Product Description<br/><br/><br/>MP3 CD Format<br/>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 ""The Rape of Lucrece,"" Shakespeare draws on the Roman take of the Emperor Tarquin's desire for Lucrece and its tragic consequences.<br/><br/><br/>Review<br/><br/><br/>"In 'Venus and Adonis, ' David Burke's narration smoothly bridges dramatized sections...David Burke's narrative presence in 'The Rape of Lucrece' is just as smooth, and Eve Best's Lucrece solidly brings the character's emotional torture to life. The verse is just as lofty, and the emotional range of the cast is much greater. As a result, the entire poem is closer to a Shakespearean drama and the whole, much more pleasing."-- "AudioFile"<br/><br/><br/>About the Author<br/><br/><br/>William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and dramatist of the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period, is the most widely known author in all of English literature and often considered the greatest. He was an active member of a theater company for at least twenty years, during which time he wrote many great plays. Plays were not prized as literature at the time, and Shakespeare was not widely read until the middle of the eighteenth century, when a great upsurge of interest in his works began that continues today.