A Store of Common Sense: Gnomic Theme and Style in Old Icelandic and Old English Wisdom Poetry

ISBN-13: 9780198119821 / Angielski / Twarda / 1993 / 256 str.

Carolyne Larrington

Opis

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 originated it. Larrington's 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.

Recenzje

fascinating and thorough study of Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon gnomic verse ... this authoritative, comprehensive study, which also contains a wealth of comparative material ... is a fine book, which succeeds in its aim of showing us that "far from being platitudinous moralizing, the wisdom poems of the two literatures reveal themselves as comic, ironic, dramatic and grandiose by turns, exploring a gamut of themes unequalled in any other genre."