The Confession of a Child of the Century — Volume 1

Alfred de MussetProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.4
Word count
185K words
Chapters
19

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Love EntanglementsTragic LoveComplex HumanityPsychological InsightGrowing UpRomanticismYouthful ConfusionConfession NarrativeSelf-ReflectionModern China

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.The Confession of a Child of the Century — Volume 1 by Alfred de MussetAuthor: Musset, Alfred de, 1810-1857,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 1, 2003

Editor's review

This volume is the first part of Musset's Confession of a Child of the Century, released free in English by Project Gutenberg. Told through the young protagonist's first-person account, the work portrays the spiritual malaise and emotional entanglements of a generation of nineteenth-century French youth after their ideals collapsed; it is a key text for understanding the Romantic theme of the mal du siècle. Volume 1 focuses on introducing the characters, establishing emotional relationships, and unfolding interior monologue; the language is lyrical and autobiographical, and the narrative moves less through dense incident than through mood and reflection. It suits both as an introductory primary text for French literature courses and for readers who like slow reading and want to feel the era's mood in the text itself. As a public-domain ebook it is easy to obtain free and to revisit, and readers can combine introductory materials on Musset's life and times with a close reading of the text.

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Reading tips

  1. Learn about Musset's life and nineteenth-century French history before starting the text.
  2. Proceed chapter by chapter, and after each chapter summarize the protagonist's state of mind in two or three sentences.
  3. Slow down at lyrical passages and mark recurring emotional keywords.
  4. After finishing, read on into Volume 2 to form an overall understanding of the book's structure.

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

FAQ

Is this a complete work? No. According to the information, this is the first volume of Confession of a Child of the Century, the first half of the whole work; complete reading also requires Volume 2.
How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for beginners? The text is an English translation of a nineteenth-century work, with long sentences and strong lyricism, so it is not suitable for English beginners. Readers with college-level English reading ability who are willing to look up words will find it easier to get into.
Why is it recommended to read this volume first? Volume 1 serves to introduce the characters and lay the groundwork for emotional relationships; reading it first helps in understanding character motivations and plot turns in Volume 2 and reduces confusion about the background while reading.

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About the author

Alfred de Musset Author · French · 1810–1857

Alfred de Musset (1810–1857) was a French Romantic poet, playwright and novelist. He wrote the autobiographical novel The Confession of a Child of the Century, which portrays personal feeling and the malaise of its era in delicate prose, and is also known for the play Lorenzaccio and the poems collected as the Nights; his work is celebrated for its emotional sincerity. He was elected to the Académie française in 1852, reflecting his standing in the literary world of his time. The collection here holds 13 of his works, including several volumes and the complete edition of The Confession of a Child of the Century, as well as volumes of his complete works. Writing across fiction, drama and poetry, he turned inner experience into literature and holds a place in French Romantic literature.