André

William DunlapProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4

Word count: 91K words
Chapters: 10

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.André by William DunlapAuthor: Dunlap, William, 1766-1839,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 26, 2009

Editor's review

André is a tragedy by the early American playwright William Dunlap, based on real historical events and centered on the capture and execution of the British officer André during the War of Independence; it has value both as a historical document and as dramatic literature. As a representative text of drama in the early American republic, it shows how early American literature expressed ideas about loyalty, honor, and political conflict, and is useful for understanding the origins of American drama. This edition is a Project Gutenberg e-book, easy to search and cite, and suitable as classroom supplementary material or a research text. Readers should note that its style carries the rhetorical manner of the late eighteenth century: characters' speeches are long and the plot advances mainly through dialogue and soliloquy, so the emphasis is on experiencing the historical context rather than modern narrative pacing.

Who it's for

A good fit for

University teachers and students studying early American drama and literary history
Readers interested in the history of the War of Independence and historical tragedy
Researchers who need an English public-domain electronic text for textual analysis
Literature enthusiasts who want to understand the literary landscape of the early American republic

Not a good fit for

General fiction readers seeking fast-paced plots and strong storytelling
Readers with weak English reading skills who want light entertainment
Readers with little patience for eighteenth-century dramatic style and historical background

Reading tips

Learn the basic facts of the André affair before entering the play to reduce obstacles to understanding.
Read act by act and summarize the conflict and each character's position after each act to grasp the structure.
Note the rhetoric and value judgments in the soliloquies and compare them with other American literary works of the same period.
Use an annotated edition or introductory materials alongside the English original, focusing on historical terms and allusions.

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 suitable for readers who do not know American history?

It can be read, but it is advisable to first learn a little about the War of Independence. The play is based on historical events, and without knowledge of the relevant facts, understanding of the characters' situations and conflicts is weakened. Reading a brief account of the events first and then returning to the text makes for a much smoother experience.

Is the content of the electronic edition different from the paper edition?

This edition comes from the public-domain electronic text of Project Gutenberg and contains the main text of the work, usually without modern scholarly annotation or introduction. Paper editions may include editorial notes and annotations; for research, it is advisable to consult an annotated edition, while the electronic edition is better for searching and citing the original text.

What is the greatest difficulty in reading it?

The main difficulty is style: late eighteenth-century dramatic dialogue is long and heavily rhetorical, and the plot advances through dialogue and soliloquy, which modern readers may find slow. Read at a slower pace, divide the reading by act, and first grasp the characters' positions and conflicts before reading the language closely.

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About the author

William Dunlap Author · American · 1766–1839

William Dunlap (1766–1839) was an American playwright and painter. Active in the early American theater, he wrote plays and took part in managing theatrical productions; his representative work is the play André. He also wrote A History of the American Theatre, an important source for later study of the early stage in the United States. Through his sustained engagement in writing, production organization, and historical documentation, he is regarded as a key founder of early American drama and is often called the "Father of American Theater." Public information is limited, and details of his life cannot be fully verified; judged by his extant works and accounts, his writing often draws on historical events and figures of the era, with a plain style that emphasizes stage effect and moral themes, and it was pioneering for the formation of a national American drama after the Revolutionary War. One of his works is currently held in this collection.