An essay on epic poetry : in five epistles ... with notes /

In verse.

Epische dichtungen aus dem persischen des Firdusi

Mode of access: Internet.

A collection of Turkish and Persian poetry : manuscript, undated

Cream laid paper with watermarks. 19.9 x 14.3 cm.

Epic and saga ...

Beowulf.--The song of Roland.--The destruction of Dá Derga's hostel.--The story of the Volsungs and Niblungs.--Songs from the Elder Edda.

The Reef Cycle: Paradise; Paradise Plundered; Paradise Preserved by people Power

This is a musical theatre production with an environmental message addressing a Queensland, Australia tussle between the development of the Galilee Coal Basin and the potential threat to the health of the Great Barrier Reef along the Queensland coast. The drama is enacted by characters representing "goodies" and "baddies" and includes epic poetry, dance, orchestra and drama. The whole performance is enacted in the midst of a post graduate student art exhibition with a coral and coal theme.

A Touch of Red : Archaeological and Ethnographic Approaches to Interpreting Finnish Rock Paintings

Approximately 125 prehistoric rock paintings have been found in the modern territory of Finland. The paintings were done with red ochre and are almost without exception located on steep lakeshore cliffs associated with ancient water routes. Most of the sites are found in the central and eastern parts of the country, especially on the shores of Lakes Päijänne and Saimaa. Using shore displacement chronology, the art has been dated to ca. 5000 – 1500 BC. It was thus created mainly during the Stone Age and can be associated with the so-called ‘Comb Ware’ cultures of the Subneolithic period. The range of motifs is rather limited, consisting mainly of schematic depictions of stick-figure humans, elks, boats, handprints and geometric signs. Few paintings include any evidence of narrative scenes, making their interpretation a rather difficult task. In Finnish archaeological literature, the paintings have traditionally been associated with ’sympathetic’ hunting magic, or the belief that the ritual shooting of the painted animals would increase hunting luck. Some writers have also suggested totemistic and shamanistic readings of the art. This dissertation is a critical review of the interpretations offered of Finnish rock art and an exploration of the potentials of archaeological and ethnographic research in increasing our knowledge of its meaning. Methods used include ’formal’ approaches such as archaeological excavation, landscape analysis and the application of neuropsychological research to the study of rock art, as well as ethnographically ’informed’ approaches that make use of Saami and Baltic Finnish ethnohistorical sources in interpretation. In conclusion, it is argued that although North European hunter-gatherer rock art is often thought to lie beyond the reach of ‘informed’ knowledge, the exceptional continuity of prehistoric settlement in Finland validates the informed approach in the interpretation of Finnish rock paintings. The art can be confidently associated with shamanism of the kind still practiced by the Saami of Northern Fennoscandia in the historical period. Evidence of similar shamanistic practices, concepts and cosmology are also found in traditional Finnish-Karelian epic poetry. Previous readings of the art based on ‘hunting magic’ and totemism are rejected. Most of the paintings appear to depict experiences of falling into a trance, of shamanic metamorphosis and trance journeys, and of ‘spirit helper’ beings comparable to those employed by the Saami shaman (noaidi). As demonstrated by the results of an excavation at the rock painting of Valkeisaari, the painted cliffs themselves find a close parallel in the Saami cult of the 'sieidi', or sacred cliffs and boulders worshipped as expressing a supernatural power. Like the Saami, the prehistoric inhabitants of the Finnish Lake Region seem to have believed that certain cliffs were ’alive’ and inhabited by the spirit helpers of the shaman. The rock paintings can thus be associated with shamanic vision quests, and the making of ‘art’ with an effort to socialize the other members of the community, especially the ritual specialists, with trance visions. However, the paintings were not merely to be looked at. The red ochre handprints pressed on images of elks, as well as the fact that many paintings appear ’smeared’, indicate that they were also to be touched – perhaps in order to tap into the supernatural potency inherent in the cliff and in the paintings of spirit animals.

Versiones cronísticas de las enfances de Rodrigo: ¿prosificación o reescritura?

