Carolyne Larrington - Böcker

A Store of Common Sense is the first comparative study in English of Old Icelandic and Old English wisdom poetry. It examines problems of form, unity, and coherence, and how the genre responds to social change, both reflecting and shaping the thinking of the communities which originate it. Carolyne Larrington analyses the differences between the pagan wisdom of Norse, ranging through everyday practical advice, rune magic, and spells, and the Christian, socially oriented ideals of Old English wisdom poetry, strongly rooted in Christian concepts of `natural' order and hierarchy in God's Creation. Close reading in primary texts, both runic and magical, lays bare the skilful, structural integration of pragmatic, social wisdom with other kinds of knowledge.The book explores the possibility of Christian influence on Norse texts and demonstrates the impact of Christian learning on the ancient pagan genre. The existence of a gnomic `key' in Norse and English narrative verse is also shown.Far from being platitudinous moralizing, the wisdom poets of the two literatures reveal themselves as comic, ironic, dramatic, and grandiose by turns, exploring a gamut of themes unequalled in any other genre of the period.

She sees, coming up a second time,earth from the ocean, eternally green;the waterfalls plunge, an eagle soars above them,over the mountain hunting fish.After the terrible conflagration of Ragnarok, the earth rises serenely again from the ocean, and life is renewed. The Poetic Edda begins with The Seeress's Prophecy which recounts the creation of the world, and looks forward to its destruction and rebirth. In this great collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry, the exploits of gods and humans are related. The one-eyed Odin, red-bearded Thor, Loki the trickster, the lovely goddesses, and the giants who are their enemies walk beside the heroic Helgi, Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer, Brynhild the shield-maiden, and the implacable Gudrun. This translation also features the quest-poem The Lay of Svipdag and The Waking of Angantyr, in which a girl faces down her dead father to retrieve his sword.Comic, tragic, instructive, grandiose, witty, and profound, the poems of the Edda have influenced artists from Wagner to Tolkien and speak to us as freely as when they were first written down seven hundred and fifty years ago.

'She sees, coming up a second time,Earth from the ocean, eternally green;the waterfalls plunge, an eagle soars above them,over the mountain hunting fish.'After the terrible conflagration of Ragnarok, the earth rises serenely again from the ocean, and life is renewed. The Poetic Edda begins with The Seeress's Prophecy which recounts the creation of the world, and looks forward to its destruction and rebirth. In this great collection of Norse-Icelandic mythological and heroic poetry, the exploits of gods and humans are related. The one-eyed Odin, red-bearded Thor, Loki the trickster, the lovely goddesses and the giants who are their enemies walk beside the heroic Helgi, Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer, Brynhild the shield-maiden, and the implacable Gudrun. New in this revised translation are the quest-poem The Lay of Svipdag and The Waking of Angantyr, in which a girl faces down her dead father to retrieve his sword.Comic, tragic, instructive, grandiose, witty and profound, the poems of the Edda have influenced artists from Wagner to Tolkien and a new generation of video-game and film makers.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Carolyne Larrington has gathered together a uniquely comprehensive collection of writing by, for and about medieval women, spanning one thousand years and Europe from Iceland to Byzantiu. The extracts are arranged thematically, dealing with the central areas of medieval women's lives and their relation to social and cultural institutions. Each section is contextualised with a brief historical introduction, and the materials span literary, historical, theological and other narrative and imaginative writing. The writings here uncover and confound the stereotype of the medieval woman as lady or virgin by demonstrating the different roles and meanings that the sign of woman occupied in the imaginative space of the medieval period.Larrington's clear and accessible editorial material and the modern English translations of all the extracts mean this work is ideally suited for students. Women and Writing in Early Europe: A Sourcebook also contains an extensive and fully up-to-date bibliography, making it not only essential reading for undergraduates and post graduates but also a valuable tool for scholars.

