Saga Heiđreks Konungs Ins Vitra

Saga Heiđreks Konungs Ins Vitra PDF Author: Christopher Tolkien
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Old Norse language
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Saga Heiđreks Konungs Ins Vitra

Saga Heiđreks Konungs Ins Vitra PDF Author: Christopher Tolkien
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Old Norse language
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description


Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000-1200

Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe, 1000-1200 PDF Author: Christian Raffensperger
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000921670
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Rulers and Rulership in the Arc of Medieval Europe challenges the dominant paradigm of what rulership is and who rulers are by decentering the narrative and providing a broad swath of examples from throughout medieval Europe. Within that territory, the prevalent idea of monarchy and kingship is overturned in favor of a broad definition of rulership. This book will demonstrate to the reader that the way in which medieval Europe has been constructed in both the popular and scholarly imaginations is incorrect. Instead of a king we have multiple rulers, male and female, ruling concurrently. Instead of an independent church or a church striving for supremacy under the Gregorian Reform, we have a pope and ecclesiastical leaders making deals with secular rulers and an in-depth interconnection between the two. Finally, instead of a strong centralizing polity growing into statehood we see weak rulers working hand in glove with weak subordinates to make the polity as a whole function. Medievalists, Byzantinists, and Slavists typically operate in isolation from one another. They do not read each other’s books, or engage with each other’s work. This book requires engagement from all of them to point out that the medieval Europe that they work in is one and the same and demands collaboration to best understand it.

The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise

The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise PDF Author: Christopher Tolkien
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780007416967
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien PDF Author: Tom Shippey
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547524439
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
The definitive Tolkien companion—an indispensable guide to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and more, from the author of The Road to Middle-earth. This “highly erudite celebration and exploration of Tolkien’s works [is] enormous fun,” declared the Houston Chronicle, and Tom Shippey, a prominent medievalist and scholar of fantasy, “deepens your understanding” without “making you forget your initial, purely instinctive response to Middle-earth and hobbits.” In a clear and accessible style, Shippey offers a new approach to Tolkien, to fantasy, and to the importance of language in literature. He breaks down The Lord of the Rings as a linguistic feast for the senses and as a response to the human instinct for myth. Elsewhere, he examines The Hobbit’s counterintuitive relationship to the heroic world of Middle-earth; demonstrates the significance of The Silmarillion to Tolkien’s canon; and takes an illuminating look at lesser-known works in connection with Tolkien’s life. Furthermore, he ties all these strands together in a continuing tradition that traces its roots back through Grimms’ Fairy Tales to Beowulf. “Shippey’s commentary is the best so far in elucidating Tolkien’s lovely myth,” wrote Harper’s Magazine. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century is “a triumph” (Chicago Sun-Times) that not only gives readers a deeper understanding of Tolkien and his work, but also serves as an entertaining introduction to some of the most influential novels ever written.

Handbook of Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies

Handbook of Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies PDF Author: Jürg Glauser
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311043136X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1190

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Book Description
In recent years, the field of Memory Studies has emerged as a key approach in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and has increasingly shown its ability to open new windows on Nordic Studies as well. The entries in this book document the work-to-date of this approach on the pre-modern Nordic world (mainly the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, but including as well both earlier and later periods). Given that Memory Studies is an ever expanding critical strategy, the approximately eighty contributors in this volume also discuss the potential for future research in this area. Topics covered range from texts to performance to visual and other aspects of material culture, all approached from within an interdisciplinary framework. International specialists, coming from such relevant fields as archaeology, mythology, history of religion, folklore, history, law, art, literature, philology, language, and mediality, offer assessments on the relevance of Memory Studies to their disciplines and show it at work in case studies. Finally, this handbook demonstrates the various levels of culture where memory had a critical impact in the pre-modern North and how deeply embedded the role of memory is in the material itself.

