Venus & Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece

Name: Venus & Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece
Brand: Naxos
Availability: InStock
Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Author: William Shakespeare
ISBN: 9789629546717

Author: William Shakespeare

Narrator: David Burke, Eve Best, Clare Corbett, Benjamin Soames, Oliver Le Sueur, and Ruth Sillers

Unabridged: 3 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Naxos

Published: 10/01/2006

Categories: Fiction, Poetry, European Poetry

Synopsis

These two great poems date from Shakespeare’s early years and are full of passion and invention. In Venus and Adonis, the goddess of love pleads with the beautiful boy to submit to her advances and become her love – but he only wants to hunt boar. In the more serious Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare draws on the Roman take of the Emperor Tarquin’s desire for Lucrece and its tragic consequences. These poems give prominent parts to the two heroines, and Clare Corbett and Eve Best shine.

About William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michael on April 06, 2022

The poetry is of course good, but the stories overbearing and dated. I am not being wokist, but we are talking about the death of a man because he would not bed a goddess (from Ovid’s Metamorphosis) and the death of a maiden because she was raped by her husband’s kinsman (from Ovid’s Fastis). Not th......more

Goodreads review by Wuthering Nina on January 13, 2023

not my favourite shakespeare......more

Goodreads review by Ginger on March 18, 2020

I must admit that I am not a poetry fan. The combination of Venus and Adonis with the Rape of Lucrece is an odd combination. Venus’s unrequited love of the beautiful Adonis could be the story of any woman in love with an immature man who wants to go hunting instead of staying with her. The Rape of Lu......more

Goodreads review by Lynda on May 02, 2020

I am actually reviewing The Rape of Lucrece here as I have already reviewed Venus and Adonis. As for Lucrece, what a tragically sad story of lust and suicide, though it must be remembered that suicide was generally viewed as honorable in Roman times if not in Shakespeare’s. I agree with Brutus, who......more