Finn and Hengest

Finn and Hengest PDF Author: J. R. R. Tolkien
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780261103559
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Tolkien's famous translations and lectures on the story of two fifth-century heroes in northern Europe. Professor J.R.R.Tolkien is most widely known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but he was also a distinguished scholar in the field of Mediaeval English language and literature. His most significant contribution to Anglo-Saxon studies is to be found in his lectures on Finn and Hengest (pronounced Hen-jist), two fifth-century heroes in northern Europe. The story is told in two Old English poems, Beowulf and The Fights at Finnesburg, but told so obscurely and allusively that its interpretation had been a matter of controversy for over 100 years. Bringing his unique combination of philological erudition and poetic imagination to the task, however, Tolkien revealed a classic tragedy of divided loyalties, of vengeance, blood and death. Tolkien's original and persuasive solution of the many problems raised by the story ranged widely through the early history and legend of the Germanic peoples. The story has the added attraction that it describes the events immediately preceding the first Germanic invasion of Britain which was led by Hengest himself. This book will be of interest not only to students of Old English and all those interested in the history of northern Europe and Anglo-Saxon England, but also admirers of The Lord of the Rings who will be fascinated to see how Tolkien handled a story which he did not invent.

Finn and Hengest

Finn and Hengest PDF Author: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin
ISBN:
Category : Anglo-Saxon poetry History and criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
Tolkien's lectures describe what he called the "Jutes-on-both-sides theory", which was his explanation for the puzzling occurrence of the word ēotenas in the episode in Beowulf.

Beowulf and the Illusion of History

Beowulf and the Illusion of History PDF Author: John F. Vickrey
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 0980149665
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
Most Beowulf scholars have held either that the poems' minor episodes are more or less based on incidents in Scandinavian history or at least that they entail nothing of the fabulous or monstrous. Beowulf and the Illusion of History contends that, like the poem's Grendelkin episodes, certain minor episodes involve monsters and contain motifs of the "Bear's Son" folktale. In the Finn Episode the monsters are to be taken as physically present in the story as we have it, while in the mention of the hero's fight with Daeghrefn and perhaps in the accounts of the fight with Ongenbeow, the principal foes, though originally monsters, appear now more like ordinary humans. The inference permits the elucidation of passages hitherto obscure and indicates that the capability of the Beowulf poet as a "maker" is greater than has been thought. John F. Vickrey, is Professor of English, Emeritus, at Lehigh University.

The Art of Beowulf

The Art of Beowulf PDF Author: Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520015128
Category : Beowulf
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
During the twenty years that have passed since the publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's famous lecture, "Beowulf, the Monsters and the Critics," interest in Beowulf as a work of art has increased gratifyingly, and many fine papers have made distinguished contributions to our understanding of the poem as poetry and as heroic narrative. Much more, however, remains to be done. We have still no systematic and sensitive appraisal of the poem later than Walter Morris Hart's Ballad and Epic, no thorough examination of the poet's gifts and powers, of the effects for which he strove and the means he used to achieve them. More than enough remains to occupy a generation of scholars. It is my hope that this book may serve as a kind of prolegomenon to such study. It makes no claim to completeness or finality; it contributes only the convictions and impressions which have been borne in upon me in the course of forty years of study of the poem. - Preface.

A Critical Companion to Beowulf

A Critical Companion to Beowulf PDF Author: Andy Orchard
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 9781843840299
Category : Beowulf
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Book Description
This is a complete guide to the text and context of the most famous Old English poem. In this book, the specific roles of selcted individual characters, both major and minor, are assessed.

Stories of Beowulf

Stories of Beowulf PDF Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Beowulf
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Book Description

Liber Eliensis

Liber Eliensis PDF Author: Janet Fairweather
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9781843830153
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 632

Book Description
"The translation does full justice to the compiler's wide range of source material; it gives priority to the readings of the oldest manuscript of the Liber Eliensis, but covers everything included in the later but fuller recension of the Latin text presented in E.O. Blake's 1962 edition. There are notes on the text and sources, an introductory essay, appendices and indices."--Jacket.

Honour, Exchange and Violence in Beowulf

Honour, Exchange and Violence in Beowulf PDF Author: Peter Stuart Baker
Publisher: D. S. Brewer
ISBN: 1843843463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
Argues for a new reading of Beowulf in its contemporary context, where honour and violence are intimately linked. This book examines violence in its social setting, and especially as an essential element in the heroic system of exchange (sometimes called the Economy of Honour). It situates Beowulf in a northern European culture where violence was not stigmatized as evidence of a breakdown in social order but rather was seen as a reasonable way to get things done; where kings and their retainers saw themselves above all as warriors whose chief occupation was thepursuit of honour; and where most successful kings were those perceived as most predatory. Though kings and their subjects yearned for peace, the political and religious institutions of the time did little to restrain their violent impulses. Drawing on works from Britain, Scandinavia, and Ireland, which show how the practice of violence was governed by rules and customs which were observed, with variations, over a wide area, this book makes use of historicist and anthropological approaches to its subject. It takes a neutral attitude towards the phenomena it examines, but at the same time describes them fortnightly, avoiding euphemism and excuse-making on the one hand and condemnation on the other. In this it attempts to avoid the errors of critics who have sometimes been led astray by modern assumptions about the morality of violence. PETER S. BAKER is Professor of English at the Universityof Virginia.

Norse Poems

Norse Poems PDF Author: Wystan Hugh Auden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571130283
Category : Eddas
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Rits Blog by Crimson Themes.