This double volume includes "Retoiric and Composition in Geneamuin Chormaic," by Hugh Fogarty; "Gendering the Vita Prima: An Examination of St. Brigid's Role as 'Mary of the Gael, '" by Diane Peters Auslander; and nineteen other articles.
The Harvard Celtic Colloquium was established in 1980 by two graduate students in the Harvard University Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures as a forum in which graduate students could share their work and gain experience in professional academia. Since then, it has been organized annually by a team of students in the department, grown in size, and gained an international reputation which annually draws a diverse mix of scholars from around the world to present papers on all facets of Celtic Studies. The Harvard Celtic Colloquium is the only conference in the field of Celtic Studies to be wholly organized and run by graduate students. Since its inception, established and internationally-renowned scholars in Celtic as well as graduate students, junior academics, and unaffiliated scholars have been drawn to this dynamic setting, presenting papers on ancient, medieval, and modern topics in the many disciplines relating to Celtic Studies; including literature, linguistics, art, archeology, government, economics, music, and history. Papers given at the Colloquium may be submitted for review to the organizers of the conference, who become the editors for those papers selected for publication in the Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium. Only papers presented at the annual conference are considered for publication. Harvard University Press is proud to announce that we will distribute the Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium. Two new issues are available this Fall: Volume 18/19 (1998 and 1999) and Volume 20/21 (2000 and 2001). Back issues are also available.
Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland is a monumental work by one of Ireland’s leading psychiatrists, encompassing every psychiatric development from the Middle Ages to the present day, and examining the far-reaching social and political effects of Ireland’s troubled relationship with mental illness. From the “Glen of Lunatics”, said to cure the mentally ill, to the overcrowded asylums of later centuries – with more beds for the mentally ill than any other country in the world – Ireland has a complex, unsettled history in the practice of psychiatry. Kelly’s definitive work examines Ireland’s unique relationship with conceptions of mental ill health throughout the centuries, delving into each medical breakthrough and every misuse of authority – both political and domestic – for those deemed to be mentally ill. Through fascinating archival records, Kelly writes a crisp and accessible history, evaluating everything from individual case histories to the seismic effects of the First World War, and exploring the attitudes that guided treatments, spanning Brehon Law to the emerging emphasis on human rights. Hearing Voices is a marvel that affords incredible insight into Ireland’s social and medical history while providing powerful observations on our current treatment of mental ill health in Ireland.
This book is an edition and translation of one of the most important and celebrated sources of Old Norse-Icelandic mythology and heroic legend, namely the medieval poems now known collectively as the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda. Included are thirty-six texts, which are mostly preserved in medieval manuscripts, especially the thirteenth-century Icelandic codex traditionally known as the Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda. The poems cover diverse subjects, including the creation, destruction and rebirth of the world, the dealings of gods such as Óðinn, Þórr and Loki with giants and each other, and the more intimate, personal tragedies of the hero Sigurðr, his wife Guðrún and the valkyrie Brynhildr. Each poem is provided with an introduction, synopsis and suggestions for further reading. The Old Norse texts are furnished with a textual apparatus recording the manuscript readings behind this edition’s emendations, as well as select variant readings. The accompanying translations, informed by the latest scholarship, are concisely annotated to make them as accessible as possible. As the first open-access, single-volume parallel Old Norse edition and English translation of the Poetic Edda, this book will prove a valuable resource for students and scholars of Old Norse literature. It will also interest those researching other fields of medieval literature (especially Old English and Middle High German), and appeal to a wider general audience drawn to the myths and legends of the Viking Age and subsequent centuries.
The complete translations of the poet Seamus Heaney, a Nobel laureate and prolific, revolutionary translator. Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, published in 1999, was immediately hailed as an undisputed masterpiece, “something imperishable and great” (James Wood, The Guardian). A few years after his death in 2013, his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI caused a similar stir, providing “a remarkable and fitting epilogue to one of the great poetic careers of recent times” (Nick Laird, Harper’s Magazine). Now, for the first time, the poet, critic, and essayist’s translations are gathered in one volume. Heaney translated not only classic works of Latin and Old English but also a great number of poems from Spanish, Romanian, Dutch, Russian, German, Scottish Gaelic, Czech, Ancient and Modern Greek, Middle and Modern French, and Medieval and Modern Italian, among other languages. In particular, the Nobel laureate engaged with works in Old, Middle, and Modern Irish, the languages of his homeland and early education. As he said, “If you lived in the Irish countryside as I did in my childhood, you lived in a primal Gaeltacht.” In The Translations of Seamus Heaney, Marco Sonzogni has collected Heaney’s translations and framed them with the poet’s own writings on his works and their composition, sourced from introductions, interviews, and commentaries. Through this volume, we come closer to grasping the true extent of Heaney’s extraordinary abilities and his genius.
