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Boring Books for Bedtime Readings to Help You Sleep

A Study of Shakespeare, by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Boring Books for Bedtime Readings to Help You Sleep

Sharon Handy

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.61.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2020

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Let's relax to the metrical musings of a great Victorian poet about a great Elizabethan playwright, in a wordy work that is mostly about how other Shakespearean scholars are...not great.

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Read "A Study of Shakespeare" at Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16412

Music: "Exit Exit" by PCIII (freemusicarchive.org), licensed under CC BY

All Boring Books for Bedtime readings are taken from works in the public domain. If you'd like to suggest a copyright-free reading for soft-spoken relaxation to help you overcome insomnia, anxiety and other sleep issues, send a recommendation on Twitter, on our website, or on Patreon. I'd love to hear from you!

Transcript

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0:00.0

Good evening and thank you for joining me for another boring books for bedtime.

0:08.0

I hope tonight selection provides all the boredom your busy brain needs to quiet down and let you

0:17.1

get some sleep.

0:19.6

So find a comfortable spot. adjust your volume, take a nice deep breath in, let it out slowly, and off we go.

0:36.0

Before we begin tonight's reading I'd like to give a special shout out of thanks to three new Patreon subscribers, Elizabeth, Laura and Becky.

0:50.1

Thank you so much to all of you for becoming members of our Patreon family.

0:55.5

Your support makes this podcast possible and it's much appreciated.

1:01.5

If you're interested in learning about ways to support Boring Books for Bedtime,

1:06.0

you'll find links in the show description or on our website,

1:10.0

www. Boring Books pod.com. W. This evening were relaxing with a study of Shakespeare by Victorian poet Algernan Charles Swinburn,

1:29.7

edited by Edmund Goss. Let's begin. Preface to this edition.

1:37.0

Began in the winter of 1874, a first installment of a study of Shakespeare appeared in the

1:50.4

fortnightly review for May 1875 and a second in the number for June 1876.

2:02.0

But the completed work was not issued in book form until June 1880.

2:09.6

In a letter to me, January 31st, 1875, Swinburne said, quote, I am now at work on my long designed

2:22.3

essay or study on the metrical progress or development

2:27.1

of Shakespeare as traceable by ear and not by finger, and the general changes of tone and stages of mind expressed or

2:39.0

involved in this change or progress of style."

2:45.0

End quote.

2:47.0

The book was produced at the moment when controversy with regard to the internal evidence of composition in the writings attributed

2:57.4

to Shakespeare was raging high, and the amusing appendices were added at the last moment that they might

3:07.2

infuriate the pittance of the new Shakespeare society. they amply fulfilled that amiable purpose.

...

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