A Night in Avignon

Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 39K words
Chapters: 4

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.A Night in Avignon by Cale Young RiceAuthor: Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jul 5, 2011

Editor's review

A Night in Avignon is a short play by the American writer Cale Young Rice. Compact in length and concentrated in setting, it carries the typical tension of a one-act play: characters clash within a limited time and space as emotions and positions build layer by layer. Rice was both a poet and a playwright, and his language attends to rhythm and imagery; the value of this small book therefore lies not in grand narrative but in the density of its dialogue and the atmosphere it creates. Avignon as a setting carries historical and literary associations, and readers may note how the author uses the place name and the night setting to generate drama. This edition is a free English eBook from Project Gutenberg, with no production notes, and is suitable as a light sample of English dramatic text as well as for theater enthusiasts doing read-alouds or scene analysis. It is best read as a performance on paper, with attention to shifts in tone and stage movement.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in English short plays and the one-act form
Literature lovers who want to practice reading English drama with a shorter text
Theater groups or reading circles looking for short script material
Students and readers studying the work of American poet-playwrights

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a long historical novel or complex plot
Theater practitioners who need detailed stage directions and production notes
Beginners whose English reading is not yet proficient and who rely on Chinese translation support

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the overall atmosphere, then read aloud by role to feel the rhythm of the dialogue
While reading, note how the setting and time scheme drive changes in the characters' emotions
After finishing, try writing a short review analyzing the dramatic function of "one night" in the title
If used for a read-aloud event, first mark the points where characters' tones shift, then assign roles

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 a novel or a play?

It is a short play, compact in length and concentrated in setting, with the structural features of a one-act play. It should be read as a dramatic text, with attention to dialogue, setting, and the build-up of emotion, rather than with the expectation of novel-style exposition.

How difficult is the English? Is it suitable for beginners?

The text is an original English play whose language attends to rhythm and imagery; the sentences are not especially difficult but require some experience in reading drama. Readers with intermediate English reading ability will find it more suitable; beginners may read a Chinese summary first and then try the original, or lower the difficulty by reading aloud by role.

Can it be used as reading material for a theater group?

Yes. It is short and has a small cast, making it suitable for read-alouds or excerpted staging. It is advisable to read the whole text first, mark the shifts in characters' tones and the stage movement, and then assign roles; for formal performance, stage directions and background materials will need to be supplied separately.

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About the author

Rice, Cale Young, 1872-1943 Author

Cale Young Rice (1872–1943) was an American poet and playwright. Public information about him is limited, and the details of his life are difficult to set out, but the eleven works by him held in this collection show that he wrote steadily in both poetry and verse drama. Poems such as Sea Poems, Many Gods and Nirvana Days take the sea, faith and Eastern philosophical reflection as their themes, with concise language and a lyrical, meditative quality; plays such as David: A Tragedy, Yolanda of Cyprus, Porzia and The Immortal Lure draw mainly on historical or legendary stories, using verse dialogue to develop their characters' emotions and conflicts of fate. His writing combines romantic imagination with a search for the meaning of life, and his works hold a place in early twentieth-century American letters, remaining of interest to readers studying the poetry and verse drama of that period.