This unique collection of essays applies significant critical approaches to the mythological poetry of the Poetic Edda, a principal source for Old Norse cosmography and the legends of Odin, Loki, and Thor. The volume also provides very useful introductions that sketch the critical history of the Eddas. By applying new theoretical approaches (feminist, structuralist, post-structuralist) to each of the major poems, this book yields a variety of powerful and convincing readings. Contributors to the collection are both young scholars and senior figures in the discipline, and are of varying nationalities (American, British, Australian, Scandinavian, and Icelandic), thus ensuring a range of interpretations from different corners of the scholarly community. The new translations included here make available for the first time to English speaking students the intriguing methodologies that are currently developing in Scandinavia. An essential collection of scholarship for any Old Norse course, The Poetic Edda will also be of interest to scholars of Indo-European myth, as well as those who study the theory of myth.

Bringing alive the dramatic poems of Old Norse heroic legend, this new collection offers accessible, ground-breaking and inspiring essays which introduce and analyse the exciting legends of the two doomed Helgis and their valkyrie lovers; the dragon-slayer Sigurðr; Brynhildr the implacable shield-maiden; tragic Guðrún and her children; Attila the Hun (from a Norse perspective!); and greedy King Fróði, whose name lives on in Tolkien’s Frodo. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the poems for students, taking a number of fresh, theoretically-sophisticated and productive approaches to the poetry and its characters. Contributors bring to bear insights generated by comparative study, speech act and feminist theory, queer theory and psychoanalytic theory (among others) to raise new, probing questions about the heroic poetry and its reception. Each essay is accompanied by up-to-date lists of further reading and a contextualisation of the poems or texts discussed in critical history. Drawing on the latest international studies of the poems in their manuscript context, and written by experts in their individual fields, engaging with the texts in their original language and context, but presented with full translations, this companion volume to The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology (Routledge, 2002) is accessible to students and illuminating for experts. Essays also examine the afterlife of the heroic poems in Norse legendary saga, late medieval Icelandic poetry, the nineteenth-century operas of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the recently published (posthumous) poem by Tolkien, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún.

Who were the Norse gods – the mighty Æsyr, led by Óðinn, and the mysterious Vanir? In The Norse Myths we meet this passionate and squabbling pantheon, and learn of the mythological cosmos they inhabit. Passages translated from the Old Norse bring this legendary world to life, from the myths of creation to ragnarök, the prophesied end of the world at the hands of Loki’s army of monsters and giants, and everything that comes in between: the problematic relationship between the gods and the giants, in which enmity and trickery are punctuated by marriages and seductions; the (mis) adventures of human heroes and heroines, with their family feuds, revenges, marriages and murders; and the interaction between the gods and mortals, as Óðinn, the Allfather, betrays his human protégés in order to recruit (dead) heroes for his army. Carolyne Larrington describes the myths’ origins in pre-Christian Scandinavia and Iceland, and their survival in artefacts and written sources, from Old Norse sagas and poems to the less approving accounts of medieval Christian writers. She traces their influences into the work of Wagner, William Morris and J.R.R. Tolkien, and even the recent Game of Thrones in the resurrection of the Fimbulvetr, or ‘Mighty Winter’.

A fresh look at the stories at the heart of Norse mythology, exploring their cultural impact right up to the present day. The heroes and villains of Norse mythology have endured for centuries, infiltrating art, opera, film, television and books, shape-shifting – like the trickster Loki – to suit the cultures that encountered them. Through careful analysis of the literature and archaeology of the Norse world, Carolyne Larrington takes us deep into the realm described in the Icelandic sagas, from the gloomy halls of Hel to the dazzling heights of Asgard. She expertly examines the myths’ many modern-day reimaginings, revealing the guises that have been worn by the figures of Norse myth, including Marvel’s muscled, golden-haired Thor and George R.R Martin’s White Walkers, who march inexorably southwards, bringing their eternal winter with them. This sophisticated yet accessible guide explores how these powerful stories have inspired our cultural landscape, from fuelling the creative genius of Wagner to the construction of the Nazi’s nationalist ideology. Larrington’s elegantly written retellings capture the essence of the original myths while also delving into the history of their meanings. The myths continue to speak to such modern concerns as masculinity and environmental disaster – after the inevitable, apocalyptic ragna rök, renewal comes from the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree.

