Cinq Mars — Volume 3

Vigny, Alfred de, 1797-1863Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 126K words
Chapters: 13

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.Cinq Mars — Volume 3 by Alfred de VignyAuthor: Vigny, Alfred de, 1797-1863,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 1, 2003

Editor's review

This is the third of the five volumes of Vigny's historical novel Cinq Mars. It continues the story set in the age of Louis XIII. For Chinese readers its value lies not in offering a complete, self-contained story but in showing how a nineteenth-century French Romantic historical novel works: historical figures interwoven with fictional characters, political intrigue set alongside personal feeling. As a middle volume, it serves to develop the conflicts and deepen the character relationships, with the narrative tension typically building toward the end of the volume. The English translation bears the syntactic marks of nineteenth-century translation, with many long sentences, so it reads at a different pace from modern popular fiction. It is suitable as material for foreign literature studies, research on the French historical novel, or extensive reading of classic English, and for readers who have finished the first two volumes and wish to continue. For classroom teaching, passages of dialogue and psychological description can be selected for close reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who have finished the first two volumes and wish to continue this serialized historical novel
Literature students studying nineteenth-century French Romantic historical fiction
English learners who wish to read classic novels extensively in the original English
History enthusiasts interested in French court politics under Louis XIII

Not a good fit for

Readers who want to start from any volume without knowing the earlier story
Readers who prefer fast-paced modern narrative and lack patience for long sentences and old-fashioned translated prose
Readers who only want a plot summary and do not wish to read the English text

Reading tips

Skim summaries of the first two volumes or review their endings to sort out the characters before starting this volume.
Keep a character chart and note as you read how historical figures correspond to fictional characters.
When you meet a long sentence, first identify its subject and predicate, then reread the whole sentence, so that complex syntax does not interrupt you.
After each chapter, retell the plot in two or three sentences to check that you are following the narrative threads.

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

Can this volume be read on its own?

Not advisable. This is a middle volume of a five-volume serialized novel, and the character relationships and conflicts all rest on the first two volumes. Read alone, it is easy to feel confused about motives and background; read in order, or first learn the earlier story.

How difficult is the English translation?

As a translation from around the nineteenth century, its syntax is long and its diction literary, clearly different from modern popular English. Readers with college-level English who are willing to look up words can finish it, but the pace will be slower than with modern fiction.

Is this book suitable as an introduction to French history?

Not really as an introduction to history. It is a historical novel, not a work of history, and its figures and events are shaped by literary treatment. To learn the history of Louis XIII's reign, read general histories first and use this novel as a literary supplement.

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About the author

Vigny, Alfred de, 1797-1863 Author

Vigny, Alfred de (1797–1863), was a French writer. The library holds 13 of his works, commonly classified under inspirational and personal growth. His representative works include Servitude et grandeur militaires, Cinq-Mars ou, Une conjuration sous Louis XIII, Stello, and the multi-volume Cinq Mars. Judging from these works, he often drew on historical events and military life, using narrative to explore honor, duty, and individual destiny, with a reflective and restrained tone. Because public information is limited, a detailed account of his life and creative background cannot be fully presented here; based on the works in the library, however, his writing combines historical narrative with attention to inner character, and is suitable for readers interested in French historical fiction and the ethics of military life.