Little Women - Read-a-Long
Hello and welcome,
to this read-a-long where we can discuss every minor fact about Little Women I. Every chapter has its own discussion under thread and you can post everything you want about this chapter.
What you love, like or hate.
What you find curious or cute.
Whatever you find worth discussing in this chapter.
( Read more... )
to this read-a-long where we can discuss every minor fact about Little Women I. Every chapter has its own discussion under thread and you can post everything you want about this chapter.
What you love, like or hate.
What you find curious or cute.
Whatever you find worth discussing in this chapter.
( Read more... )
Undine and Sintram seems to be two different stories originally written in German by Baron Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777-1842): Undine, or The Water-Spirit and Sintram,[sic] and His Companions, both of which were translated into English by a Reverend Thomas Tracy. According to the preface, Tracy's translation seems to have been published in 1842.
Given that the book opens in December 1862, Jo isn't coveting a best-seller that was just published. She wants a book that has been out for the past twenty years.
The Witch's Curse: An Operatic Tragedy, which Jo and her sisters mention and which they perform in the next chapter, was based on a play that Alcott herself wrote called Norna; or, The Witch's Curse. You can read the plotline--which is quite complex--here, on page 226. It had fourteen scenes. Louisa's sister Anna said of it: "To introduce into one short scene a bandit, two cavaliers, a witch, and a fairy spirit--all enacted by two people--required some skill, and lightning change of costume."
Two people! At least Jo had a cast of four!
I noticed that in the online version, Beth says that her burden is "dishes and dusters" while in the version I grew up with, she says, "dishes and dusting." Now I'm wondering if Beth hated dusting or hated the smocks that girls were supposed to wear while housecleaning.
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It was cool to see a mention of Undine and Sintram in Little Women. It plays a sort of big role in Jo's Boys, but I'd forgot it was mentioned so very early on in the series. Guess Jo's taste in literature doesn't change much over the years. The book supposedly has all sorts of awesome moral lessons.
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