Librivox Audiobooks

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 - 1527)
Translated by Oskar Albin Kallio (1874 - 1940)

Ruhtinas on erään Firenzeläisen valtiosihteerin, Niccolo Machiavellin, ohjekirja ruhtinaille, jotka haluavat säilyttää tai lisätä ruhtinaskuntainsa valtaa. Se on kirjoitettu renessansin ajan Italiassa, jolloin koko maa oli jakautunut pieniin, toisiansa nokitteleviin kaupunkivaltioihin ja se on omistettu sille ruhtinaalle, jota Machiavelli toivoo koko kansan yhdistäjäksi. Ruhtinas on yksi maailman luetuimmista ja arvostetuimmista kirjallisista teoksista. Vai pitäisikö sanoa epäarvostetuimmista, sillä se oli pitkään Indexissä, eli Kirkon kiellettyjen kirjojen listalla ja herättänyt lukijoissa läpi historian paljon kauhistelua ja pelon sekasita kunnioitusta. Sitä pidetään reaalipolitiikan peruskirjana, jossa Machiavelli kertoo suoraan miten asiat ovat, ei miten niiden pitäisi olla. Monet ovat löytäneet Machiavellin ohjeet hyödyllisiksi myös nykyajan arki- ja liike-elämässä. - Summary by Harri Tapani Ylilammi

Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

The Divine Comedy (Italian: Commedia, later christened "Divina" by Giovanni Boccaccio), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, the last great work of literature of the Middle Ages and the first great work of the Renaissance. A culmination of the medieval world-view of the afterlife, it establishes the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the Italian standard, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. - The Divine Comedy is composed of three canticas (or "cantiche") — Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) — composed each of 33 cantos (or "canti"). The very first canto serves as an introduction to the poem and is generally not considered to be part of the first cantica, bringing the total number of cantos to 100. - The poet tells in the first person his travel through the three realms of the dead, lasting during the Easter Triduum in the spring of 1300. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Translated by Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800 - 1882)

The Confessions outlines Augustine's sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1,000 years, through the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40s, and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work (City of God). It does, nonetheless, provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single person from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. It begins:
"GREAT art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite. And Thee would man praise; man, but a particle of Thy creation; man, that bears about him his mortality, the witness of his sin, the witness, that ]Thou, O God, resistest the proud: yet would man praise Thee; he, but a particle of Thy creation. Thou awakes us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, unless it repose in Thee.”

Support Us And Donate Here:⁠⁠⁠ https://libri-vox.org/donate/William Blake’s volume of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience is the embodiment of his belief that innocence and experience were “the two contrary states of the human soul,” and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Songs of Innocence contains poems either written from the perspective of children or written about them. Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience, with quite a different perspective of the world.
The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the despair found in Songs of Experience. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. He did not, however, believe that children should be kept from becoming experienced entirely. In truth, he believed that children should indeed become experienced but through their own discoveries, which is reflected in a number of these poems.Support Us And Donate Here:⁠⁠⁠ https://libri-vox.org/donate/

Support Us And Donate Here:⁠⁠⁠ https://libri-vox.org/donate/Siddhartha is one of the great philosophical novels. Profoundly insightful, it is also a beautifully written story that begins as Siddhartha, son of an Indian Brahman, leaves his family and begins a lifelong journey towards Enlightenment. On the way he faces the entire range of human experience and emotion: he lives with ascetics, meets Gotama the Buddha, learns the art of love from Kamala the courtesan, and is transformed by the simple philosophy of the ferryman Vasudeva whose wisdom comes not from learned teachings but from observing the River. Herman Hesse (1877-1962) was a German-Swiss novelist, poet, and painter. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. Support Us And Donate Here:⁠⁠⁠ https://libri-vox.org/donate/

Support Us And Donate Here:⁠⁠⁠ https://libri-vox.org/donate/Pygmalion (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw based on the Greek myth of the same name. It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics (based on phonetician Henry Sweet), who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and Doolittle grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she will marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill – a young, poor, gentleman. - The play was later the basis for the successful movie adaptation "My Fair Lady" with Audrey Hepburn as Eliza and Rex Harrison as Prof. Higgins.

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