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Beowulf - Byrnu
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "''Beowulf'' poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headlan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Saxon Dialect
West Saxon is the term applied to the two different dialects Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon with West Saxon being one of the four distinct regional dialects of Old English. The three others were Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian (the latter two were similar and are known as the Anglian dialects). West Saxon was the language of the kingdom of Wessex, and was the basis for successive widely used literary forms of Old English: the Early West Saxon of Alfred the Great's time, and the Late West Saxon of the late 10th and 11th centuries. Due to the Saxons' establishment as a politically dominant force in the Old English period, the West Saxon dialects became the strongest dialects in Old English manuscript writing. Early West Saxon Early West Saxon was the language employed by King Alfred (849–899), used in the many literary translations produced under Alfred's patronage (and some by Alfred himself). It is often referred to as Alfredian Old English, or Alfredian. The langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp. The name is a combination of several publishing firm names: Harper & Row, an American publishing company acquired in 1987—whose own name was the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers (founded in 1817) and Row, Peterson & Company—together with Scottish publishing company William Collins, Sons (founded in 1819), acquired in 1989. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray. HarperCollins has publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India, and China. The company publishes many different imprints, both former independent publishing houses and new imprints. History Collins Harper Mergers and acquisitions Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hrolf Kraki
Rolf is a male given name and a surname. It originates in the Germanic name ''Hrolf'', itself a contraction of ''Hrodwulf'' ( Rudolf), a conjunction of the stem words ''hrod'' ("renown") + ''wulf'' ("wolf"). The Old Norse cognate is ''Hrólfr''. An alternative but less common variation of ''Rolf'' in Norway is ''Rolv''. The oldest evidence of the use of the name Rolf in Sweden is an inscription from the 11th century on a runestone in Forsheda, Småland. The name also appears twice in the Orkneyinga sagas, where a scion of the jarls of Orkney, Gånge-Rolf, is said to be identical to the Viking Rollo who captured Normandy in 911. This Saga of the Norse begins with the abduction of Gói daughter by a certain Hrolf of Berg, (the Mountain). She is the daughter of Thorri, a Jotun of Gandvik, and sister of Gór and Nór. The latter is regarded as a first king and eponymous anchestor of Nórway. After a fierce duell (Holmgang) where none is able to overcome the other, Hrolf and Nór ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grettis Saga
''Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar'' (modern , reconstructed ), also known as ''Grettla'', ''Grettir's Saga'' or ''The Saga of Grettir the Strong'', is one of the Icelanders' sagas. It details the life of Grettir Ásmundarson, a bellicose Icelandic outlaw. Overview Grettir's saga is considered one of the Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), which were written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and record stories of events that supposedly took place between the ninth and the eleventh centuries in Iceland. The manuscript of Grettir's saga was written down some time just before 1400 AD, making it a late addition to the tradition.. Introduction. ''The Saga of Grettir the Strong'', p. ix The author is unknown but it is believed that his story may have been based on a previous account of Grettir's life written by Sturla Þórðarson. Whoever the author was, the author shows an awareness of the Sagas of Icelanders tradition by making references to other sagas and borrowin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oral-formulaic Composition
Oral-formulaic composition is a theory that originated in the scholarly study of epic poetry and developed in the second quarter of the twentieth century. It seeks to explain two related issues: # the process by which oral poets improvise poetry # the reasons for orally improvised poetry (or written poetry deriving from traditions of oral improvisation) having the characteristics that it does The key idea of the theory is that poets have a store of formulae (a formula being 'an expression that is regularly used, under the same metrical conditions, to express a particular essential idea') and that by linking the formulae in conventionalised ways, poets can rapidly compose verse. Antoine Meillet expressed the idea in 1923, thus: In the hands of Meillet's student Milman Parry (1902-1935), and subsequently the latter's student Albert Lord (1912-1991), the approach transformed the study of ancient and medieval poetry and of oral poetry generally. The main exponent and developer of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heorot
