You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
List of members in v. 3, 5.
Accessible guide to and description of the medieval poetic tradition in Scandinavia. This is the first book in English to deal with the twin subjects of Old Norse poetry and the various vernacular treatises on native poetry that were a conspicuous feature of medieval intellectual life in Iceland and the Orkneys from the mid-twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Its aim is to give a clear description of the rich poetic tradition of early Scandinavia, particularly in Iceland, where it reached its zenith, and to demonstrate the social contextsthat favoured poetic composition, from the oral societies of the early Viking Age in Norway and its colonies to the devout compositions of literate Christi...
As complete a history as possible of the literature of Iceland.
Mythic discourses in the present day show how vernacular heritage continues to function and be valuable through emergent interpretations and revaluations. At the same time, continuities in mythic images, motifs, myths and genres reveal the longue durée of mythologies and their transformations. The eighteen articles of Mythic Discourses address the many facets of myth in Uralic cultures, from the Finnish and Karelian world-creation to Nenets shamans, offering multidisciplinary perspectives from twenty eastern and western scholars. The mythologies of Uralic peoples differ so considerably that mythology is approached here in a broad sense, including myths proper, religious beliefs and associated rituals. Traditions are addressed individually, typologically, and in historical perspective. The range and breadth of the articles, presenting diverse living mythologies, their histories and relationships to traditions of other cultures such as Germanic and Slavic, all come together to offer a far richer and more developed perspective on Uralic traditions than any one article could do alone.
An examination of hagiographical traditions and their impact.
>
The first group of essays in this volume explores the links between early Norse literature, from the 9th to the 13th century, and the learned world of medieval Europe. In the second group the focus is upon the range of theme and style in Norse mythological poetry. Some of the key texts are considered in relation to Anglo-Saxon poetry as well as to the wider and more archaic Indo-European cultural inheritance. The third group offers detailed analyses of early Norse heroic poetry, of the formatic role of verse in the Icelandic sagas and of the final perfecting of prose as the ultimate saga medium. The 16 essays, taken together, are essential reading for all scholars, critics and historians who seek to understand the development of one of the world's most unusual and sophisticated literatures.
List of members in v. 3, 5.
Volume 2.
This book is the first study to tackle the relationship between landscape and religion in-depth. Author Matthias Egeler overviews previous theories of the relationship between landscape and religion and then pushes this theorizing further with a rich case study: the supernatural landscape of the Icelandic Westfjords. There, religion and the supernatural--from churches to elf hills--are ubiquitous in the landscape and, as Egeler shows, this example sheds entirely new light on core aspects of the relationship between landscape, religion, and the supernatural.