Some Poems of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare, born in 1564 and died in 1616, is the best-known writer in the English language. He is remembered above all for his plays, but he was also the author of narrative poems, of a famous sequence of sonnets, and of songs that appear inside his comedies and tragedies. These songs are sung by characters on the stage, and they have a clarity and a rhythm that make them easy to remember.

This recording takes its selection from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250 to 1900, the anthology edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch and first published in 1900, which was for many years the standard collection of its kind. In it, Shakespeare’s lyrics appear next to those of other poets, and they show how rich the English tradition had become by the Elizabethan age. The pieces chosen here are short, and many of them are about nature, love and the seasons. Some, like the songs of spring and winter at the end of Love’s Labour’s Lost, set a lively scene with a few images. The chapter titles include “Under the Greenwood Tree”, “Blow, blow, thou Winter Wind” and “Take, O take those Lips away”.

The recording has 22 chapters, one for each poem, and the total length is about twenty-five minutes. A single LibriVox volunteer reads them all.

Today, these songs can be enjoyed both as poems and as small windows into the theatre of Shakespeare’s time. They are brief enough to be heard again and again, and each one repays attention to its music. The short length makes it a convenient gift for a coffee break or a walk.