Second April

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 45K words
Chapters: 5

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.Second April by Edna St. Vincent MillayAuthor: Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Mar 1, 1998

Editor's review

Second April is a poetry collection by the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, presented here by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain eBook in English. Millay's poetry is known for lyricism, concision, and emotional tension, often capturing life's fragility and intensity within everyday experience and the turning of the seasons. This collection works as a light entry into twentieth-century English poetry: manageable in length and made up of independent poems, it allows readers to take one poem at a time on a commute or before sleep. The electronic edition is easy to search and excerpt, and also suitable for bilingual note-taking alongside a print copy. Note that this is an English-language public-domain eBook without Chinese translation or annotations, so some foundation in reading English poetry is needed. It is better suited as an extension of poetic interest and a supplement to language learning than as a systematic poetry-history reader.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in twentieth-century English poetry who wish to broaden their reading
Learners with basic English who want to build language sense through short poems
Readers who enjoy lyrical short poems and prefer fragmented reading rhythms
Teachers needing English poetry selections for classroom or book-club discussion

Not a good fit for

Beginner readers seeking Chinese translations or detailed annotations
Research-oriented readers expecting a systematic poetry-history framework and critical introduction
Readers uncomfortable with English originals who read slowly and are easily discouraged

Reading tips

Read one poem closely each day: first read through for tone, then look up unfamiliar words and images, and finally read aloud to feel the rhythm.
Keep a commonplace book to record recurring images of seasons, nature, and emotion, and review the threads after finishing the collection.
If possible, follow along with an English audio version, noticing how pauses and stress affect poetic meaning.
Read alongside works by contemporary English-language poets to build a broader sense of twentieth-century poetic language.

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 an English public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg. The text is in the original English without Chinese translation or annotations, so some English reading ability is required.

Can I read it without a foundation in poetry?

You can try, but it is best to start with short poems and use a dictionary or a translation for reference. With no experience reading English poetry at all, you may struggle with word order and imagery, so slow down and prioritize understanding.

What kind of reading approach suits the electronic edition?

The electronic edition is easy to search, excerpt, and adjust font size, making it suitable for fragmented daily reading of one poem at a time and for copying text for language notes. If you want to recite poems repeatedly, you can print individual pieces or use a print edition alongside.

Comments

Find this book

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

Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 1892-1950 Author

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) was an American poet and playwright, with seven of her works held in this collection. Her major poetry volumes include Renascence, and Other Poems, Second April, A Few Figs from Thistles, and The harp-weaver, and other poems, as well as the collection Poems; her plays include the five-act drama The Lamp and the Bell and Aria da Capo. Her verse is concise and carefully cadenced, typically lyrical in tone, treating love, youth, death, and nature with intense feeling and a touch of irony; her plays are short and pointed in their allegory. Public information is limited, so details of her life cannot be given at length, but her work has had a certain influence on twentieth-century American poetry.