Thomas Whichello
My principal aim in this channel is to read literature that I consider interesting or great, in the most meaningful way I can. With emphasis, inflection, and pause, I want to make classic works intelligible and enjoyable to everybody; including those to whom, on the printed page, they may appear perplexing or meaningless. More specifically, I am also trying to develop a new way of reading out loud that truly allows words to sink in, giving the listener time to understand, imagine, and feel, as completely as possible, every separate concept that is heard. If any of my uploads seem excessively slow, or otherwise ill, then I can only plead as an excuse for it, that I am still in an early stage of growth and experimentation; and intend to improve, gradually, with every new recording I make, for the rest of my life. My ultimate hope (however many years it may take to achieve) is to make even authors like Spenser or Milton, as understandable as a common newspaper.
Book 1 of Homer's Iliad, read in ancient Greek
Jesus's Farewell Discourse, read from the King James Bible (John 14-17)
Advice to the Players from Shakespeare, read in a 17th century pronunciation (Hamlet III.2)
The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, read in a 16th century pronunciation (tr. by Arthur Golding in 1565)
Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
"Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks" from Shakespeare's Lear, read in a 17th century pronunciation
Jerusalem and The Tyger by William Blake, read in a Regency era pronunciation
The U. S. Bill of Rights, read in an eighteenth century pronunciation
Keats' Ode to a Nightingale, read in a Regency era pronunciation
Ozymandias by P. B. Shelley, read in a Regency era pronunciation
Три стихотворения лорда Байрона, прочитанные с произношением эпохи Регентства
Berenice, a tale by Edgar Allan Poe
"Two Eastern Fables," by José Rizal (on an ancient story from the Philippines and Japan)
A Greek poem translated by Shakespeare (Marianus "On a bath called Love," for Sonnets 153 and 154)
Seneca Letter 1, read in Latin ("On saving time")
The Myth of Aristophanes, from Plato's Symposium, translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A Farewell to Spring (an original poem)
Antony's funeral speech, read in a 17th century pronunciation (from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar)
Shakespeare’s pronunciation: some disagreements with David Crystal’s Original Pronunciation, or OP
Shakespeare's Sonnets 18 and 116, read in a 17th century pronunciation
Psalm 114, tr. into Homeric Greek by Milton in 1634
Lord Byron's The Maid of Athens (a poem)
Callimachus’ poem on Plato’s Phaedo, read in ancient Greek (epigram 23, the suicide of Cleombrotus)
Psalm 23 of the Bible read in ancient Greek, from the Septuagint or LXX ("Κύριος ποιμαίνει με")
Sappho's poem on her brothers, read in ancient Greek (the Brothers Poem or Newest Sappho from 2014)
The first 50 lines of Homer's Iliad, read in ancient Greek ("μῆνιν ἄειδε θεά")
Emily Dickinson, a poem on Death ("The overtakelessness of those who have accomplished Death")
Plato’s myth of the Ring of Gyges, read in ancient Greek (Republic, Book 2, sections 359d-360b)
John Keats' prologue to his poem Endymion ("A thing of beauty is a joy forever," from lines 1-33.)
Sappho’s poem on old age, in ancient Greek (Fragment 58, the Tithonus poem, or New Sappho from 2004)