Poems cover

Poems

Rating 2.3
Word count
67K words
Chapters
7

Tags

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.Gedichten by Frans BastiaanseAuthor: Bastiaanse, Frans, 1868-1947,Language: Dutch, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Mar 7, 2005

Editor's review

This collection, Gedichten (Poems), brings together verse by the Dutch poet Frans Bastiaans (1868–1947) and is distributed free of charge by Project Gutenberg. As part of Dutch literature at the turn of the twentieth century, these poems offer a useful window into the language and lyric tradition of Dutch poetry of the period. The electronic edition preserves the original cataloguing information, and its compact length makes it easy to dip into on a commute or in spare moments. For learners of Dutch, it is also an inexpensive text for encountering verse and developing a feel for the language. The book does, however, lack modern translation notes and background introduction, so readers must look up the allusions and historical context themselves. Overall, it is a basic reader for language enthusiasts and poetry researchers, valuable for the convenience of obtaining the text rather than for editorial completeness.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Intermediate and advanced language learners of Dutch who wish to encounter verse and develop a feel for the language
  • Students and researchers in Dutch literature or comparative literature
  • Readers who enjoy late nineteenth-century European lyric poetry and are willing to research the background themselves

Not a good fit for

  • General readers hoping for a Chinese translation or a bilingual annotated edition
  • Beginners seeking a detailed biography of the author and an introduction to the works
  • Readers who prefer contemporary poetry or strongly narrative works

Reading tips

  1. Read through once to feel the rhythm without looking up every word, then read closely a second time with a dictionary.
  2. Read alongside Dutch audio recordings to appreciate rhyme and syllable.
  3. Read in groups by theme or length, and after every few poems note discoveries about language and imagery.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7

FAQ

Is this book a Chinese translation?
No. This is a collection of poems in the original Dutch, released as an electronic text by Project Gutenberg. It includes no Chinese translation, so readers need some ability to read Dutch.
Do I need to know the author's biography before reading?
Not strictly, though some familiarity with the general atmosphere of late nineteenth-century Dutch literature helps. The electronic edition itself provides no author biography or introduction; interested readers can consult other sources.
Is this book suitable for learning Dutch?
It works well as supplementary material. Poetry is condensed and rhythmic, which helps develop a feel for the language, but the vocabulary is literary, so it is not recommended as the only or very first textbook.

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About the author

Bastiaanse, Frans, 1868-1947 Author · Dutch · 1868–1947

Frans Bastiaanse (1868–1947) was a Dutch poet and literary critic active in the Dutch literary world at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His writing and critical work spanned this transitional period: he took part in the literary currents of the time through his poetry and engaged in literary debate through his reviews. One work by him is held in the collection, the poetry collection Gedichten, which serves as the main textual basis for understanding his poetic output. Public information on the details of his life, his education and his specific literary views is limited and cannot be described in depth. Judging from the available information, his parallel work as poet and critic reflects the dual role of creation and criticism characteristic of Dutch literary figures of that generation, and played a part in shaping and spreading the literary tastes of the period.

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