Laura Secord, the Heroine of 1812: A Drama and Other Poems

Curzon, Sarah Anne, 1833-1898Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
320K words
Chapters
33

Tags

English Originals Dramatic LiteratureModern PoetryHistorical Figures War of 1812Historical DramaCanadian MemoriesHeroinePatriotismPoetry Collection

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.Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812: A Drama; and Other Poems by Sarah Anne CurzonAuthor: Curzon, Sarah Anne, 1833-1898,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 1, 2005

Editor's review

This work dramatizes the story of Laura Secord in the War of 1812 and includes other poems, combining historical memory with literary imagination. The dramatic portion advances character through dialogue and scene, while the poems show the author balancing national themes with lyrical tradition. For Chinese readers, it is better suited as a sample for understanding the early landscape of Canadian English literature and how war narrative enters literature, rather than as a purely historical read. While reading, note how the author transforms a female hero from historical fact into a stage figure, and how the two genres of poetry and drama echo each other within the same volume. Suitable as supplementary material in courses on literary history, colonial literature, or war writing, and also for readers interested in Ontario local history to read slowly.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the dramatic portion first to trace how the figure of Laura Secord is staged, then read the poems to observe thematic echoes.
  2. Jot down differences between historical figures and fictional dialogue as you read, to better understand the author's choices.
  3. Read alongside basic background material on the War of 1812 to ease entry into the colonial context.
  4. Read the poems slowly, attending to rhyme and imagery; there is no need to understand them in a word-for-word, translation-like way.

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
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33

FAQ

Is this book a historical work or a literary work? It is a drama based on the historical figure Laura Secord, with other poems included; it belongs to literature. Readers can see how historical events are transformed into stage dialogue and poetic images, but it should not be read as military history scholarship.
Can I read it without background knowledge of the War of 1812? Yes, but it is advisable to first learn the basic outline of the war and a summary of Laura Secord's deeds. This makes it easier to understand the dramatic conflict and why the author chose this subject; otherwise some historical references in the dialogue will be rather vague.
How difficult is the poetic drama portion to read? The original is a verse drama in English with a 19th-century style, posing a certain barrier for Chinese readers. It is recommended to focus on understanding character relationships and scenes rather than insisting on grasping the meter line by line; when encountering historical references, set them aside for the moment and return to them later.

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About the author

Curzon, Sarah Anne, 1833-1898 Author · Canadian · 1833–1898

Sarah Anne Curzon (1833–1898) was a Canadian poet and playwright. Public information about her is limited, and many details of her life remain unknown, but her writing is known for its patriotic themes. Her representative work, Laura Secord, the Heroine of 1812: A Drama and Other Poems, combines drama and poetry in a single volume, centering on a Canadian woman of the War of 1812 and blending theatrical tension with lyric expression. Through historical subjects she voiced her concern for her country, and her work holds a place in early Canadian women's writing in English, remaining an important text for the study of nineteenth-century Canadian patriotic literature and women's authorship.