Trolls have escaped from the black lava wastes of Iceland and the dense pine forests of Scandinavia to take on a new life in the collective global imagination. They may not steal goats and eat people quite so much, but they remain disruptive and dangerous, even if their limited imaginations sometimes make them comic and even quite likeable. Emerging from the earliest annals of Scandinavian mythology, trolls are contradictory creatures. They can be monstrous and large as mountains, or humble and humanoid in appearance. The accounts written in Scandinavia and Iceland in the 19th century paint trolls as creatures who kidnap, overrun farms, lurk in the dark corners of landscapes, demand human marriages, eat unsuspecting travelers, and occasionally help the people who encounter them. Carolyne Larrington collects these stories into a delightful directory of trolls, from the medieval to the modern, and encountering kindly trolls, dangerous trolls, and stupid trolls along the way. Thoroughly researched and entertainingly written, The Little Book of Trolls is essential reading for the fantasy fan and a perfect introduction to the charmingly charmless world of trolls.

Whether they breathe fire from above, spit poison on the land, or cause churning maelstroms in the sea, dragons can be found lurking in the margins of illuminated legend around the world. Their global ubiquity means they have many guises: primordial chaos-monsters to the ancients, wise and auspicious guardians in East Asian tradition, formidable foes to be slain by saints and knights, comic companions in 19th-century children's literature, and stand-ins for aerial warfare in modern fantasy.The history of dragons is as slippery and twisting as their serpentine bodies; they are creatures constantly doubling back on themselves, shedding their dead skins for new, and coiling around our landscapes.Featuring: Dragons of the Ancient World, Bestiary Dragons, Flying and Fiery Dragons, Creeping Dragons, Water Dragons and Sea-Serpents, Saints and Dragons, Dragons from Around the World, and Contemporary Dragons.

In our modern age fairies are diminutive, winged spirits associated with the innocence of childhood, or else the brooding heroes of popular romantasy books. But the fairies of the British Isles have taken many guises. To the early Britons they were fallen angels or relegated pagan gods, denizens of a strange world parallel to our own. In whispered tales, they can be found orchestrating shipwrecks, blinding queens, kidnapping musicians for their secret revels, and luring human lovers into the greenwood with their seductive beauty and beguiling promises.Their changeability has made them mainstays of the fantasy genre: at once capricious and ethereal, wielding arcane laws to reward and exploit human nature, and dolling out blessings and curses in equal measure. From protective fairy godmothers to uncanny fairy changelings, and from Tam Lin to Tinkerbell, Carolyne Larrington unravels a plethora of fairy tales in this shimmering guide to the fae, accompanied with beautiful illustrations from the British Library collections.

This unique collection of essays applies significant critical approaches to the mythological poetry of the Poetic Edda, a principal source for Old Norse cosmography and the legends of Odin, Loki, and Thor. The volume also provides very useful introductions that sketch the critical history of the Eddas. By applying new theoretical approaches (feminist, structuralist, post-structuralist) to each of the major poems, this book yields a variety of powerful and convincing readings. Contributors to the collection are both young scholars and senior figures in the discipline, and are of varying nationalities (American, British, Australian, Scandinavian, and Icelandic), thus ensuring a range of interpretations from different corners of the scholarly community. The new translations included here make available for the first time to English speaking students the intriguing methodologies that are currently developing in Scandinavia. An essential collection of scholarship for any Old Norse course, The Poetic Edda will also be of interest to scholars of Indo-European myth, as well as those who study the theory of myth.

