Flame and Shadow

Sara TeasdaleProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 42K words
Chapters: 5

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.Flame and Shadow by Sara TeasdaleAuthor: Teasdale, Sara, 1884-1933,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jul 1, 1996

Editor's review

Flame and Shadow is a representative collection from the middle of Sara Teasdale's career, continuing her signature style of short lyric poetry and treating love, loss, solitude, and contemplation of nature in spare, lucid language. Teasdale's poems are unornamented and slow in pace, drawing images from moonlight, flame, shadow, gardens, and the seasons, and conveying delicate emotional shadings through understatement. This edition, released by Project Gutenberg, is a public-domain electronic text, freely available for readers to access and reread. For Chinese readers, the English is not difficult and the syntax is clear, making the book suitable as an introduction to English poetry and for slow reading poem by poem in quiet hours, to appreciate the tradition of early twentieth-century American women's lyric poetry. Read alongside Teasdale's other collections, it makes the continuity of her imagery and emotional expression clearer.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers seeking an accessible entry into reading English poetry
Poetry lovers who prefer short lyrics centered on emotion and natural imagery
Literature students studying early twentieth-century American women's poetry
Teachers and organizers who need short English texts for classes or reading groups

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting long narrative poems or complex experimental verse forms
Readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced reading
Learners entirely new to reading in English without supporting tools

Reading tips

Read three to five poems a day, aloud, to feel the rhythm and rhyme; there is no need to finish in one sitting.
Keep a notebook and jot down recurring images such as light, shadow, flowers, and the seasons.
When you meet an unfamiliar word, infer from context first and look it up after reading the whole poem, to keep the reading flowing.
Pick a few favorite poems and try translating a line or two, comparing with the original to appreciate the differences between the languages

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

Is the English in this book suitable for beginners?

Overall it is not difficult: the lines are short, the diction is fairly everyday and lyrical, and the grammar is clear, so it suits readers with some basic English reading ability as an introduction to English poetry. Complete beginners are advised to use a bilingual edition or a dictionary for support.

What themes does this poetry collection roughly cover?

Judging by Teasdale's consistent style, the collection centers on love, parting, solitude, memory, and natural scenery, with an introspective, quiet emotional tone, often presenting inner feeling through the contrast of light and shadow.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg was an early provider of free ebooks, and this edition is a public-domain electronic text that can be obtained free of charge. It generally preserves the original book's content and arrangement and is suitable for reading and quotation, but it does not include modern publishers' notes or introductions.

How should someone with no experience of reading poetry begin?

Start with short poems: read one through once without trying to understand everything, then check the meaning line by line, and finally read it aloud again. Do not force an interpretation of symbolism; first notice which lines stir an emotional response, and then think around those lines.

Comments

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About the author

Sara Teasdale Author · American · 1884–1933

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) was an American lyric poet born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her verse is concise and markedly musical, often treating love, nature, and death with restrained emotion. Her collection Love Songs made her the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1918. Other representative works include Helen of Troy, Rivers to the Sea, and Flame and Shadow. Her famous poem "There Will Come Soft Rains" remains widely read and anthologized. Four of her works are held in this collection. Public information on her education and specific life experiences is limited, so this entry focuses on the themes, style, and literary influence of her work.