Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond

Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond PDF

Author: Martin Chase

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2014-06-02

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0823257835

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Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond shines light on traditional divisions of Old Norse–Icelandic poetry and awakens the reader to work that blurs these boundaries. Many of the texts and topics taken up in these enlightening essays have been difficult to categorize and have consequently been overlooked or undervalued. The boundaries between genres (Eddic and Skaldic), periods (Viking Age, medieval, early modern), or cultures (Icelandic, Scandinavian, English, Continental) may not have been as sharp in the eyes and ears of contemporary authors and audiences as they are in our own. When questions of classification are allowed to fade into the background, at least temporarily, the poetry can be appreciated on its own terms. Some of the essays in this collection present new material, while others challenge long-held assumptions. They reflect the idea that poetry with “medieval” characteristics continued to be produced in Iceland well past the fifteenth century, and even beyond the Protestant Reformation in Iceland (1550). This superb volume, rich in up-to-date scholarship, makes little-known material accessible to a wide audience.

Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland

Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland PDF

Author: Árni Heimir Ingólfsson

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2019-11-01

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0253044073

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In Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland, Árni Heimir Ingólfsson provides a striking account of the dramatic career of Iceland’s iconic composer. Leifs (1899–1968) was the first Icelander to devote himself fully to composition at a time when a local music scene was only beginning to take form. He was a fervent nationalist in his art, fashioning an idiosyncratic and uncompromising ‘Icelandic’ sound from traditions of vernacular music with the aim to legitimize Iceland as an independent, culturally empowered nation. In addition to exploring Leifs’s career, Ingólfsson provides detailed descriptions of Leifs’s major works and their cultural contexts. Leifs’s music was inspired by the Icelandic landscape and includes auditory depictions of volcanos, geysers, and waterfalls. The raw quality of his orchestral music is frequently enhanced by an expansive percussion section, including anvils, stones, sirens, bells, ships’ chains, shotguns, and cannons. Largely neglected in his own lifetime, Leifs’s music has been rediscovered in recent years and hailed as a singular and deeply original contribution to twentieth-century music. Jón Leifs and the Musical Invention of Iceland enriches our understanding and appreciation of Leifs and his music by exploring the political, literary and environmental contexts that influenced his work.

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Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1911

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13:

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Provides image and full-text online access to back issues. Consult the online table of contents for specific holdings.

An Anthropology of Puzzles

An Anthropology of Puzzles PDF

Author: Marcel Danesi

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2018-12-13

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1350089869

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An Anthropology of Puzzles argues that the human brain is a "puzzling organ" which allows humans to literally solve their own problems of existence through puzzle format. Noting the presence of puzzles everywhere in everyday life, Marcel Danesi looks at puzzles in society since the dawn of history, showing how their presence has guided large sections of human history, from discoveries in mathematics to disquisitions in philosophy. Danesi examines the cognitive processes that are involved in puzzle making and solving, and connects them to the actual physical manifestations of classic puzzles. Building on a concept of puzzles as based on Jungian archetypes, such as the river crossing image, the path metaphor, and the journey, Danesi suggests this could be one way to understand the public fascination with puzzles. As well as drawing on underlying mental archetypes, the act of solving puzzles also provides an outlet to move beyond biological evolution, and Danesi shows that puzzles could be the product of the same basic neural mechanism that produces language and culture. Finally, Danesi explores how understanding puzzles can be a new way of understanding our human culture.

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