In our modern age fairies are diminutive, winged spirits associated with the innocence of childhood, or else the brooding heroes of popular romantasy books. But the fairies of the British Isles have taken many guises. To the early Britons they were fallen angels or relegated pagan gods, denizens of a strange world parallel to our own. In whispered tales, they can be found orchestrating shipwrecks, blinding queens, kidnapping musicians for their secret revels, and luring human lovers into the greenwood with their seductive beauty and beguiling promises. Their changeability has made them mainstays of the fantasy genre: at once capricious and ethereal, wielding arcane laws to reward and exploit human nature, and dolling out blessings and curses in equal measure. From protective fairy godmothers to uncanny fairy changelings, and from Tam Lin to Tinkerbell, Carolyne Larrington unravels a plethora of fairy tales in this shimmering guide to the fae, accompanied with beautiful illustrations from the British Library collections.

This is the first comprehensive and accessible survey in English of Old Norse eddic poetry: a remarkable body of literature rooted in the Viking Age, which is a critical source for the study of early Scandinavian myths, poetics, culture and society. Dramatically recreating the voices of the legendary past, eddic poems distil moments of high emotion as human heroes and supernatural beings alike grapple with betrayal, loyalty, mortality and love. These poems relate the most famous deeds of gods such as Óðinn and Þórr with their adversaries the giants; they bring to life the often fraught interactions between kings, queens and heroes as well as their encounters with valkyries, elves, dragons and dwarfs. Written by leading international scholars, the chapters in this volume showcase the poetic riches of the eddic corpus, and reveal its relevance to the history of poetics, gender studies, pre-Christian religions, art history and archaeology.

Bringing alive the dramatic poems of Old Norse heroic legend, this new collection offers accessible, ground-breaking and inspiring essays which introduce and analyse the exciting legends of the two doomed Helgis and their valkyrie lovers; the dragon-slayer Sigurðr; Brynhildr the implacable shield-maiden; tragic Guðrún and her children; Attila the Hun (from a Norse perspective!); and greedy King Fróði, whose name lives on in Tolkien’s Frodo. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to the poems for students, taking a number of fresh, theoretically-sophisticated and productive approaches to the poetry and its characters. Contributors bring to bear insights generated by comparative study, speech act and feminist theory, queer theory and psychoanalytic theory (among others) to raise new, probing questions about the heroic poetry and its reception. Each essay is accompanied by up-to-date lists of further reading and a contextualisation of the poems or texts discussed in critical history. Drawing on the latest international studies of the poems in their manuscript context, and written by experts in their individual fields, engaging with the texts in their original language and context, but presented with full translations, this companion volume to The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology (Routledge, 2002) is accessible to students and illuminating for experts. Essays also examine the afterlife of the heroic poems in Norse legendary saga, late medieval Icelandic poetry, the nineteenth-century operas of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the recently published (posthumous) poem by Tolkien, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún.

This is the first comprehensive and accessible survey in English of Old Norse eddic poetry: a remarkable body of literature rooted in the Viking Age, which is a critical source for the study of early Scandinavian myths, poetics, culture and society. Dramatically recreating the voices of the legendary past, eddic poems distil moments of high emotion as human heroes and supernatural beings alike grapple with betrayal, loyalty, mortality and love. These poems relate the most famous deeds of gods such as Óðinn and Þórr with their adversaries the giants; they bring to life the often fraught interactions between kings, queens and heroes as well as their encounters with valkyries, elves, dragons and dwarfs. Written by leading international scholars, the chapters in this volume showcase the poetic riches of the eddic corpus, and reveal its relevance to the history of poetics, gender studies, pre-Christian religions, art history and archaeology.

