Zophiel

Brooks, Maria Gowen, 1795？-1845Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 67K words
Chapters: 7

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.Zophiel by Maria Gowen BrooksAuthor: Brooks, Maria Gowen, 1795?-1845,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jul 2, 2006

Editor's review

Zophiel is a long narrative poem by the nineteenth-century American poet Maria Gowen Brooks, in the public domain via Project Gutenberg. It is relatively little known among Chinese readers, but it is valuable for understanding early American Romantic poetry, the tradition of women's writing, and the religious and exotic imagination of nineteenth-century English poetry. The work tells its story in verse, with careful attention to rhythm and imagery; the main difficulty for readers lies in understanding the verse lines and the allusive background rather than in the complexity of the plot. It is suitable as supplementary reading for literature students and poetry lovers, and for those studying the history of American literature who wish to place it within the context of nineteenth-century poetry. It is advisable not to try to finish it in one sitting; proceed section by section, using notes and background materials to aid understanding.

Who it's for

A good fit for

University students studying American literary history who want to add little-known poetic texts
Poetry readers interested in nineteenth-century English narrative poetry and religious themes
Readers and researchers studying early American women's writing
Intermediate and advanced learners willing to read English poetry slowly and to look things up and take notes

Not a good fit for

General readers who only want light novels or modern stories
Readers with little experience of English poetry who want a zero-threshold introduction
Readers who need a Chinese translation or a detailed scholarly annotated edition

Reading tips

Begin with the preface or introductory material to get an outline of the story before entering the verse.
Read only one or two cantos at a time, reading aloud to feel the rhythm and tone.
Keep pen and paper to note recurring images and religious allusions for later review.
After finishing, consult relevant chapters on the history of nineteenth-century American poetry to situate the work.

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 genre is this work?

It is a narrative work in verse, telling a story in English poetic lines with a coloring of nineteenth-century Romantic and religious imagination. It should be read as poetry, attending to rhythm, imagery, and allusion, rather than skimmed as a prose novel.

Can I read it without any background in poetry?

You can try, but it is advisable to start with shorter passages and read slowly with background introductions and a dictionary. If you have never read English poetry at all, you may be hindered by syntax and allusions; starting with introductions and plot summaries will make it easier to enter.

Why is this little-known work worth reading?

Its value lies in showing how a nineteenth-century American woman poet handled long narrative, religious themes, and exotic imagination, which adds to literary-historical research. For general readers, it is better suited as slow reading to broaden perspective than as a text to read for plot excitement.

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About the author

Brooks, Maria Gowen, 1795？-1845 Author · American

Maria Gowen Brooks (Brooks, Maria Gowen, 1795?-1845) was an American poet. Because public sources are limited, her exact birth and death years and early life can only be roughly placed in the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Brooks is known for her long narrative poem Zophiel, her main surviving literary work and the only one of her works held in this collection. Drawing on religious and mythological legend, the poem centers on the story of the angel Zophiel, with rich imagination and a lyric quality characteristic of Romantic poetry; it holds a place in the tradition of early American Romantic verse. Since the historical record is scattered, the full range of her writing and the details of her life are difficult to reconstruct. Scholarly attention to her has focused mainly on the subject matter and poetic art of Zophiel. On the whole, she is regarded as one of the early nineteenth-century American poets known for long narrative poetry.