The Workman's Wife: A Play in Five Acts

Canth, Minna, 1844-1897Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.9

Word count: 137K words
Chapters: 14

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Arbetarens hustru: Skådspel i fem akter by Minna CanthAuthor: Canth, Minna, 1844-1897,Language: Swedish, Class: PH: Language and Literatures: Finno-Ugrian and Basque languages and literatures, Release Date: Apr 1, 2015

Editor's review

This is a five-act play by the Finnish author Minna Canth, in the original Swedish, released as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. Canth was an important figure in late nineteenth-century Finnish literature and social debate, and her plays often center on workers' lives, family relations, and gender circumstances; judging from the title, this play focuses on the situation of a worker's wife and has the character of a social-problem drama. The five-act structure means there is ample room for characters and conflicts to develop, making it suitable for close reading by readers interested in the social issues of Nordic drama. Because it is in the original Swedish and the electronic edition consists mainly of the text, reading requires some language foundation, and readers should supplement the social background of Finland at the time on their own. As a free public-domain resource, it is better suited to the study of dramatic texts or as supplementary material for language learning than to reading for plot-driven entertainment.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Researchers interested in Nordic drama and social-problem plays
Learners with Swedish reading ability who want to engage with Finnish literature
Drama enthusiasts concerned with working-class families and women's circumstances
Readers who need public-domain dramatic texts for courses or reading groups

Not a good fit for

General readers unfamiliar with Swedish and without a translation to assist them
Casual readers expecting light, entertaining plots
Practitioners who need detailed stage directions and production materials

Reading tips

First learn about the social background of Finland in Canth's time, then enter the play's dialogue.
Read act by act, and at the end of each act sort out the characters' positions and the progression of conflict.
If using it for language study, read the dialogue aloud and compile recurring thematic vocabulary.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

In what language is this play written?

The work is in the original Swedish. Historically in Finland, Swedish was an important literary and administrative language, and Canth herself also wrote in Swedish. Readers need the corresponding language foundation beforehand, or should use a translation or bilingual materials to assist comprehension.

How does the five-act structure affect reading?

A five-act structure usually means the plot unfolds fairly fully, with character relationships and conflicts advancing in stages. Readers can divide their reading rhythm by act and review the core conflicts at the end of each act, which helps keep track of the whole play without getting lost in long dialogues.

Why does the electronic edition have no detailed annotations?

Project Gutenberg ebooks aim mainly to provide public-domain texts and usually do not include scholarly annotations or introductions. To understand the play's social background, the workers' movement, and women's issues, consult histories of Finnish literature and Canth studies separately.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Canth, Minna, 1844-1897 Author

Minna Canth (1844–1897) was a Finnish author whose 15 works are held in this collection. Her writing spans fiction and drama, with representative titles including Anna Liisa, Kotoa pois, Papin perhe, Hanna, Kauppa-Lopo, Sylvi, and Työmiehen vaimo. These works show her attention to the lives of ordinary people, especially women, workers, and family relationships. Her style is realistic, often using her characters' fates to expose social injustice and moral conflict, and her writing combines narrative power with a strong sense of the stage. Some works are set against everyday Nordic life, with plain yet tense language. Because public information is limited, biographical details remain unclear, but her surviving works indicate a lasting influence on Finnish literature, where they continue to be read and adapted.