Resumen: El estudio de la relación entre poesía épica cidiana y prosa historiográfica ha estado enfocado mayormente en el Poema de Mio Cid. Las conclusiones extraídas del análisis de las versiones cronísticas de las hazañas del héroe en su madurez suelen extrapolarse al caso de la leyenda del héroe joven. Aunque los principales estudiosos, desde Menéndez Pidal hasta Diego Catalán, no han dejado de señalar las particularidades de la épica tardía y de la producción cronística postalfonsí, no ha habido, desde la tesis doctoral de Samuel Armistead hace más de medio siglo, un estudio específico del proceso de escritura que conllevó el aprovechamiento historiográfico del cantar de gesta tardío conocido como Mocedades de Rodrigo. El presente trabajo asume esa tarea y pretende formular nuevas hipótesis sobre la vieja cuestión de la relación textual entre el poema conservado y los relatos incluidos en la Crónica de Castilla y la Crónica General de 1344, así como sobre el discutido punto de la prioridad cronológica de estas versiones

El vino de los héroes homéricos

(ES) El vino tiene un importante papel en el mundo idealizado de los héroes homéricos. El poeta ofrece las primeras descripciones de vinos griegos, principalmente procedentes del norte del Egeo, situándolos en contextos muy variados, como centro del banquete, bebida reconstituyente, elemento imprescindible en plegarias y juramentos e incluso símbolo de honor que distingue a los personajes más destacados.

O antropomorfizowaniu i potrzebie przedstawień figuralnych w sztuce greckiej

Estetyka w archeologii. Antropomorfizacje w pradziejach i starożytności, eds. E. Bugaj, A. P. Kowalski, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.

Alien gosd in the new epics: Noah remythologised through the ancient astronaut hypothesis in Abel's Montagut's "La gesta d'Utnoa"

Modern scientific world-view has undermined traditional myths, the functional survival of which seems to depend today in the West on a positivist justification. This would place them in the field of real History, through their study and revitalization by pseudoscientific disciplines such as the Atlantis and the ancient astronaut hypotheses. These have inspired new epic poems in (regular) verse that combine classic and/or biblical myths with a (pseudo)scientific modern world-view. For example, the critical rewriting of Noah’s myth by using the ancient astronaut hypothesis as a fictional device to produce a contemporary kind of plausibility allowed Abel Montagut to renew epic poetry, updating it also by adopting science fiction chronotopes in order to structure his fictional construction and to generate a high ethical sense for our time. Thus, his Poemo de Utnoa (1993) / La gesta d’Utnoa (1996), which has become a major classic of the literature in Esperanto thanks to its original version in this language, is a landmark of both science fiction and neo-biblical epics. This poem is written from a secular and purely literary perspective.

Gallic war songs (II): Marcus Cicero, Quintus Cicero, and Caesar’s invasion of Britain

This article assembles and examines the evidence for the poetic outputs of Marcus and Quintus Cicero related to Caesar’s invasion of Britain. Following the establishment of a relative chronology of the evidence for their work, it is argued that Quintus Cicero most likely produced a fabula praetexta (not an epic poem, as commonly assumed). His brother, in turn, wrote an epic, based on Quintus’ eye-witness reports. Careful analysis of the ancient discourse about this piece reveals insights in Cicero’s poetic workshop and the creation of ‘archival truth’ through narrativising historical events in epic poetry. Finally, a case is made for greater attention to financial affairs between Caesar and the Ciceros that happen to coincide with the drafting process of their respective literary works.

O aspecto polifônico d os Lusíadas

A study about the polyphonic aspect of The Lusiads. An epic poem in Portuguese Language written by Luís de Camões, that narrates the adventure of the journey of Vasco da Gama in the discoverer of new shipping lanes for the Índias. Secondarily, tells the historics battles engaged during the process of foundation and consolidation of the Portuguese Empire. The object of the study are the diverse speeches that compose the poem s narration, aiming at to the possible aesthetic relation of the epic poetry of Camões with the novelistic prose developed in the modernity, starting with D. Quijote and consacrating it at polyphonic novels written by Dostoiévski. The sdudy focuses the singularity of Camões lies in the elaboration of a narrative structurally epic, but at the same time contains several deviating speeches. Such speeches emphasize the multiple planes and multiple voices (characteristics of novelistic prose) without, however, prejudice the interlinking logical-formal epos, resulting in the monological finish conventional of the epic gender. This feature characterizes The Lusiads as monological literary work, but also shows dialogism and plurilinguism, essentials to the polyphonic phenomenon. Another prominent aspect of the poetry of Camões is the relative procedure to the expressiveness of the characters. They are, in the majority, rhetorical creations, which assume, in the speech, human or myhtological characteristics. Stratagem that permits to the poet to emit a multiple faces of vision of the facts told. The analysis of the speeches supports-itself entirely in the polyphonic theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, shall be cited, accessory, viewpoints of others theoretical, as long if it is judged compatible with the theory adopted

A construção narrativa em Cidade de Deus de Paulo Lins

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A Odisséia de Nikos Kazantzakis: epopéia moderna do heroísmo trágico

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)