Poems

Shastid, Thomas Hall, 1866-1947Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.4

Word count: 33K 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.Poems by Thomas Hall ShastidAuthor: Shastid, Thomas Hall, 1866-1947,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jul 10, 2016

Editor's review

This is an English poetry collection by Thomas Holley Chivers, a public-domain text in the American and Canadian literature category. The author's profession was in medicine, and his poems are mostly personal lyrics and everyday reflections, written in relatively plain language and not reliant on obscure imagery. Its reading value lies in showing one facet of American regional poetry from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century: subjects close to life and direct emotional expression, making it a useful supplementary sample for understanding the English-language poetry landscape of the time. General readers should not expect a landmark masterpiece, but can treat it as short poems to dip into at leisure and sense the warmth of a non-professional poet's writing. Readers studying American regional literature or public-domain poetry resources may also observe the publication and circulation forms of poetry in this period.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in American regional poetry and public-domain literary resources
General readers who enjoy short poems and wish to dip into lyrical works at leisure
Readers studying the English-language poetry landscape from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century
Beginners in English poetry who need plain-language, short-form reading material

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking classic masterpieces or intense literary impact
Professional researchers who need detailed annotations, introductions, and scholarly study
Readers who prefer modernist or contemporary poetic styles

Reading tips

Read in scattered units of short poems, two or three at a time, without striving to finish quickly
First read a poem through to grasp its emotional tone, then revisit its rhyme and line breaks
Copy out favorite lines and write a sentence or two of personal response in light of your own life experience
For literary research, examine subject choices in relation to the author's life and publication era

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

What are the notable features of this author's poetry?

From the text, the poems are mostly lyrical and everyday reflections, with plain language and direct emotion, without deliberately piling up obscure imagery. It is more like the personal writing record of a non-professional poet, suited to sensing the plain character of regional poetry in a particular era rather than to finding landmark works in literary history.

Can I read this collection without experience in reading poetry?

Yes. The poems are short and the language is not complex; beginners can start with any poem, first understanding the literal meaning, then noticing the rhythm created by line breaks and rhyme. There is no need to understand all the background; simply keep a relaxed state of casual browsing.

This public-domain collection has no annotations. What should I do when I encounter unfamiliar expressions?

You can first infer the general meaning from context, then check a dictionary to confirm key words; for expressions involving people, place names, or period background, do a simple search. If you are reading only for leisure, skipping a few difficult lines will not affect the overall impression, and there is no need to wrestle over every word.

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About the author

Shastid, Thomas Hall, 1866-1947 Author · American · 1866–1947

Thomas Hall Shastid (1866–1947) was an American ophthalmologist and writer. The publicly available information on which this entry is based is rather limited, and all that can be confirmed is that he worked as an eye doctor while also writing over many years. His works fall into two categories, memoirs and medical essays, and the one title held in our collection, Poems, shows that he also wrote poetry alongside his professional writing. His prose combines a physician's cool observation of life with a personal, lyrical sensibility, and his subjects are mostly drawn from everyday experience and professional observation. As far as the available material shows, his readership was confined mainly to those interested in writing by doctors and in American essays of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and he was less known as a poet than as a physician.