Lucasta

Lovelace, Richard, 1618-1658Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 383K words
Chapters: 39

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.Lucasta by Richard LovelaceAuthor: Lovelace, Richard, 1618-1658,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 1, 1996

Editor's review

Lucasta is a collection of surviving poems by the seventeenth-century English poet Richard Lovelace. Its lyric "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" is famous for the line about a heart that neither stone walls nor iron bars can hold. This Project Gutenberg edition preserves the language of the original poems and is well suited to readers who want direct access to seventeenth-century English verse—its metre, diction, and Cavalier lyric tradition. Lovelace's poetry combines the elegance of courtly love with the sombre mood of the Civil War era; the poems are brief yet dense in imagery, and they are primary material for understanding the "Cavalier poet" strand in English literary history. There is no need to read it straight through; treat it as a bedside pamphlet, reading one or two poems closely at a time and noting how honour, loyalty, and love are handled. The electronic edition makes searching and comparing different versions easy, and it works well as supplementary reading for courses on English poetry or for self-study. One caveat: this is an English-language original with early modern spelling and syntax, so first-time readers should use notes or an introductory guide.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers interested in seventeenth-century English poetry and the Cavalier poets
English literature students who need original poetic texts for course reading
Self-learners who enjoy short lyric poems and are willing to read slowly and savour the language
Enthusiasts studying the literature and intellectual climate of the English Civil War period

Not a good fit for

General readers who want a Chinese translation and do not wish to deal with the English original
Readers expecting a full poet's biography or detailed historical background commentary
Readers who prefer the narrative pace of modern fiction and lack patience for poetic form

Reading tips

Start with famous pieces such as "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars," then go back and read through the collection to form an overall impression.
Keep pen and paper ready to mark unfamiliar words and early modern spellings, and read alongside an annotated edition for comparison.
Read only two or three poems at a time, reading aloud to feel the metre and rhyme, and avoid skimming.

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 this book in Chinese or English?

This is the original English-language ebook released by Project Gutenberg, containing the poems of Richard Lovelace. The text is entirely in English with no Chinese translation, making it suitable for readers with some English reading proficiency.

Can I read this book without any background in poetry?

You can give it a try, but you will need notes or an introduction. Lovelace writes in seventeenth-century English, and some spellings and syntax differ from those of today. It is advisable to start with one or two short poems and, with the help of background material, gradually work your way outward.

What reading approach suits the electronic edition?

The electronic edition makes it easy to search for lines and compare different versions. It is well suited to close reading in sections on a computer or e-reader, and convenient for note-taking and excerpting; you need not read from beginning to end in page order.

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About the author

Lovelace, Richard, 1618-1658 Author · British · 1618–1658

Richard Lovelace (1618–1658) was an English Cavalier poet, best known among his surviving works for Lucasta. Public information about his life and education is limited, and this entry makes no conjecture on those points. His poems are usually placed in the Cavalier tradition, treating themes of love, honour, loyalty and war in a composed, aristocratic tone. "To Althea, from Prison" and "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars" are among the better known: the former tells of inward freedom kept while confined, the latter of parting from a beloved on the eve of battle, and both set personal feeling alongside moral resolve. His style is concise, with clear imagery and a fondness for antithesis and short lines to create tension. Lovelace's place in literary history rests mainly on the transmission of Cavalier poetry; his compact pieces are often included in anthologies of English verse and offer readers a useful glimpse of seventeenth-century English lyric poetry.