Musa Cerula

Gil, Augusto, 1873-1929Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 26K words
Chapters: 3

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.Musa Cerula by Augusto GilAuthor: Gil, Augusto, 1873-1929,Language: Portuguese, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Jan 10, 2010

Editor's review

Musa Cerula is a poetry collection by the Portuguese poet Augusto Gil (1873–1929) and a public-domain work of Portuguese-language literature. Gil is an important name in early twentieth-century Portuguese poetry, and his writing often carries the rhythm of folk song and a plain lyrical temperament; this collection shows the choices he made between the lyrical tradition and colloquial expression. For Chinese readers its value is twofold: as a Portuguese poetic text, it can be used to feel the original rhythm and diction; and as a sample of early twentieth-century Portuguese literature, it helps in understanding the direction of poetic language at the time. It should be noted that this edition is a public-domain electronic text without translation notes or introduction; the threshold for non-Portuguese readers is relatively high, so it is more suitable as a source text for language learning or literary research than as an introductory reader.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Intermediate and advanced learners of Portuguese who want to encounter poetry in the original
Literary specialists studying early twentieth-century Portuguese poetry
Readers who collect public-domain electronic texts of Portuguese literature
Comparative literature readers interested in the lyrical tradition of the Iberian Peninsula

Not a good fit for

General readers who do not know Portuguese and hope to read Chinese translations of the poems directly
Beginners who need detailed annotations and introductions to enter the text
Readers who prefer fiction or narrative works

Reading tips

Read through once to feel the rhythm, then look up words and read closely poem by poem; do not expect to understand everything at once.
Read aloud to experience the sound of Portuguese poetry and the folk-song-like feel of the language.
Consult materials on Portuguese literary history to understand the poetic context of Gil's time, then reread.
Copy out favorite lines alongside the original to build up common expressions in Portuguese poetry.

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 there a Chinese translation of this book?

The version provided here is a public-domain electronic text in Portuguese and does not include a Chinese translation. For reading in Chinese, one must find a formally published translation or read alongside one; this edition is more suitable for use as the original text.

What level of Portuguese is needed to read it?

Poetic diction is condensed and often elliptical; intermediate or higher Portuguese reading ability is recommended, along with a dictionary. Beginners can select short poems and read them line by line with aids, but should not start by reading the whole book straight through.

What kind of poet is Augusto Gil?

According to public-domain materials, Gil was a Portuguese poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whose poems often carry the rhythm of folk song and a plain lyrical temperament. Judgments of his specific style should be formed through reading the original text and literary-historical materials; they should not be settled from an introduction alone.

Comments

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About the author

Gil, Augusto, 1873-1929 Author · Portuguese · 1873–1929

Augusto Gil (1873–1929) was a Portuguese poet and journalist who later moved to Brazil. Public information about his life is limited; the library holds only two of his works, Luar de Janeiro and Musa Cerula. He is known for his lyric poetry, which draws on personal feeling and everyday experience, with concise language and a strong musical quality, and which circulated among readers both in Portugal and in his adopted country. His work as a journalist gave his writing a keen social observation, though lyricism remained its dominant tone. Though modest in scale, Gil's poetry reflects some features of the transition from traditional to modern poetry in early twentieth-century Portugal and has some value for the study of the literature of that period.