You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
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 contexts that favoured poetic composition, from the oral societies of the early Viking Age in Norway and its colonies to the devout compositions of literate Christian clerics in fourteenth-century Iceland. The author analyses the two dominant poeti...
Prolonged Echoes is the second volume in the two volume study of Old Norse myths and their meaning both for us and for medieval Scandinavians, -- some of whom we should thank for the myths' written transmission through the Middle Ages and into modern times. The subject of Vol. 2 is the reception and use of Old Norse myths by the Cristian community of medieval Iceland. It requires us to consider a wider range of Old Icelandic texts, including those studied in volume one but extending to works that, while not taking myth as their subject, utilise it and references to it in their larger discourse. A number of excellent general studies that are available to assist readers unfamiliar with recent writing on early medieval Scandinavia are listed as an addendum.
This volume presents twenty essays by leading scholars of Old Norse which bring into focus the nature of learned traditions - both oral and written - in medieval Scandinavia and the interpretation and re-interpretation of them over time. Theoretical frameworks for understanding Old Norse literature is the initial topic of the collection, which then moves on to present recent work on Old Norse myth and society; current perspectives on oral traditions in performance and text; and reflections on medieval ideas about language, both vernacular and Latin. The collection is rounded off by a section on prolonged traditions - the transformation of local and imported traditions into new literary forms...
The medieval Norse-Icelandic saga is one of the most important European vernacular literary genres of the Middle Ages. This Introduction to the saga genre outlines its origins and development, its literary character, its material existence in manuscripts and printed editions, and its changing reception from the Middle Ages to the present time. Its multiple sub-genres - including family sagas, mythical-heroic sagas and sagas of knights - are described and discussed in detail, and the world of medieval Icelanders is powerfully evoked. The first general study of the Old Norse-Icelandic saga to be written in English for some decades, the Introduction is based on up-to-date scholarship and engages with current debates in the field. With suggestions for further reading, detailed information about the Icelandic literary canon, and a map of medieval Iceland, this book is aimed at students of medieval literature and assumes no prior knowledge of Scandinavian languages.
Sagas of Icelanders, also called family sagas, are the best known of the many literary genres that flourished in medieval Iceland, most of them achieving written form during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Modern readers and critics often praise their apparently realistic descriptions of the lives, loves and feuds of settler families of the first century and a half of Iceland's commonwealth period (c. AD 970-1030), but this ascription of realism fails to account for one of the most important components of these sagas, the abundance of skaldic poetry, mostly in dróttkvætt "court metre", which comes to saga heroes' lips at moments of crisis. These presumed voices from the past...
The first comprehensive account of Old Icelandic literature set within its social and cultural context.
Over the millennia since pre-Christian religions were actively practised, European - and later contemporary - society has developed a fascination with the beliefs of northern Europe before the arrival of Christianity, which have been the subject of a huge range of popular and scholarly theories, interpretations, and uses. Indeed, the pre-Christian religions of the North have exerted a phenomenal influence on modern culture, appearing in everything from the names of days of the week to Hollywood blockbusters. Scholarly treatments have been hardly less varied. Theories - from the Middles Ages until today - have depicted these pre-Christian religious systems as dangerous illusions, the works of...
302 S.
Machine generated contents note: 1 Introduction: Rocks and Rhymes ' -- The Karlevi stone -- Runic inscriptions, skaldic verse and the late Viking Age -- Literacy and orality -- The runic corpus -- The skaldic corpus -- Verse in prose contexts -- Reconstructing viking verse -- The manuscript transmission -- Viking verse as a historical source -- Semantic study of skaldic verse and runic inscriptions -- Skaldic vocabulary in context -- Runes and semantics -- Comparative angles -- Sources and conventions -- Ships and men in the late Viking Age -- 2 Viking Activities -- Vikings -- vikingr -- viking -- Death and war -- 'He died' -- Battles and raids -- The fall of warriors -- Trade -- Pilgrimage ...
The purpose of this book is to apply theories and perspectives from the Study of Religion, or Comparative Religion, to the study of the pre-Christian culture in the North. The basic idea is that such an application will en-lighten our understanding of some myths and other narratives which, from other points of view, may seem obscure and thus give us a glimpse into the world view of the pagan Scandinavians, which cannot be obtained otherwise. The book deals with problems within the study of Religion as well as within Scandinavian Studies, and hopefully it can inspire scholars from both fields.