Audiobook · read by volunteers
Romeo and Juliet (version 2)
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Read by Ancilla, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), Christie Nowak, Cori Samuel, Andy Minter (1934-2017), Esther, Alan Davis Drake (1945-2010), Andrew Lebrun, Lizzie Driver, Simon Taylor · 6 chapters · 3 h 03
About the book
Two families in Verona have hated each other for as long as anyone can remember. Then, at a masked ball, a young Montague sees a daughter of the Capulets and falls in love at once, and she with him. Their love is secret, swift and immensely brave, helped by a friar who hopes it might heal the feud, and by a nurse who carries their messages. But the world around them is full of anger, haste and bad luck, and the two young people have only a few days. Shakespeare's most famous tragedy is also one of his most lyrical, full of moonlight, poetry and wit that darkens as the play moves on. This second LibriVox version, with a full cast in six parts, runs for just over three hours.
Introduction
William Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616. Romeo and Juliet was written in the mid-1590s and first published in 1597. It is one of his early tragedies, and it has remained one of the most popular and most frequently performed plays in the world.
Shakespeare did not invent the story. He found it in an English poem based on earlier Italian tales, and he reworked it with a freedom that made it his own. What he added was the intensity of language, the sharply drawn secondary characters and a structure in which comedy and tragedy sit side by side. Mercutio's wit, the Nurse's earthy talk and the formal beauty of the lovers' own speeches give the play a range of tones. The prologue calls the lovers "star-crossed", and the sense of fate that this word suggests runs through the whole drama, balanced by the characters' own choices.
This is the second LibriVox recording of the play. It is a full-cast reading, with volunteers taking the roles, and it is divided into the prologue and five acts. The whole lasts about three hours.
Why listen? Because the play is built for the ear. Its balconies and tombs, its sonnet shared between two strangers and its swift changes of mood are all the more striking when heard. And hearing it in a version with many voices brings out the energy of the crowd scenes and the fierceness of the feud.
Public domain
William Shakespeare died in 1616: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text