Audiobook · read by volunteers
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
Read by Becky Miller · 5 chapters · 3 h 02
About the book
Two families in Verona have hated each other for so long that nobody remembers why. One night a young man from the Montague house slips into a masked ball at the Capulets’, and there he meets a girl whose beauty undoes him at once. Juliet feels the same. What follows is a swift, passionate story of secret promises, stolen meetings and the cruel force of feud and chance. Shakespeare packs it into a few days, with sword fights, comic servants, a nurse who cannot stop talking and a friar who tries to help. Poetry and passion run through every scene, from the balcony conversation to the last hours. This five-act recording, lasting about three hours, lets you hear one of the world’s most famous love stories as it was written to be heard.
Introduction
William Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616, and Romeo and Juliet, first printed in 1597, is among his most popular and most often performed plays. It is generally dated to the mid-1590s, and its main source is a long English poem on the subject, Arthur Brooke’s The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, published in 1562. It is perhaps the most famous of Shakespeare’s plays and is thought to be the most famous love story in Western history. Its subject is the fate of two very young lovers who would do anything to be together, while the Montagues and the Capulets of Verona, in Italy, are caught up in a long-standing feud.
The play follows them from the masquerade party where Romeo first sees Juliet to the decisions that bind them to one another in secret. Shakespeare mixes high lyric poetry with bawdy humour, and the contrast is part of the pleasure: the lovers speak in verse that has become part of common culture, while the supporting cast, especially Juliet’s nurse and Romeo’s friend Mercutio, supply wit and colour. The drama moves quickly, and the sense of urgency never lets up.
This recording is divided into five parts, one for each act, and lasts around three hours. A play is meant to be heard, and hearing the verse aloud brings out its rhythm and makes the quick exchanges easy to follow.
Listeners who know the story only from films or school may be surprised by how funny the first half is, and by the lightness of the language. Whether you are meeting the play for the first time or returning to it, it offers a fine evening’s listening.
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