Count Alarcos: A Tragedy

Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1804-188Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 133K words
Chapters: 14

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.Count Alarcos; a Tragedy by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin DisraeliAuthor: Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1804-1881,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Feb 1, 2005

Editor's review

This verse tragedy, written by the British statesman and novelist Benjamin Disraeli under his peerage title, draws on Spanish legend and revolves around honour, love and revenge. As a free electronic text from Project Gutenberg, it preserves the literary language of the nineteenth century and serves as primary material for studying Disraeli's literary work or Victorian verse drama. Readers should attend to its verse rhythm and dramatic structure and to the conflict between duty and feeling in its characters. The text is short and can serve as supplementary reading in a nineteenth-century drama unit of an English literature course, and is also suited to readers interested in the reception of Spanish themes in English literature. Being a public-domain eBook, it is set mainly in plain text without detailed annotation, so newcomers may need external sources for background.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English literature students studying Disraeli's literary work
Readers interested in Victorian verse tragedy
Course instructors who need a public-domain English drama text
Researchers on the transmission of Spanish legend in English literature

Not a good fit for

General readers who want a modern vernacular or Chinese translation
Beginners unaccustomed to nineteenth-century English verse
Entry-level readers seeking detailed annotation and introduction

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then return to key monologues and dialogue passages.
Read alongside materials on Disraeli's life and Victorian theatre background.
Read some verse passages aloud to feel the rhythm and shifts of tone in the verse drama.
After reading, outline the characters' choices between honour and feeling and take brief notes.

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 a novel or a play?

It is a verse tragedy written in dramatic form, with character dialogue and scene arrangements rather than narrative fiction. Read it as a dramatic text, attending to dialogue and the development of conflict.

Can I understand it without annotations?

The text is a public-domain eBook and usually contains no detailed annotations. Readers with some grounding in English literature can read it through, but may need external sources for historical background and allusions.

Is it suitable as a classroom text?

It can serve as supplementary material for the study of nineteenth-century British drama or Disraeli, but because it lacks an introduction and annotations, instructors usually need to prepare their own background notes and explanations of difficult passages.

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About the author

Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 1804-188 Author

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804–188), was an English novelist and statesman. Public information is limited, and the details of his life cannot be fully set out in this entry. The collection holds nineteen of his works, including Sybil, Or, The Two Nations; Henrietta Temple: A Love Story; Vivian Grey; Coningsby Or, The New Generation; Endymion; Venetia; The Voyage of Captain Popanilla; and Lothair. These works draw largely on British political and social life, often set against the aristocracy, party conflict, and class divisions, and combine love plots with satire, marked by witty language and lively dialogue. The idea of "the two nations" put forward in Sybil has become widely known as a phrase for the social gulf between rich and poor. His novels are both readable and offer a literary perspective on nineteenth-century British political culture.