Seaward: An Elegy on the Death of Thomas William Parsons

Richard HoveyProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.1
Word count
47K words
Chapters
5

Tags

English Originals Modern Poetry Poetic ArtLiterary FriendshipRestrained SorrowDeath MeditationClassical MeterElegyLyrical StyleEnglish PoetryOcean ImageryVictorian Era

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. Seaward: An Elegy on the Death of Thomas William Parsons by Richard Hovey. Author: Hovey, Richard, 1864-1900. Language: English. Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature. Release Date: Aug 5, 2013

Editor's review

This long elegy is Howe's mourning tribute to his friend, the American poet Thomas William Parsons, combining the rhythm of lyric poetry with the solemnity of classical elegy. Its value lies not in recounting biographical details but in placing personal grief within images of sea and sky, giving loss a contemplative expression. Readers can see the inheritance of traditional forms in late nineteenth-century American poetry and feel the restrained, enduring remembrance between friends. The poem is not long and is best read in one sitting in a quiet moment, then revisited to observe how recurring images of sea, wind, and distance build the emotional progression. As a public-domain electronic text, it is better suited as supplementary material for poetry reading and comparative study than as a work sought for plot or narrative.

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Reading tips

  1. Read through once to grasp the overall mood, then mark the recurring images of sea and wind section by section.
  2. Look briefly at Parsons's translation of Dante to understand the poet being mourned.
  3. Read the poem aloud once, noting pauses within lines and rhymes, to experience the sound of the elegy.
  4. After finishing, write two or three sentences on what the sea symbolizes in the poem to test your reading.

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

FAQ

Is this poem suitable for readers with no background in English poetry? It can be attempted, but patience is needed. The language belongs to late nineteenth-century literary English, with expansive syntax and dense imagery. It is advisable to read through once with a dictionary, without trying to solve every word, and simply grasp the relationship between mourning and sea imagery; for line-by-line understanding, annotations or a reference translation are best.
Who was Thomas William Parsons, and do I need to know about him before reading? Parsons was an American poet known for translating Dante's Divine Comedy and was a friend of Howe. Not knowing his life does not hinder reading, because the poem focuses on expressing grief rather than recounting deeds. For deeper reading, it helps to know he was a poet and translator, then return to the poem to appreciate the author's pain at losing a kindred spirit.
How long does it take to read this elegy? The poem is not long; a full read-through can usually be completed within an hour. For marking imagery and close rereading, it is better to plan two or three sessions of about half an hour each, allowing time for pauses and reflection, which is more effective than rushing through once.
What should I watch out for when reading the electronic version? Public-domain electronic texts may have plain formatting and line breaks that differ slightly from the original edition. Line breaks matter in poetry; use a reader that preserves the original line width and avoid automatic reflow that disrupts the line structure. Where line breaks seem abnormal, check against other public-domain versions.

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About the author

Richard Hovey Author · American · 1864–1900

Richard Hovey (1864–1900) was an American poet, translator, and playwright, born in Normal, Illinois, and a graduate of Dartmouth College. He collaborated with the poet Bliss Carman on the Songs from Vagabondia series, lyrical collections celebrating a free and wandering life that proved influential in American poetry of the time. In 1893 he published Seaward: An Elegy on the Death of Thomas William Parsons, a mournful and sincere work that displays his command of the long elegy. He also translated eight plays by Maurice Maeterlinck, contributing to the introduction of European symbolist drama. Hovey died in New York in 1900 at the age of thirty-six; though his career was brief, he left behind a body of poetry and translations centered on themes of vagabondage, nature, and death.