Audiobooks Narrated by Gideon Wagner

Tintern Abbey

"William Wordsworth was born on 7 April, 1770 in Cockermouth, in Cumbria, northwest England. Wordsworth spent his early years in his beloved Lake District often with his sister, Dorothy. The English lakes could terrify as well as nurture, and as Wordsworth would write “I grew up fostered alike by beauty and by fear,”After being schooled at Hawkshead he went to St. John’s College, Cambridge but not liking the competitive nature of the place idled his way through saying he “was not for that hour, nor for that place.” Whilst still at Cambridge he travelled to France. He was immediately taken by the Revolutionary fervor and the confluence of a set of great ideals and rallying calls for the people of France.In his early twenties he ventured again to France and fathered an illegitimate child. He would not see that daughter till she was 9 owing to the tensions and hostilities between England and France.There now followed a period of three to four years that plagued Wordsworth with doubt. He was now in his early thirties but had no profession, was rootless and virtually penniless. Although his career was not on track he did manage to publish two volumes, both in 1793; An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches.This dark period ended in 1795. A legacy of £900 received from Raisley Calvert enabled Wordsworth to pursue a literary career in earnest. In 1797 he became great friends with a fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. They formed a partnership that would change both their lives and the course of English poetry.Their aim was for a decisive break with the strictures of Neoclassical verse. In 1798 the ground breaking Lyrical Ballads was published. Wordsworth wrote in the preface “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Most of the poems were dramatic in form, designed to reveal the character of the speaker. Thus the poems set forth a new style, a new vocabulary, and new subjects for poetry.Coleridge had also conceived of an enormous poem to be called “The Brook,” in which he proposed to treat all science, philosophy, and religion, but soon laid the burden of writing it to Wordsworth. To test his powers for that endeavour, Wordsworth began writing the autobiographical poem that would absorb him for the next 40 years, and which was eventually published as The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind. By the 1820s, the critical acclaim for Wordsworth was growing, but perhaps his best years of work were behind him. Nonetheless he continued to write and to revise previous works. With the death is 1843 of his friend and Poet Laureate Robert Southey, Wordsworth was offered the position. He accepted despite saying he wouldn’t write any poetry as Poet Laureate. And indeed he didn’t.Wordsworth died of pleurisy on 23 April 1850. He was buried in St Oswald’s church Grasmere."

William Wordsworth (Author), Gideon Wagner (Narrator)

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Shakespeare. An Ode for His Three-Hundreth Birthday

"Tupper is a neglected poet but his verse on perhaps the greatest of all poets is a knowing and dedicated tribute."

Martin Farquhar Tupper (Author), Gideon Wagner (Narrator)

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Lycidas

"John Milton was born in Bread Street, London, on December 9th, 1608. His early years were privately tutored before gaining a place at St Paul’s School and in 1625 he matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, earning a BA in 1629 and an MA in 1632. At Cambridge he had developed a reputation for poetic skill but also experienced alienation from his peers and university life as a whole. The next 6 years were spent in private study. He read both ancient and modern works of theology, philosophy, history, politics, literature and science, in preparation for a poetical career. Milton mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and Italian. To these he would add Old English (whilst researching his History of Britain) and also acquired more than a passing acquaintance in Dutch. Although he was studying, some of his poetry from this time is remarkable; L’Allegro and Il Penseroso in 1631 and Lycidias in 1638.In May 1638, Milton embarked upon a 15 month tour of France and Italy. These travels added a new and direct experience of artistic and religious traditions, especially Roman Catholicism. He cut the journey short to return home during the summer of 1639 because of what he claimed were "sad tidings of civil war in England." Once home, Milton wrote prose tracts against episcopacy, in the service of the Puritan and Parliamentary cause. He married 16-year-old Mary Powell in June 1643 but she left him after only a few months during which he wrote and published several writings on divorce. Mary did return after 3 years and their life thereafter seemed harmonious. Milton received a hostile response to the divorce tracts and drove him to write Areopagitica, his celebrated attack on pre-printing censorship. With the parliamentary victory in the Civil War, Milton wrote The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) which defended popular government and implicitly sanctioned the regicide which led to his appointment as Secretary for Foreign Tongues by the Council of State. On 24 February 1652 Milton published his Latin defense of the English People, Defensio Pro Populo Anglicano, also known as the First Defense. Milton's Latin prose and intellectual sweep, quickly gained him a European reputation. Tragically his first wife, Mary, died on May 5th, 1652 following the birth of their fourth child. The following year Milton had become totally blind, probably due to glaucoma. He then had to dictate his verse and prose to helpers, one of whom was the poet Andrew Marvell. He married again to Katherine Woodcock but she died in February 1658, less than four months after giving birth to a daughter, who also tragically died. Though Cromwell’s death in 1658 caused the English Republic to collapse Milton stubbornly clung to his beliefs and in 1659 he published A Treatise of Civil Power, attacking the concept of a state-dominated church. Upon the Restoration in May 1660, Milton went into hiding for his life. An arrest warrant was issued and his writings burnt. He re-emerged after a general pardon was issued, but was nevertheless arrested and briefly imprisoned before influential friends, such as Marvell, now an MP, intervenedHis third marriage was to Elizabeth Mynshull. Despite a 31-year age gap, the marriage seemed happy and Milton spent the remaining decade of his life living quietly in London, apart from a short spell in Chalfont St. Giles, during the Great Plague of London. Milton was to now publish his greatest works, which had been gestating for many years. Paradise Lost, perhaps the classic English Epic poem was originally published in 10 books in 1667. This was followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes in 1671. Because of his anti-monarchy views their reception was muted but over the centuries since Milton has established himself as second only to Shakespeare. He died of kidney failure on November 8th, 1674 and was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate."

John Milton (Author), Gideon Wagner (Narrator)

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