The Pleasures of a Single Life, Or, The Miseries of Matrimony

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.4

Word count: 49K 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.The Pleasures of a Single Life, Or, The Miseries of Matrimony by John Pomfret et al.Author: ,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 19, 2004

Editor's review

This work gathers English verse, chiefly by John Pomfret, into a witty and exaggerated debate on "the pleasures of a single life" and "the miseries of matrimony." It belongs to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English tradition of debate poetry, with its careful parallelism, irony and humor, setting the freedoms of single life against the petty vexations of marriage. As a public-domain ebook it is short, making it a good introduction to the early English verse-debate genre and suitable for casual reading by those interested in the history of ideas about marriage and in satirical poetry. Read it as a historical text and an expression of its era's attitudes, not as a serious guide to life.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature enthusiasts interested in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English poetry
Readers curious about the history of Western ideas on marriage and the tradition of satirical debate
Learners who need a short English public-domain text for reading practice
Casual readers who enjoy witty, ironic, epigrammatic verse

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a systematic sociological study of marriage or modern psychological analysis
Readers who prefer plot-driven fiction and lack patience for verse debate
Beginners with weak English reading skills who need detailed annotations

Reading tips

Read the title and section headings first to grasp the structure of the debate, then read the verse closely paragraph by paragraph.
Mark unfamiliar allusions as you go and look them up after a full reading, so as not to break the rhythm.
Read alongside contemporary English verse satire to appreciate the rhetorical conventions and period flavor of debate poetry.
Treat the verse as historical opinion rather than life advice, and keep a critical eye, noting your own rebuttals.

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 a novel or poetry?

It is English verse: a debate on single life and marriage in poetic form, not a plot-driven novel. Read it by lines and stanzas, following its rhetoric and arguments rather than a character-driven story.

Can I understand it without a background in English literature?

You can follow the general sense, but the verse may involve period allusions and satirical devices that are easy to misread without context. It helps to consult a concise history of English literature, learn about the debate-poetry tradition first, and then read closely.

Is this book suitable as a reference on views of marriage?

Not really. It is a satirical debate text limited by its era, and its exaggerated oppositions are rhetorical strategies rather than rigorous social conclusions. It is better read and discussed as material in literary and intellectual history.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.