The early medieval manuscripts of Ireland and Britain contain tantalizing clues about the cosmology, religion and mythology of native Celtic cultures, despite censorship and revision by Christian redactors. Focusing on the latest research and translations, the author provides fresh insight into the beliefs and practices of the Iron Age inhabitants of Ireland, Britain and Gaul. Chapters cover creation and cosmogony, the deities of the Gaels, feminine power in narrative sources, druidic belief, priestesses and magical rites.
This book explores the strange world of Irish sagas. It offers a systematic literary analysis of any single native Irish saga and presents an analysis of the finest of the sagas, 'The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel'. The reader is invited to not only understand this and other Irish sagas, but also to enjoy them as literature.
Is language one of the main components of national identity? How does it define one's national identity? Does its role change for each nation? These are the crucial questions that are explored in this volume, which describes the Nation-Identity dyad through the prism of language. The centuries-old theory on the role language plays in shaping national identity is discussed here in a new perspective appropriate to the 21st century. The analysis is provided from various points of view, and details changes in the relationship between these three elements (language, nation, and identity) in different historical, social and linguistic contexts. The book looks at several different languages in its analysis, such as English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Italian. It brings together a wide variety of approaches to the linguistic educational system in a multilingual Africa and in countries with a rich migration history, like Australia and United States. It also discusses the role literature and textbooks play in shaping the sense of national belonging. The answers to the central questions described above are both highly individual and very general, but will, no doubt, stimulate the reader's reflection about 'me' and the 'other'.
The Fruits of Madness: Perspectives on the Prophetic Movements in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and in Literature brings together selected oral presentations given at the Seminar in Biblical Characters in Three Traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and in Literature held at the University of Vienna, Austria, in July 2014 as part of the Annual International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. The contributions include work on life on the fringes between two types of lifestyles; the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament prophetic movement phenomenon from the point of view of ancient concerns about the effectiveness of communication between the human and godly realms; resistance led by prophets in ancient Israelite society; the distinction between priests and prophets in ancient Israelite and early Jewish societies; the Prophet Hosea (and his vicissitudes) in the light of the lyrics of the famous Canadian poet and musician, Leonard Cohen; the apocalyptic movements of the exilic and post-exilic eras within Judaism; the biblical Daniel as located at the point of confluence and an agent of prophecy, wisdom, and apocalyptic; and the reliability of God’s/YHWH’s word as mediated to three persons reputed to have received that word. The reader will intuit the theme of liminality in several of the contributors: it dogs the study of prophecy like a great hound its prey. With these writings, the reader is challenged to view the ancient Israelite and early Jewish concern with prophet and prophecy in a fresh and enjoyable, though thought-provoking way, making this volume a worthwhile read.
Focusing on representations of Celtic motifs and traditions in post-1980s adult fantasy literature, this book illuminates how the historical, the mythological and the folkloric have served as inspiration for the fantastic in modern and popular culture of the western world. Bringing together both highly-acclaimed works with those that have received less critical attention, including French and Gaelic fantasy literature, Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy explores such texts as Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Alan Garner's Weirdstone trilogy, the Irish fantasies of Jodi McIsaac, David Gemmell's Rigante novels, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison Keltiad books, as well as An Sgoil Dhubh by Iain F. MacLeòid and the Vertigen and Frontier series by Léa Silhol. Lively and covering new ground, the collection examines topics such as fairy magic, Celtic-inspired worldbuilding, heroic patterns, classical ethnography and genre tropes alongside analyses of the Celtic Tarot in speculative fiction and Celtic appropriation in fan culture. Introducing a nuanced understanding of the Celtic past, as it has been informed by recent debates in Celtic studies, this wide-ranging and provocative book shows how modern fantasy is indebted to medieval Celtic-language texts, folkloric traditions, as well as classical sources.