One or the Other to Marry： A Farce in One Act

Wilhelmi, A. (Alexander), 1817-1877Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.0
Word count
38K words
Chapters
4

Tags

Foreign Language Books Dramatic Literature Stage WorkMarriage ThemeHumor ReliefOne-Act ComedyLocal LifeFinnish Literature

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.Toinen tai toinen naimaan: Ilveily yhdessä näytöksessä by A. WilhelmiAuthor: Wilhelmi, A. (Alexander), 1817-1877,Language: Finnish, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: May 31, 2016

Editor's review

This is a one-act Finnish comedy, by A. Wilhelmi, active in the nineteenth century; the work belongs to Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literature. A one-act play is short and focused on a small cast, advancing through dialogue-driven misunderstandings and reversals; it can be read in one sitting and works well for reading aloud. Its value lies first in being a linguistic and stylistic sample: the dialogue rhythm, colloquial expression, and comic technique of nineteenth-century Finnish drama are preserved fairly fully in the text, making it useful to readers studying Finnish literature and theater history. Second, as a public-domain e-book it is light and easy to obtain, suitable as foreign-language reading material or a base text for short play rehearsals. Note that the content centers on misunderstandings about marriage and mate choice, a common popular comedy formula of the time; readers seeking deep social critique or modern narrative technique may find it thin. When reading, it helps to place it in the context of nineteenth-century Finnish theater development and focus on language rather than plot.

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Reading tips

  1. First read through once to grasp the structure of misunderstandings and reversals, then read the dialogue closely line by line to appreciate colloquial expression
  2. Read the script aloud, using tone and pauses to recreate the stage rhythm of one-act comedy
  3. Combine with background on nineteenth-century Finnish theater history to understand the period character of its themes and techniques
  4. Finnish learners can excerpt everyday conversational patterns as material for speaking and language-feel practice

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

FAQ

Can I read this book without knowing Finnish? It is very difficult to read directly. This is an original Finnish one-act play with no parallel translation, and the plot advances entirely through dialogue. Readers without Finnish would need a dictionary to look up each line, or should first find a literary-historical introduction to learn the plot summary. If you only want to understand nineteenth-century Nordic drama, it is better to start with a translated work from the same period.
How long is a one-act play, and what settings suit it? A one-act play has a compact structure and can usually be performed in a single sitting; the text is not long and is suitable for reading in one or two sittings. It also works as material for a reading session, or for beginners in theater to practice character dialogue and pacing. It can be read in segments during commutes or before bed, but because the misunderstanding thread is continuous, reading it in one go gives a more complete experience.
Where do the themes and humor of this comedy come from? Judging from the title and the genre of one-act comedy, the plot centers on misunderstandings about marriage and mate choice, and the humor comes mainly from information gaps between characters and conversational reversals—common devices in nineteenth-century popular comedy. Readers should not expect deep social critique; it is better treated as a sample for observing the comic language and stage tastes of the time.

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About the author

Wilhelmi, A. (Alexander), 1817-1877 Author · 1817–1877

Alexander Wilhelmi (Wilhelmi, A., 1817–1877) was a nineteenth-century playwright writing in Finnish. Public information about his life and nationality is limited, and apart from his birth and death years and a single surviving work, little is known about him. The work held in the collection is the one-act comedy Toinen tai toinen naimaan: Ilveily yhdessä näytöksessä, whose title means "This One or That One to Marry: A One-Act Farce." It shows that his writing was intended for the stage: short in length, light in plot, and colored by farce and popular comedy. The play turns on a choice of marriage and uses hesitation and misunderstanding among the characters to create comic effect; its language is plain and suited to small theatres or amateur performance. Such one-act farces were common in nineteenth-century Finnish theatrical activity, often serving public entertainment and the growth of local stages. Though only one work by Wilhelmi survives, it offers a sample of popular Finnish-language drama of the period and may be consulted by students of early Finnish theatre history.