Troubadour Tales

Evaleen SteinProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
151K words
Chapters
16

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Classic Fairy TalesMinstrel PoetComing of AgeChivalryRetold StoriesExotic CultureFolk Legend

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.Troubadour Tales by Evaleen SteinAuthor: Stein, Evaleen, 1863-1923,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 21, 2015

Editor's review

Evaleen Stein's Troubadour Tales is a collection of stories in English, released free of charge by Project Gutenberg. The title points to the troubadour tradition, and the contents are above all narrative, richly colored by folklore and medieval imagination. Stein often wrote for young readers, in clear language and with simple plots, well suited to reading aloud and storytelling. As a public-domain ebook, its appeal lies in preserving the plain manner of early children's literature and legend retellings, letting readers see how an early twentieth-century American writer reworked European troubadour material. It should not be judged by the complex world-building of modern fantasy, but read for its storytelling rhythm, repetition, and moral lessons. It suits family reading, classroom read-alouds, and use as supplementary material for the study of children's literature, legend adaptation, and public-domain texts. For adult readers it is a light collection of short pieces, to be read one at a time in spare moments, noticing how oral tradition leaves its mark on written story.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read one piece at a time and retell the plot after each, to sense the oral-tradition quality.
  2. For family reading, read aloud first, then discuss the story's lessons and the characters' choices.
  3. When studying children's literature, note the narrative language, repetitive structures, and how moral instruction appears.
  4. General knowledge of troubadours can accompany the reading, but the stories should not be treated as historical sources.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16

FAQ

Is this book a long novel or a collection of short stories? From the title and Stein's style, it is a collection of stories, suited to reading piece by piece. The available data gives no details of individual pieces; open the ebook's table of contents to confirm the contents and plan your reading pace accordingly.
Is it suitable for children? The language and subject matter are generally clear and gentle, making it suitable for family reading aloud or classroom storytelling. Still, parents or teachers should look through individual pieces in advance, choose according to the child's age and receptiveness, and explain as needed.
Does this book have value for historical research? It is better read as literary story and legend adaptation than as strict historical material. For facts about the Middle Ages or troubadours, pair it with scholarly histories; its value lies mainly in narrative tradition and the character of children's literature.

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About the author

Evaleen Stein Author · American · 1863–1923

Evaleen Stein (1863–1923) was an American poet, children's author, and decorative artist. Born on October 12, 1863, in Lafayette, Indiana, and died there on December 11, 1923, she spent nearly her entire life in her hometown. She studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and excelled in manuscript illumination, an artistic sensibility that also informed her writing. Her works were mainly written for children and include Child Songs of Cheer, Gabriel and the Hour Book, and Troubadour Tales, as well as Among the Trees Again. Her writing often draws on nature, medieval story, and childhood delight, with clear, rhythmic language and a strong visual quality that reflects both her poetic and her decorative gifts. Public information about her is limited, and details of her life and the influence of her work remain to be further studied.