Iron Age Myth and Materiality

Iron Age Myth and Materiality PDF Author: Lotte Hedeager
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136817263
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Iron Age Myth and Materiality: an Archaeology of Scandinavia AD 400-1000 considers the relationship between myth and materiality in Scandinavia from the beginning of the post-Roman era and the European Migrations up until the coming of Christianity. It pursues an interdisciplinary interpretation of text and material culture and examines how the documentation of an oral past relates to its material embodiment. While the material evidence is from the Iron Age, most Old Norse texts were written down in the thirteenth century or even later. With a time lag of 300 to 900 years from the archaeological evidence, the textual material has until recently been ruled out as a usable source for any study of the pagan past. However, Hedeager argues that this is true regarding any study of a society’s short-term history, but it should not be the crucial requirement for defining the sources relevant for studying long-term structures of the longue durée, or their potential contributions to a theoretical understanding of cultural changes and transformation. In Iron Age Scandinavia we are dealing with persistent and slow-changing structures of worldviews and ideologies over a wavelength of nearly a millennium. Furthermore, iconography can often date the arrival of new mythical themes anchoring written narratives in a much older archaeological context. Old Norse myths are explored with particular attention to one of the central mythical narratives of the Old Norse canon, the mythic cycle of Odin, king of the Norse pantheon. In addition, contemporaneous historical sources from late Antiquity and the early European Middle Age - the narratives of Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, and Paul the Deacon in particular - will be explored. No other study provides such a broad ranging and authoritative study of the relationship of myth to the archaeology of Scandinavia.

Sagas of Giants and Heroes

Sagas of Giants and Heroes PDF Author:
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0578059339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Huge in stature; living in far-distant wastelands; sometimes comically stupid or crude; but possessing vast wealth and knowledge-such are the giants of Norse myth and legend. Four Icelandic sagas and six tales, spanning five centuries, are brought together for the first time in all-new English translations. All tell of mighty giants, and of the heroes who dared to face them, fight them, and sometimes befriend them. The giants and trolls of old still live on in these legendary sagas of old times. These tales of epic voyages, wars, and romance will appeal to both scholars of Norse mythology and fans of Viking adventure. The sagas include the Saga of the Kjalarnes People, the Saga of Halfdan Brana's Fosterling, the Saga of Sorli the Strong, and the Saga of Illugi Grid's Fosterling. The six shorter tales are: the Tale of Halfdan the Black, the Tale of Hauk High-Breeches, the Tale of Jokul Buason, the Tale of Brindle-Cross, an excerpt from the Saga of the Fljotsdal People, and the Tale of Asmund Ogre-Lucky.

The Islamic World, Russia and the Vikings, 750-900

The Islamic World, Russia and the Vikings, 750-900 PDF Author: Thomas S. Noonan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040245811
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Professor Noonan here sets out to examine what Islamic silver coins (dirhams) reveal about the great trade between the Islamic world, European Russia, and the Baltic during the early Viking Age. Particular attention is devoted to the origins of this international commerce and the role of such peoples as the Vikings and Khazars. As he shows, the study of these coins also throws new light on mint output in the ’Abbasid caliphate, the historical significance of specific dirham hoards, and how the patterns of trade evolved during the course of the ninth century.

The Art and Thought of the "Beowulf" Poet

The Art and Thought of the Author: Leonard Neidorf
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501766910
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
In The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet, Leonard Neidorf explores the relationship between Beowulf and the legendary tradition that existed prior to its composition. The Beowulf poet inherited an amoral heroic tradition, which focused principally on heroes compelled by circumstances to commit horrendous deeds: fathers kill sons, brothers kill brothers, and wives kill husbands. Medieval Germanic poets relished the depiction of a hero's unyielding response to a cruel fate, but the Beowulf poet refused to construct an epic around this traditional plot. Focusing instead on a courteous and pious protagonist's fight against monsters, the poet creates a work that is deeply untraditional in both its plot and its values. In Beowulf, the kin-slayers and oath-breakers of antecedent tradition are confined to the background, while the poet fills the foreground with unconventional characters, who abstain from transgression, display courtly etiquette, and express monotheistic convictions. Comparing Beowulf with its medieval German and Scandinavian analogues, The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet argues that the poem's uniqueness reflects one poet's coherent plan for the moral renovation of an amoral heroic tradition. In Beowulf, Neidorf discerns the presence of a singular mind at work in the combination and modification of heroic, folkloric, hagiographical, and historical materials. Rather than perceive Beowulf as an impersonally generated object, Neidorf argues that it should be read as the considered result of one poet's ambition to produce a morally edifying, theologically palatable, and historically plausible epic out of material that could not independently constitute such a poem.

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings PDF Author: Harold Bloom
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438113994
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Presents a collection of critical essays discussing Tolkien's epic fantasy.