One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances

Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
397K words
Chapters
40

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Historical LegendCleopatraTragic LoveRomantic FantasySensory Detail19th Century FranceExotic Culture

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.One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances by Théophile GautierAuthor: Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 7, 2012

Editor's review

This is an English translation of a short story collection by the French author Théophile Gautier, including "One of Cleopatra's Nights" and several other fantastic romance stories. Gautier is known for intense sensory description, exotic imagination and an aestheticist tendency; these stories often blend historical figures, mysterious settings and a supernatural atmosphere, reading like vividly colored paintings. The Gutenberg edition provides the complete English text free of charge and is suitable as an entry point for understanding French Romanticism and the tradition of the fantastic short story. When reading, do not strive for a complete, closed plot; what is more worth noting is the visual detail, the buildup of mood and the pursuit of "strange beauty" in the narrative. For readers who like Gothic atmosphere, exotic legends or nineteenth-century French literature, this is a convenient and effective sample; readers who prefer realism and fast pacing should adjust their expectations.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read each story separately, pausing after each one to note the scene or image that left the deepest impression.
  2. Read the title story first to get a feel for the style, then choose other stories to compare themes and atmosphere.
  3. When encountering dense descriptive passages, skim them first, grasp the narrative thread, then return for close reading.
  4. If using it for English study, excerpt descriptive sentences for imitation writing practice, observing the use of adjectives and sensory verbs.

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
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40

FAQ

Is this book a complete long novel or a short story collection? It is a short story collection, with "One of Cleopatra's Nights" as the title story and several other fantastic romance stories included. The stories are relatively independent and can be read in any order; there is no need to read from beginning to end continuously.
Is the English translation difficult to read? Gautier's original works are dense in description and rich in ornamentation, and the English translation also retains a strong literary quality, with longer sentences and more formal vocabulary. Readers with a college-level English reading ability or a habit of reading literary works will find it easier to get into; beginners can start with shorter stories with more obvious plots.
Does the Gutenberg edition have annotations or an introduction? The Gutenberg edition usually provides only the main text and basic metadata, without the scholarly annotations, translator's introduction or detailed background notes of modern publishers. If you need to understand historical figures and allusions in depth, it is advisable to consult relevant background materials yourself or compare with an annotated paper edition.
Is it suitable as an introductory book for understanding French literature? It can serve as a stylistic introduction, but is not suitable as a systematic literary history reader. It gives a direct feel for Gautier's aesthetic and fantastic style; to build an overall understanding, it should be paired with overview materials on French Romanticism and nineteenth-century literary history.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872 Author

Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) was a French poet, novelist and critic, with 24 works held in this collection. His verse collection Émaux et camées (Enamels and Cameos) is known for its finely wrought language and pursuit of formal beauty, and is regarded as a practice of the doctrine of art for art's sake; the two volumes of Poésies Complètes gather his poetry. In fiction, Mademoiselle de Maupin and One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances display his romantic and fantastical narrative interests. Gautier's style attends closely to color, line and sensory experience, and influenced later aesthetic literature. Public information is limited, so biographical details are not elaborated here.