Love Songs

Sara TeasdaleProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 34K 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.Love Songs by Sara TeasdaleAuthor: Teasdale, Sara, 1884-1933,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 1, 1996

Editor's review

Sara Teasdale is a major voice in American lyric poetry, and Love Songs gathers the short lyrics she excelled at: clear language, distilled imagery, and feeling that is restrained without being cold, often finding love’s joy and loss in everyday scenes of moonlight, gardens, and seasons. This edition is a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg, retains the original English text, and is concise, suited to slow reading one poem at a time in quiet moments and to repeated recitation for its rhythm. For Chinese readers it is both a window into early twentieth-century American women’s poetry and a light primer in English lyric verse. Note that this electronic edition has no modern editor’s introduction or detailed notes, so cultural background and allusions in the poems must be looked up by the reader; some poems lean toward melancholy, and readers expecting strong narrative or social themes may find it slight. Overall, it suits readers willing to savor delicate feeling in short poems.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy short English lyric poems and care about verbal rhythm
Literature lovers who want to understand early twentieth-century American women’s poetry
People who want light reading of original English poems before bed or on the commute
Writers who can learn from its choice of imagery and emotional restraint

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plot narrative or broad social themes
English beginners who need bilingual text and detailed notes
Those with little interest in melancholy lyric poetry

Reading tips

Read through the collection in its original order, then pick the few poems that resonate most and read them aloud repeatedly.
When reading aloud, pay attention to line-end pauses and rhyme to feel the rhythmic arrangement of lyric poetry.
Keep a short commonplace book, recording images and lines that move you and writing down your responses.
Read alongside other American women poets to compare similarities and differences in lyric perspective.

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 Teasdale’s poetry suitable for English beginners?

Her poems use fairly everyday words and short sentences, so the vocabulary threshold is not high, but without notes or translation they still require some English reading ability. Beginners can start with short poems, working through them one by one with a dictionary, and should not rush.

Does this electronic edition have an introduction or notes?

According to the information, it is a public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg; the main text is the original English poems and usually contains no modern scholarly introduction, notes, or translation. Background information must be looked up separately.

What is the overall emotional tone of the collection?

It is mainly lyric, centered on love, nature, and time, with clear language and restrained feeling; some pieces have a melancholy color. It does not aim for narrative elaboration and is better for slow, careful reading than for reading straight through.

Comments

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About the author

Sara Teasdale Author · American · 1884–1933

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) was an American lyric poet born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her verse is concise and markedly musical, often treating love, nature, and death with restrained emotion. Her collection Love Songs made her the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1918. Other representative works include Helen of Troy, Rivers to the Sea, and Flame and Shadow. Her famous poem "There Will Come Soft Rains" remains widely read and anthologized. Four of her works are held in this collection. Public information on her education and specific life experiences is limited, so this entry focuses on the themes, style, and literary influence of her work.