Beyond its housing estates and identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests and unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe and peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising and teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed and been formed by the identities and psyches of those who inhabit them? In her sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of imaginary and fantastical beings has moulded the cultural history of the nation. Fairies, elves and goblins here tread purposefully, sometimes malignly, over an eerie, preternatural landscape that also conceals brownies, selkies, trows, knockers, boggarts, land-wights, Jack o'Lanterns, Barguests, the sinister Nuckleavee, or water-horse, and even Black Shuck: terrifying hell-hound of the Norfolk coast with eyes of burning coal.Focusing on liminal points where the boundaries between this world and that of the supernatural grow thin those marginal tide-banks, saltmarshes, floodplains, moors and rock-pools wherein mystery lies the author shows how mythologies of Mermen, Green men and Wild-men have helped and continue to help human beings deal with such ubiquitous concerns as love and lust, loss and death and continuity and change. Evoking the Wild Hunt, the ghostly bells of Lyonesse and the dread fenlands haunted by Grendel, and ranging the while from Shetland to Jersey and from Ireland to East Anglia, this is a book that will captivate all those who long for the wild places: the mountains and chasms where Gog, Magog and their fellow giants lie in wait."

The debate and discussion around Game of Thrones has covered questions of climate issues, industrialization, and questions of power, sex and gender. But in this essential companion to both George R.R. Martin's novels and the HBO show, Carolyne Larrington explores how this remarkable universe was constructed from the actual Middle Ages. The book examines sigils, giants, dragons and direwolves in medieval texts; ravens, old gods and the Weirwood in Norse myth; and a gothic, exotic orient in the eastern continent, Essos. From the White Walkers to the Red Woman, from Casterly Rock to the Shivering Sea, this is an indispensable guide to the 21st-century's most important fantasy creation.

This book explores the connections between history and fantasy in George RR Martin’s immensely popular book series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ and the international TV sensation HBO TV’s Game of Thrones. Acknowledging the final season’s foregrounding of the cultural centrality of history, truth and memory in the confrontation between Bran and the Night King, the volume takes full account of the TV show’s conclusion in its multiple readings across from medieval history, its institutions and practices, as depicted in the books to the show’s own particular medievalism. The topics under discussion include the treatment of the historical phenomena of chivalry, tournaments, dreams, models of education, and the supernatural, and the different ways in which these are mediated in Martin’s books and the TV show. The collection also includes a new study of one of Martin’s key sources, Maurice Druon’s Les Rois Maudits, in-depth explorations of major characters in their medieval contexts, and provocative reflections on the show’s controversial handling of gender and power politics.Written by an international team of medieval scholars, historians, literary and cultural experts, bringing their own unique perspectives to the multiple societies, belief-systems and customs of the ‘Game of Thrones’ universe, Memory and Medievalism in George RR Martin and Game of Thrones offers original and sparky insights into the world-building of books and show.

This book explores the connections between history and fantasy in George RR Martin’s immensely popular book series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ and the international TV sensation HBO TV’s Game of Thrones. Acknowledging the final season’s foregrounding of the cultural centrality of history, truth and memory in the confrontation between Bran and the Night King, the volume takes full account of the TV show’s conclusion in its multiple readings across from medieval history, its institutions and practices, as depicted in the books to the show’s own particular medievalism. The topics under discussion include the treatment of the historical phenomena of chivalry, tournaments, dreams, models of education, and the supernatural, and the different ways in which these are mediated in Martin’s books and the TV show. The collection also includes a new study of one of Martin’s key sources, Maurice Druon’s Les Rois Maudits, in-depth explorations of major characters in their medieval contexts, and provocative reflections on the show’s controversial handling of gender and power politics.Written by an international team of medieval scholars, historians, literary and cultural experts, bringing their own unique perspectives to the multiple societies, belief-systems and customs of the ‘Game of Thrones’ universe, Memory and Medievalism in George RR Martin and Game of Thrones offers original and sparky insights into the world-building of books and show.

Dragons have roamed human consciousness throughout time and across cultures. A dragon is the embodiment of death and destruction in the Apocalypse battles of the Christian Bible and the evil that is vanquished by chivalrous knights in Medieval sagas and Persian epic poems. But they are also benevolent and wise in Chinese mythology, and the only mythical creature of all the animals in the Chinese zodiac. The Little Book of Dragons tells the story of the dragon's rise, from the various forms that it has taken in myths and legends across the world, to modern depictions of dragons and their place in the storytelling of today. Illustrated from across the wide-ranging collections of the British Library, the images include bas-de-page drawings, miniatures and historiated initials from Gospels and bestiaries, illuminated pages of Persian manuscripts and Chinese ephemera, as well as line illustrations from collections of fairy tales and modern imagery.

