Fugitive Poetry
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Literature lovers interested in 19th-century American poetry who want to broaden their reading
- English majors or self-learners who need materials for appreciating English poetry
- Readers who like short poems in spare moments and prefer a relaxed reading experience
- Learners who want to practice English reading and sense of rhythm through public-domain ebooks
Not a good fit for
- Deep researchers expecting a systematic history of poetry or a heavily annotated edition
- Readers unaccustomed to classical English who want a modern plain-language translation
- Those who prefer tightly plotted novels and have limited interest in poetry
Reading tips
- Start by browsing the contents and choosing poems whose titles or first lines appeal to you; there is no need to read in order
- Read one or two poems aloud each day to feel the rhythm and cadence, then go back over the meaning of the words
- Mark allusions or names as you go and look them up after finishing the poem, so the reading flow is not interrupted
- Read alongside background material on 19th-century American history to deepen your understanding of the social context in the poems
About the publisher
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.
Contents
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FAQ
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About the author
Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867) was an American poet, writer and magazine editor, born in Portland, Maine, and a graduate of Yale University. He served as a European correspondent for the New York Mirror and in 1846 founded the Home Journal (later Town & Country) with George Pope Morris. Widely regarded as the highest-paid magazine writer of his day, he moved in literary circles that included Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His works range widely: illustrated accounts of North American landscape such as American Scenery and Canadian Scenery, European travel sketches such as Pencillings by the Way, the nautical travelogue Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean, and the poems collected in Fugitive Poetry. His clear, fluent prose, skilled at describing scenery and travel impressions, had a notable influence on nineteenth-century American travel writing and periodical essays.
