Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Poetry & poets
|
Buy Now
The Poetic Genesis of Old Icelandic Literature (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R3,367
Discovery Miles 33 670
|
|
The Poetic Genesis of Old Icelandic Literature (Hardcover)
Series: Erganzungsbande zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
This book assesses the importance of poetry for the Old Icelandic
literary flowering of c. 1150-1350. It addresses the apparent
paradox that an extremely conservative form of literature, namely
skaldic poetry, was at the core of the most innovative literary and
intellectual experiments in the period. The book argues that this
cannot simply be explained as a result of strong local traditions,
as in most previous scholarship. Thus, for instance, the author
demonstrates that the mix of prose and poetry found in kings' sagas
and sagas of Icelanders is roughly contemporary to the written
sagas. Similarly, he argues that treatises on poetics and
mythology, including Snorri's Edda, are new to the period, not only
in their textual form, but also in their systematic mode of
analysis. The book contends that what is truly new in these texts
is the method of the authors, derived from Latin learning, but
applied to traditional forms and motifs as encapsulated in the
skaldic tradition. In this way, Christian Latin learning allowed
for its perceived opposite, vernacular oral literature of pagan
extraction, to reach full fruition and to largely replace the very
literature which had made this process possible in the first place.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.