Germanic Texts and Latin Models

Germanic Texts and Latin Models PDF

Author: Karin E. Olsen

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9789042909854

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Medieval writers who 'translated' Latin texts into Germanic vernaculars not only transmitted their originals, but, driven by individualistic impulses and cultural conventions, also transformed them. This process of domesticating texts was fundamentally creative and might more accurately be described as 'reconstruction'. The essays in Germanic Texts and Latin Models: Medieval Reconstructions explore the ways in which Latin texts and traditions were reconstructed in Old English, Old Icelandic and Old High German and cover a range of genres: legal texts, genealogies, histories, and poetry. They examine how medieval Germanic authors negotiated the need to transmit their models while at the same time fulfilling their own political, artistic and didactic objectives in the creation of vernacular texts. These new studies demonstrate the variety of ways in which medieval Germanic texts were indebted to their Latin exemplars, while reflecting their new culturally specific circumstances in the complex nexus of Latin learning and Germanic lore.

Hrafnkel Or the Ambiguities

Hrafnkel Or the Ambiguities PDF

Author: William Ian Miller

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0198793030

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William Ian Miller presents a close reading of one of the best known of the Icelandic sagas, showing its moral, political, and psychological sophistication. Hrafnkel tells of a fairly simple feud in which a man rises, falls, and rises again with a vengeance, so to speak. The saga deals with complex issues with finely layered irony: who can one justifiably hit, when, and by what means? It does this with cool nuance, also taking on matters of torture and pain-infliction as a means of generating fellow-feeling. How does one measure pain and humiliation so as to get even, to get back to equal? People are forced to set prices on things we tell ourselves soporifically are priceless, such as esteem, dignity, life itself. Morality no less than legal remedy involves price-setting. This book flies in the face of all the previous critical literature which, with very few exceptions, imposes simplistic readings on the saga. A translation of the saga is provided as an appendix.

Emotional Alterity in the Medieval North Sea World

Emotional Alterity in the Medieval North Sea World PDF

Author: Erin Sebo

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-09-25

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 3031339657

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This book addresses a little-considered aspect of the study of the history of emotions in medieval literature: the depiction of perplexing emotional reactions. Medieval literature often confronts audiences with displays of emotion that are improbable, physiologically impossible, or simply unfathomable in modern social contexts. The intent of such episodes is not always clear; medieval texts rarely explain emotional responses or their motivations. The implication is that the meanings communicated by such emotional display were so obvious to their intended audience that no explanation was required. This raises the question of whether such meanings can be recovered. This is the task to which the contributors to this book have put themselves. In approaching this question, this book does not set out to be a collection of literary studies that treat portrayals of emotion as simple tropes or motifs, isolated within their corpora. Rather, it seeks to uncover how such manifestations of feeling may reflect cultural and social dynamics underlying vernacular literatures from across the medieval North Sea world.

Feud in the Icelandic Saga

Feud in the Icelandic Saga PDF

Author: Jesse L. Byock

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-04-28

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0520341015

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Feud stands at the core of the Old Icelandic sagas. Jesse Byock shows how the dominant concern of medieval Icelandic society—the channeling of violence into accepted patterns of feud and the regulation of conflict—is reflected in the narrative of the family sagas and the Sturlunga saga compilation. This comprehensive study of narrative structure demonstrates that the sagas are complex expressions of medieval social thought.

Old Norse-Icelandic Literature

Old Norse-Icelandic Literature PDF

Author: Medieval Academy of America

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 9780802038234

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"In the past few decades, interest in the rich and varied literature of early Scandinavia has prompted a corresponding interest in its background: its origins, social and historical context, and relationship to other medieval literatures. Until the 1980s, however, there was a distinct lack of scholarship in English that synthesized the critical trends and thinking in the field, so in 1985 Carol J. Clover and John Lindow brought together several of the most distinguished Old Norse scholars to contribute essays for a collection that would finally provide a comprehensive guide to the major genres of Old Norse-Icelandic literature." "The contributors summarize and comment on scholarly work in the major branches of the field: eddic and skaldic poetry, family and kings' sagas, courtly writing, and mythology. Their essays, each with a full bibliography, make up this vital survey of Old Norse literature in English - a basic reference work that has stimulated much research and helped to open up the field to a wider academic readership." "This volume has become an essential text for instructors, and now, twenty years after its first appearance, it is being republished as part of the Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching (MART) series with a new preface that discusses more recent contributions to the field."

The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas

The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas PDF

Author: Ármann Jakobsson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-02-17

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 1317041461

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The last fifty years have seen a significant change in the focus of saga studies, from a preoccupation with origins and development to a renewed interest in other topics, such as the nature of the sagas and their value as sources to medieval ideologies and mentalities. The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas presents a detailed interdisciplinary examination of saga scholarship over the last fifty years, sometimes juxtaposing it with earlier views and examining the sagas both as works of art and as source materials. This volume will be of interest to Old Norse and medieval Scandinavian scholars and accessible to medievalists in general.

Bad Boys and Wicked Women

Bad Boys and Wicked Women PDF

Author: Daniela Hahn

Publisher: Herbert Utz Verlag

Published: 2017-02-07

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 3831645574

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This volume assembles 13 essays as the result of a workshop for international doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in Old Norse studies, which was held at the Institute for Nordic Philology at LMU in Munich in December 2015. The contributions’ focus lies on different aspects of ›bad‹ or ›evil‹ characters in saga literature, and they give testimony to the broad literary variety such figures display in Old Norse texts. The “Antagonists and Troublemakers in Old Norse Literature” are here explored in their diversity, ranging from their literary psychology to their characteristics which often challenge gender norms. The contributions discuss the narrative strategies of presenting these characters to the audience, both positively and negatively. Furthermore, they analyse how the central paradox of evil and its dependence on context is realised in various ways in Old Norse literature.

Chaos & Love

Chaos & Love PDF

Author: Thomas Bredsdorff

Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9788772895703

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Bredsdorff (Scandinavian literature, U. of Copenhagen) analyzes the Icelandic family sagas as literature. He argues that the significant recurring pattern of events in the sagas is one of clashes brought about by the intersection of the code of honor and bloodfeud with people's sexual drives; he says, "The two combined set the catastrophe in motion." The volume is not indexed. Distributed in the U.S. by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.