Over the last twenty-five years, the ‘history of emotion’ field has become one of the most dynamic and productive areas for humanities research. This designation, and the marked leadership of historians in the field, has had the unlooked-for consequence of sidelining literature — in particular secular literature — as evidence-source and object of emotion study. Secular literature, whether fable, novel, fantasy or romance, has been understood as prone to exaggeration, hyperbole, and thus as an unreliable indicator of the emotions of the past.The aim of this book is to decentre history of emotion research and asks new questions, ones that can be answered by literary scholars, using literary texts as sources: how do literary texts understand and depict emotion and, crucially, how do they generate emotion in their audiences — those who read them or hear them read or performed?

Focusing particularly on historically oriented sagas, Saga emotions identifies and examines a range of emotions from across Old Norse-Icelandic saga literature. Each chapter begins with a discrete emotion term, such as reiði (anger), gleði (joy), or the peculiarly Old Norse víghugr (killing-mood), exploring its usages within the broad saga corpus, and focusing on its contextual meanings and narrative purposes. The contributions explore the specifics of the lexical terms used for different emotion states and offer in-depth case studies that consider how various emotions manifest within particular examples of saga literature. The book offers the emotional granularity lacking in current studies of Norse emotion and serves as an essential foundation for future research and study into emotional depiction in Old Norse-Icelandic saga literature.

Over the last twenty-five years, the ‘history of emotion’ field has become one of the most dynamic and productive areas for humanities research. This designation, and the marked leadership of historians in the field, has had the unlooked-for consequence of sidelining literature — in particular secular literature — as evidence-source and object of emotion study. Secular literature, whether fable, novel, fantasy or romance, has been understood as prone to exaggeration, hyperbole, and thus as an unreliable indicator of the emotions of the past.The aim of this book is to decentre history of emotion research and asks new questions, ones that can be answered by literary scholars, using literary texts as sources: how do literary texts understand and depict emotion and, crucially, how do they generate emotion in their audiences — those who read them or hear them read or performed?

Central to the legends of King Arthur are the mysterious, sexually alluring enchantresses, those spellcasters and mistresses of magic who wield extraordinary influence over Arthur's life and destiny, bestriding the Camelot mythology with a dark and brooding presence. Yet until now no book has told their stories in depth. Carolyne Larrington brings these dangerous women fully and vibrantly to life. Here is Morgan-le-Fay, a complex sorceress of immense cunning and skill, immortalised by Helen Mirren's Morgana in John Boorman's film Excalibur. Here too are the mystical Lady of the Lake; the beguiling Viviane, Merlin's deadly nemesis; and Morgause, Queen of Orkney, mother to Mordred, Arthur's incestuously-conceived son and his bitterest foe. Echoing the search for the Grail by the Knights of the Round Table, Larrington takes her readers on an intriguing quest - to discover why, over the centuries, the Arthurian enchrantresses have continued to bewitch those caught in their seductive web.Whether chaste or depraved, necrophiliacs or virgins, benevolent or filled with hatred, the enchantresses are seen to represent a strain of female power that challenges male chivalric values from within. King Arthur's Enchantresses makes a unique contribution to writing on the Arthurian myths. It will intrigue and delight anyone with an interest in mythology, religion, cultural history and medieval literature.

