Adventure on a Walking Tour： A Five-Act Song Play

Jens Christian HostrupProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.0

Word count: 98K words
Chapters: 10

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.Seikkailu jalkamatkalla: Viisinäytöksinen laulunäytelmä by C. HostrupAuthor: Hostrup, C. (Christian), 1818-1892,Language: Finnish, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: May 28, 2016

Editor's review

This is a five-act Finnish-language singspiel, or musical comedy, by the Danish playwright Christian Hostrup. Taking a walking tour as its subject, the work uses the singspiel form, combining dialogue with songs, and belongs to a light, lively genre of popular theater. Hostrup was known in Denmark for comedies and singspiels, and this play continues that brisk, slice-of-life style: the characters and situations unfold around a journey, with the plot driven by misunderstandings and coincidences. Its value lies mainly in showing the face of nineteenth-century Nordic popular theater: the singspiel was then an important form of bourgeois entertainment, and this play can serve as a sample for studying the genre and the dissemination of Finnish-language drama. Because the text is in Finnish, Chinese readers will use it more as material for language learning or Nordic literary studies than for depth of plot. While reading, note how songs and dialogue alternate and feel the stage rhythm; if you know Finnish, try reading the dialogue aloud to sense its cadence.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Language learners studying Finnish who wish to encounter literary texts
Readers researching nineteenth-century Nordic popular theater and singspiel
Literature enthusiasts interested in the works of the Danish playwright Hostrup
Translators needing public-domain Finnish texts for translation practice

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Finnish who want only a story in Chinese
Serious literary readers expecting profound themes or complex psychology
Casual readers who prefer novels, essays, and other non-dramatic genres

Reading tips

First learn the five-act structure and the characters, then read act by act to follow the plot.
Mark songs and dialogue separately, and read the songs aloud to feel the rhythm of the singspiel.
Finnish learners can first read through without stopping for unknown words, then look them up on a second pass.
Consult the Danish original or related background material to understand the stage tradition of the genre.

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

What kind of work is this?

It is a five-act singspiel, a stage script interweaving songs with dialogue, belonging to the genre of popular theater. Read it as a script, understanding scenes, entrances and exits, and the placement of songs, rather than as a novel.

Can I read it without knowing Finnish?

The original is in Finnish, and without the language direct reading is very difficult. Chinese readers may use it as language-learning material or work through it sentence by sentence with a dictionary; those who want only the story will need a translation or related introduction, as this book provides no Chinese parallel text.

Who was the author Hostrup?

Christian Hostrup was a nineteenth-century Danish playwright known for comedies and singspiels. This is one of his works; the Finnish version was released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain e-book for free reading.

Is it suitable for learning Finnish?

It can serve as supplementary material, since it is a literary text with natural sentences, dialogue, and song lyrics that expose you to colloquial expression. But the play contains songs and stage directions, and its grammar is not always regular; use it alongside a textbook and distinguish dialogue from stage directions.

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

Jens Christian Hostrup Author · Danish · 1818–1892

Hostrup, C. (Christian), 1818–1892, was a Danish poet, playwright, and clergyman. He was born in Copenhagen and died in Frederiksberg in 1892. As a student he won fame with the comedy The Neighbours, and his plays often addressed topical issues such as the status of women and free love. He became a clergyman in 1855, served from 1862 as chaplain at Frederiksborg Castle, and retired on grounds of illness in 1881. After Denmark's defeat in 1864, his consolation hymns circulated widely. The library holds three of his works, all plays in Finnish: the four-act Eeva, the four-act comedy Along the Road, and the five-act sung play Adventure on a Walking Tour, showing his dramatic writing in both comic and musical forms. Public information is limited, and biographical details follow the reliable records available.