Poems
John Milton HayProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019
Rating 2.9- Word count
- 120K words
- Chapters
- 12
Tags
English Originals War MemoryPortrait GalleryHeroismPatriotismLyric PoetryBeautiful EssaysPoetry AnthologyMusical RhythmSummary
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. Poems by John Hay. Author: Hay, John, 1838-1905. Language: English. Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature. Release Date: Dec 1, 2003Editor's review
This is John Hay's poetry collection, released by Project Gutenberg as a free eBook and classified under American and Canadian literature. John Hay was both a statesman and a man of letters, and his poems often reveal, through restrained lyricism, a concern for public life and personal feeling. The collection serves as a useful supplementary volume for understanding the landscape of nineteenth-century American poetry. The electronic edition is easy to obtain and the text is complete, making it convenient to search and excerpt, especially for research readers who wish to extract poems by theme. There is no need to read it straight through; treat it as an open archive of poetics, attending both to the traditional sources of its diction and meter and to the poem's indirect responses to the atmosphere of the age. For general readers, the book is better suited to occasional short reading: one or two poems at a time, with notes and background reference, makes its flavor easier to appreciate than continuous reading.Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers interested in nineteenth-century American poetry who wish to broaden their reading
- Researchers who need free English poetry texts for teaching or excerpting
- English learners who enjoy short poems and fragmented reading habits
- Readers interested in the special category of writing by statesmen of letters
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting a modern style or strongly experimental expression
- Beginner English readers who need detailed notes and introductions
- Readers hoping for long narrative poems or complete verse dramas
Reading tips
- Begin by browsing the table of contents and choosing titles that interest you; there is no need to read in order.
- Read each poem twice; read the second aloud, attending to rhythm and rhyme.
- Mark historical figures or allusions as you go, and look them up together after finishing the poem.
- Read alongside other nineteenth-century American poets for comparison and reference.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971Project 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.
Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
FAQ
Is this poetry collection suitable for English beginners?
Not very suitable for readers with no foundation. The language belongs to nineteenth-century English, and some wording and syntax are distant from modern English; the electronic edition also generally lacks word-by-word notes. Readers with intermediate reading ability or above who are willing to consult a dictionary will benefit more.Does the electronic edition include an editor's introduction or notes?
According to the information, this is a public-domain electronic text released by Project Gutenberg, offering mainly the body of the work; no detailed introduction or scholarly notes are stated to be included. Readers who need background material should consult the author's biography and the historical context separately.In what order should I read this poetry collection?
It is best not to insist on order. Begin with shorter poems with clear themes, build a feel for the language, and then read longer pieces or those with more allusions. For research purposes, you may group the poems by theme or period of composition.This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
John Milton Hay Author · American · 1838–1905John Hay (1838–1905) was an American statesman, poet, and writer, born in Salem, Indiana. He served as President Lincoln's private secretary, as ambassador to Britain, and as U.S. Secretary of State, and he shaped the Open Door policy toward China. His literary output spans poetry and prose: Pike County Ballads and Other Poems is known for its vernacular American voice and narrative manner, while Castilian Days records his impressions of Spain. He also wrote the social novel The Bread-winners: A Social Study and co-authored a ten-volume Life of Lincoln. Four of his works are held here, but public information is limited, making it difficult to detail his creative periods or later reputation; the surviving works nevertheless show a writer who combined political experience with a literary touch, drawing on personal observation and American local life. He died in New Hampshire in 1905.