'All men must die’: or ‘Valar Morghulis’, as the traditional Essos greeting is rendered in High Valyrian. And die they do – in prodigious numbers; in imaginatively varied and gruesome ways; and often in terror within the viciously unpredictable world that is HBO’s sensational evocation of Game of Thrones. Epic in scope and in imaginative breadth, the stories that are brought to life tell of the dramatic rise and fall of nations, the brutal sweeping away of old orders and the advent of new autarchs in the eternal quest for dominion. Yet, as this book reveals, many potent and intimate narratives of love and passion can be found within these grand landscapes of heroism, honour and death. They focus on strong relationships between women and family, as well as among the anti-heroes, the ‘cripples, bastards and broken things’. In this vital follow-up to Winter Is Coming (2015), acclaimed medievalist Carolyne Larrington explores themes of power, blood-kin, lust and sex in order to draw entirely fresh meanings out of the show of the century.

Analysis of how emotion is pictured in Arthurian legend.Literary texts complicate our understanding of medieval emotions; they not only represent characters experiencing emotion and reaction emotionally to the behaviour of others within the text, but also evoke and play upon emotion inthe audiences which heard these texts performed or read. The presentation and depiction of emotion in the single most prominent and influential story matter of the Middle Ages, the Arthurian legend, is the subject of this volume.Covering texts written in English, French, Dutch, German, Latin and Norwegian, the essays presented here explore notions of embodiment, the affective quality of the construction of mind, and the intermediary role of the voice asboth an embodied and consciously articulating emotion.Frank Brandsma teaches Comparative Literature (Middle Ages) at Utrecht University; Carolyne Larrington is a Fellow in medieval English at St John's College, Oxford;Corinne Saunders is Professor of Medieval Literature in the Department of English Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Medical Humanities at the University of Durham.Contributors: Anne Baden-Daintree, Frank Brandsma, Helen Cooper, Anatole Pierre Fuksas, Jane Gilbert, Carolyne Larrington, Andrew Lynch, Raluca Radulescu, Sif Rikhardsdottir, Corinne Saunders,

Analysis of how emotion is pictured in Arthurian legend.Literary texts complicate our understanding of medieval emotions; they not only represent characters experiencing emotion and reaction emotionally to the behaviour of others within the text, but also evoke and play upon emotion inthe audiences which heard these texts performed or read. The presentation and depiction of emotion in the single most prominent and influential story matter of the Middle Ages, the Arthurian legend, is the subject of this volume.Covering texts written in English, French, Dutch, German, Latin and Norwegian, the essays presented here explore notions of embodiment, the affective quality of the construction of mind, and the intermediary role of the voice asboth an embodied and consciously articulating emotion.FRANK BRANDSMA teaches Comparative Literature (Middle Ages) at Utrecht University; CAROLYNE LARRINGTON is Professor of Medieval European Literature at the University of Oxford and Official Fellow in Medieval English Literature at St John's College, Oxford; CORINNE SAUNDERS is Professor of Medieval Literature in the Department of English Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Medical Humanities at the University of Durham.Contributors: Anne Baden-Daintree, Frank Brandsma, Helen Cooper, Anatole Pierre Fuksas, Jane Gilbert, Carolyne Larrington, Andrew Lynch, Raluca Radulescu, Sif Rikhardsdottir, Corinne Saunders.

A comprehensive guide to a crucial aspect of Old Norse literature.We cannot read literary works without making use of the concept of genre. In Old Norse studies, genre has been central to the categorisation, evaluation and understanding of medieval prose and poetry alike; yet its definition has been elusive and its implications often left unexplored.This volume opens up fundamental questions about Old Norse genre in theory and in practice. It offers an extensive range of theoretical approaches, investigating and critiquing current terms and situating its arguments within early Scandinavian and Icelandic oral-literary and manuscript contexts. It maps the ways in which genre and form engage with key thematic areas within the literary corpus,noting the different kinds of impact upon the genre system brought about by conversion to Christianity, the gradual adoption of European literary models, and social and cultural changes occurring in Scandinavian society. A case-study section probes both prototypical and hard-to-define cases, demonstrating the challenges that actual texts pose to genre theory in terms of hybridity, evolution and innovation. With an annotated taxonomy of Old Norse genres and an extensive bibliography, it is an indispensable resource for contemporary Old Norse-Icelandic literary studies.