
Publisher : Harper Collins UK
Runtime : 1 hour
Type : Poetry
Our Price : $12.49
This specially commissioned recording offers a wide-ranging choice of Burns's songs and lyrical poems; and longer poems... See full description...
Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass

Author : Walt Whitman
Performed By : Noah Waterman
Publisher : Blackstone Audio Inc
Runtime : 19 hours
Type : Poetry
Our Price : $85.95 $36.95
Whitman succeeded in his ambition to create something uniquely American. His poems are woven into the very fabric of the American character, from his solemn dirge "O Captain! My Captain!" to the jo... See full description...
Have you always loved reading but sometimes find it hard to find the time? There’s nothing quite like curling up with a good book but many of us can’t do that as much as we’d like. We sacrifice this special time because we have so many other things to do each day. It’s a common problem and it’s the reason why people on average are not reading as much as they once did. Audio books bring the story to life just as the storytellers of the past did. They allow you to experience the book in a whole new way; in the way the writer felt and heard it in their head. You can feel the emotion when you allow audio books to let the story come to life.