A Study Guide for Elias Lonnrot's "Kalevala"
()
About this ebook
Read more from Gale
A Study Guide for S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA study guide for Frank Herbert's "Dune" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Study Guide for James Clavell's "Shogun" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Louis Sachar's "Holes" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's Macbeth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for George Orwell's Animal Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Lois Lowry's The Giver Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for James Joyce's "James Joyce's Ulysses" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusiness Plans Handbook: Bakery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Psychologists and Their Theories for Students: JEAN PIAGET Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for George Orwell's 1984 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Study Guide for John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Psychologists and Their Theories for Students: ALBERT BANDURA Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusiness Plans Handbook: Furniture Businesses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide (New Edition) for William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusiness Plans Handbook: Auto Detailing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide (New Edition) for F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Wole Soyinka's "Death and the King's Horsemen" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to A Study Guide for Elias Lonnrot's "Kalevala"
Related ebooks
The story of Burnt Njal: From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Raiding Cooley Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brownies and Bogles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSkelligs Sunset Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Skelligs Calling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Skelligside Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tiel's Saga: Scottish Lore, Norse Roots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Flowering Thorn: International Ballad Studies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Anonymous's "Tain Bo Cuailnge" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Irish Fairy Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDerbyshire Folk Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumfries and Galloway Folk Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings"Cadmus and Hermione" and "Perseus": Two Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Blue Fairy Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCeltic Fairy Tales Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Irish Fairy Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn and The Fianna Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Scandinavian Heritage: 200 Years of Scandinavian Presence in the Windsor-Detroit Border Region Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Scottish Fairytales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories of Red Hanrahan, The Secret Rose, and Rosa Alchemica Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Waco?: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jul! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mabinogion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMyths and Folk-lore of Ireland: 20 Irish and Celtic Myths and Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time or, The Jarls and The Freskyns Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5NORTH CORNWALL FAIRIES AND LEGENDS - 13 Legends from England's West Country: Legends of Cornish Pixies and Fairies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDuanaire Na Sracaire: Anthology of Medieval Gaelic Poetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Literary Criticism For You
As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Killers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History: by Donna Tartt | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsQuiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Study Guide for Elias Lonnrot's "Kalevala"
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A Study Guide for Elias Lonnrot's "Kalevala" - Gale
10
Kalevala
Elias Lönnrot
1849
Introduction
The Kalevala is Finland's national epic, drawn from a rich oral tradition with roots stretching back more than two millennia. Its compiler was Elias Lönnrot, a nineteenth-century physician and folklorist who traveled throughout the Finnish-Russian borderlands recording the lyrics, ballads, charms, and epics sung by the rural people. From these poems (called runes) he assembled a coherent whole, a literary epic that fired the imaginations and the national consciousness of the Finnish people.
Steeped in magic, by turns dreamlike and dramatic, the Kalevala recounts the mythic history of the ancient Finns in a series of fifty poems. Its heroes are the sons of Kaleva: the wise shaman Väinämöinen, the skillful smith Ilmarinen, and the feisty warrior Lemminkäinen. Stories of their interactions with one another, the spirit world, the natural world, and with their northern neighbors, the tribe of Pohjola, unfold in the resonant, musical cadences of Finnish oral poetry.
The Kalevala became the foundation of Finnish cultural identity. Published in its final form in 1849, Lönnrot's epic immediately took its place alongside the Greek Iliad and Odyssey, the German Nibelungenlied, and the Norse Poetic Edda. It established Finnish as a literary language and inspired a flowering of Finnish art and music, and it also played a crucial role in the Finns' struggle for independence, giving a heroic history and a focus for their national pride.
The interest in Finland's national epic reached a worldwide audience in the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries. A major inspiration for the writings of English fantasist, J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973), the Kalevala spread its influence to other fantasy writers in Scandinavia, Great Britain, and the United States. Progressive rock bands in Finland, Italy, Germany, France, and the United States have used the lyrics and ideas for song material. Films such as Jade Warrior (2007), aco-operative effort of Finnish and Chinese filmmakers, base their plots on the epic. Clearly, the Kalevala is no longer merely a national treasure; it belongs to the world.
Author Biography
Elias Lönnrot was born in the southern parish of Sammatti, Finland, in 1802, the fourth of seven children in a poor tailor's family. In spite of his humble background, Lönnrot managed to attend the University of Turku, where he studied folklore and linguistics while supporting himself with various jobs. At Turku, Lönnrot became involved with the Finnish national ist movement. He was strongly influenced by the ideas of Professor Henrik Gabriel Porthan, an historian who encouraged the study of folklore and believed that a nation's cultural identity must be rooted in the language and oral traditions of its ordinary folk.
Following the Turku fire of 1827 that destroyed most of the city, the university relocated to Helsinki, where Lönnrot continued his studies and earned his medical degree in 1832. From 1833 to 1853, Lönnrot worked as a district physician and traveling health inspector in the remote northern town of Kajaani. Though he was the only doctor in that part of northeastern Finland, the job did not occupy him full time except during periods of epidemic, leaving Lönnrot free to pursue his study of Finnish language and folklore.
Between 1830 and 1850, he took several leaves of absence to travel through rural Finland, Ingria, Estonia, and eastern Karelia, meeting traditional singers and gathering folk poetry. During one of these trips, he was struck by the idea of arranging these poems and fragments into a single, coherent epic narrative. In 1834, he wrote:
As I compared [the results of my collections on my fourth journey] to what I had seen before, I was seized by a desire to organize them into a single whole in order to make of the Finnish legends of the gods something similar to that of the Edda, the saga of the Icelanders. So I threw myself into the labors