Cyril Edwards – författare

'In ancient tales many marvels are told us ... now you may hear such marvels told!'The greatest of the heroic epics to emerge from medieval Germany, the Nibelungenlied is a revenge saga of sweeping dimensions. It tells of the dragon-slayer Sivrit, and the mysterious kingdom of the Nibelungs with its priceless treasure-hoard guarded by dwarves and giants, of Prünhilt the Amazonian queen, fortune-telling water-sprites and a cloak of invisibility. Driven by the conflict between Kriemhilt, the innocent maiden turned she-devil, and her antagonist, the stoic, indomitable Hagen, the story is one of human tragedy, of love, jealousy, murder, and revenge, ending in slaughter on a horrific scale. The work of an anonymous poet of c.1200, since its rediscovery in the eighteenth century the Nibelungenlied has come to be regarded as the national epic of the Germans. It has inspired countless reworkings and adaptations, including two masterpieces: Fritz Lang's two-part film, and Richard Wagner's Ring cycle.This is the first prose translation for over forty years: accurate and compelling, it is accompanied by a wealth of useful background information. 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.

A study of the breakthrough of the Germanic vernacular dialects into the realm of written language between the eighth and tenth centuries.For the German-speaking peoples under the Carolingians (c. AD 750-950), the dominant literary tongue was Latin, the lingua franca of the Christian West. Before the eighth century only isolated words, legal terms, and proper namesfrom the vernacular dialects had found their way into manuscripts. Cyril Edwards's collection of essays examines the breakthrough into literacy of the dialects known collectively as Old High German in the south and Old Saxon in the north. In an introductory essay, Edwards surveys the recording and survival of the earliest continuous German texts. This leads into seven essays, each inspired by a fresh look at the manuscripts. Two are concerned with the Wessobrunn Prayer, the earliest religious poem in German. A third looks at the destructive application of acids to medieval manuscripts in an attempt to read barely legible letters; it concentrates upon the Hildebrandslied, theonly surviving Old High German heroic lay, and the ninth-century eschatalogical poem, the Muspilli. Two studies are devoted to the Merseburg Charms, pagan survivals in a Christian manuscript, invoking gods familiar from the Old Norse pantheon. A study of the earliest traces of the love-lyric follows, poems that slipped through the net of censorship imposed by the Christian church. A final essay is concerned with the Ossian of the period, an ingenious forgery that was a cause célèbre in the nineteenth century, the Old High German Lullaby.Cyril Edwards is a Lecturer in German at St. Peter's College, Oxford, and an Honorary Research Fellow of University College London. He has published numerous articles on medieval German literature and co-edited a book on the medieval German lyric. He is currecntly preparing a new translation of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Titurel.

Wolfram's Parzival continues to inspire and influence, in modern times works as diverse as Wagner's Parsifal and Lohengrin, Franz Kafka's The Castle, Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King, and Umberto Eco's Baudolino.Vast in its scope, incomparably dense in its imagery, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival ranks alongside Dante's Divine Comedy as one of the foremost narrative works to emerge from medieval Europe. This book is a newtranslation of Parzival, together with the fragments of the Titurel, an elegiac offshoot of Parzival, and the nine love-songs attributed to Wolfram. Parzival is the greatest of the medieval Grail romances. In its depth and complexity of characterisation this work of the early thirteenth century anticipates the modern novel. It encompasses deeds of chivalry, tournaments and sieges, courtly love, and other erotic undertakings, but also sin and penance, and a deeply moving study in depression. Centre stage are the Grail Castle and Arthur's Round Table, but the pagan world of the Orient also is also reflected.Parzival has inspired and influenced works as diverse as Wagner's Parsifal and Lohengrin, Franz Kafka's The Castle, Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King, and Umberto Eco's Baudolino. Cyril Edwards' thoughtful translation vividlyconveys the power of this complex, wide-ranging medieval masterpiece.CYRIL EDWARDS is a lecturer in German at St Peter's College and Research Fellow of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford. He is the author of The Beginnings of German Literature (Camden House, 2002), and numerous articles on the medieval lyric and Old High German. His previous translations include Hans Sachs's "Song of the Nose" for the King's Singers, Bernhard Maier's Dictionary of Celtic Religion and Culture (Boydell & Brewer, 1997) and The Medieval Housebook (Prestel-Verlag, 1997).

First English translation of Iwein[B], a German adaptation of Chrétien's famous Yvain.Iwein, or The Knight with the Lion, is a free Middle High German adaptation of Chrétien de Troyes' Old French Arthurian romance, Yvain. Written c.1200 by a Swabian knight, Hartmann von Aue, Iwein chartsthe development towards maturity of a young knight who falls into error, neglecting his hard-won wife by devoting himself excessively to chivalric pursuits.This parallel-text edition, offering the first English translation,is based on one of the two earliest complete manuscripts, Giessen, University Library, no. 97 (Iwein B), dating from the second quarter of the thirteenth century. It contains a large number of lines, particularly in the later stages of the poem, which are not present in the other early manuscript, A (Heidelberg, cpg 397). These show a special interest in the woman's side of the story, expanding a passage concerned with embroidery and weaving, and adding a marriage for the maidservant Lunet, whose cunning brings about the reconciliation between Iwein and her mistress, Laudine. The authorship of these passages is uncertain, but they may be Hartmann's own revision of his text.The volume is completed with an introduction, notes and bibliography.The late CYRIL EDWARDS was Senior Research Fellow of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford.

New edition, with facing English translation, of one of the most important Arthurian works from the middle ages.Erec is the earliest extant German Arthurian romance, freely adapted and translated into Middle High German by the Swabian knight, Hartmann von Aue, from the first Old French Arthurian romance, Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide. Hartmann's work dates from c. 1180, but the only (almost) complete manuscript dates from the early sixteenth century, copied into the huge two-volume Ambraser Heldenbuch, now housed in Vienna - the most comprehensive extant compilation of medieval German romances and epics, commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I. Otherwise, only a few earlier medieval fragments survive.Erec tells the story of a young knight at King Arthur's court, whose early prowess wins him high repute, and a beautiful wife, Enite. He falls into disrepute because of his excessively zealous devotion of his time to her. Alerted to his notoriety, he embarks on a series of symbolic adventures, which eventually lead to his achieving a new balance between the claims of love and those of society. Far more than a simple translation, Hartmann's first attempt at an Arthurian romance is notable for its zest and gusto.This is the first edition with a parallel text translation into English; it is presented with explanatory notes and variant readings.Cyril Edwards is a Senior Research Fellow of Oxford University's Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, and an Honorary Research Fellow of University College London.