Heorot (Old English 'hart, stag') is a mead-hall and major point of focus in the Anglo-Saxon poem ''Beowulf''. The hall serves as a seat of rule for King Hrothgar, a legendary Danish king. After the monster Grendel slaughters the inhabitants of the hall, the Geatish hero Beowulf defends the royal hall before subsequently defeating him. Later Grendel's mother attacks the inhabitants of the hall, and she too is subsequently defeated by Beowulf. Name The name ''Heorot'' is the Old English word for a stag. Its use may stem from an association between royalty and stags in Germanic paganism. Archaeologists have unearthed a variety of Anglo-Saxon finds associating stags with royalty. For example, a sceptre or whetstone discovered in mound I of the Anglo-Saxon burial site Sutton Hoo prominently features a standing stag at its top.For general discussion, see Fulk, Bjork, & Niles (2008:119–120). For images and details regarding the sceptre or whetstone, see the British Museum'collec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mead Hall
Among the early Germanic peoples, a mead hall or feasting hall was a large building with a single room intended to receive guests and serve as a center of community social life. From the fifth century to the Early Middle Ages such a building was the residence of a lord or king and his retainers. These structures were also where lords could formally receive visitors and where the community would gather to socialize, allowing lords to oversee the social activity of their subjects. Etymology The old name of such halls may have been ''sal/salr'' and thus be present in old place names such as "Uppsala". The meaning has been preserved in German ''Saal'', Dutch ''zaal'', Frisian ''seal'', Icelandic ''salur'' , Swedish, Norwegian and Danish ''sal'', Lithuanian ''salė'', Finnish ''sali'', Estonian ''saal'', Izhorian ''saali'', Hungarian ''szállás'', French ''salle'', Italian/Polish/Portuguese/Spanish/Serbo-Croatian ''sala'' and Russian ''зал'' (zal), (all meaning "hall" or "large room ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danes (Germanic Tribe)
The Danes were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting southern Scandinavia, including the area now comprising Denmark proper, and the Scanian provinces of modern-day southern Sweden, during the Nordic Iron Age and the Viking Age. They founded what became the Kingdom of Denmark. The name of their realm is believed to mean " Danish March", viz. "the march of the Danes", in Old Norse, referring to their southern border zone between the Eider and Schlei rivers, known as the Danevirke. Origins The origin of the Danes remains undetermined, but several ancient historical documents and texts refer to them and archaeology has revealed and continues to reveal insights into their culture, beliefs, organization and way of life. The Danes first appear in written history in the 6th century with references in Jordanes' ''Getica'' (551 AD), by Procopius, and by Gregory of Tours. They spoke Old Norse (''dǫnsk tunga''), which the Danes shared with the people in Norway and Sweden and later in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geats
The Geats ( ; ang, gēatas ; non, gautar ; sv, götar ), sometimes called ''Goths'', were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the late Middle Ages. They are one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes, along with Swedes (the tribe) and Gutes. The name of the Geats also lives on in the Swedish provinces of and , the Western and Eastern lands of the Geats, and in many other toponyms. The Swedish dialects spoken in the areas that used to be inhabited by Geats form a distinct group, '' Götamål''. Etymology The etymology of the name ''Geat'' (Old English ', from a Proto-Germanic *''Gautaz'', plural *''Gautōz'') is similar to that of ''Goths'' and '' Gutes'' (*''Gutô'', plural *''Gutaniz''). The names derive from ablaut grades of the Proto-Germanic word *''geutaną'', meaning "to pour". They have the literal meaning "they who pour their seed". (For more information see Goths § Etymology.) The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula (which excludes Denmark but includes part of Finland), or more broadly to include all of Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. The geography of the region is varied, from the Norwegian fjords in the west and Scandinavian mountains covering parts of Norway and Sweden, to the low and flat areas of Denmark in the south, as well as archipelagos and lakes in the east. Most of the population in the region live in the more temperate southern regions, with the northern parts having long, cold, winters. The region became notable during the Viking Age, when Scandinavian peoples participated in large scale raiding, conquest, colonization and trading mostly throughou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old English Literature
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work '' Cædmon's Hymn'' is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People''. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature. In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives; biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers; chronicles and narrative histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
