Papers by Joseph C Harris
Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in …, 1993
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Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse. Ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer. 1997. 131-163, 1997
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Oral Tradition, 2000
Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been home to two translators of the Kalevala in the twentieth centu... more Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been home to two translators of the Kalevala in the twentieth century, and both furnished materials, however brief, for an understanding of how they might have compared the Finnish epic to the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. (The present brief Canterbridgean contribution to the generic characterization of Beowulf, taking a hint from the heterogeneous genre make-up of the Kalevala, focuses chiefly on a complex narrative structure and its meaning.) The better known of the two translators was my distinguished predecessor, the English professor and philologist Francis Peabody Magoun (1895-1979). In his 1963 translation of the 1849 Kalevala, Magoun’s allusions, still strongly under the spell of the early successes of the oral-formulaic theory, are chiefly to shared reliance on formulaic diction, though he does also point out certain differences in the two epics’ application of this style (1963a:xvii, n. 1; xviii, n. 3). Magoun’s reference to “the Beowulf songs” (xviii,...
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Oral Tradition, 2000
Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been home to two translators of the Kalevala in the twentieth centu... more Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been home to two translators of the Kalevala in the twentieth century, and both furnished materials, however brief, for an understanding of how they might have compared the Finnish epic to the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. (The present brief Canterbridgean contribution to the generic characterization of Beowulf, taking a hint from the heterogeneous genre make-up of the Kalevala, focuses chiefly on a complex narrative structure and its meaning.) The better known of the two translators was my distinguished predecessor, the English professor and philologist Francis Peabody Magoun (1895-1979). In his 1963 translation of the 1849 Kalevala, Magoun’s allusions, still strongly under the spell of the early successes of the oral-formulaic theory, are chiefly to shared reliance on formulaic diction, though he does also point out certain differences in the two epics’ application of this style (1963a:xvii, n. 1; xviii, n. 3). Magoun’s reference to “the Beowulf songs” (xviii,...
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Various "rhythms" (recurrences and variations viewed as system) in the Rök inscription, with emph... more Various "rhythms" (recurrences and variations viewed as system) in the Rök inscription, with emphasis on the formulaic ritual of the enunciation ("sagum") lines 3, 5, 12, 14, 21, 23, 26 and the reconstructed l. 20.
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Two late eddic poems, Grógaldr and Fjölsvinnsmál, together called Svip-dagsmál (Sv), are hardly t... more Two late eddic poems, Grógaldr and Fjölsvinnsmál, together called Svip-dagsmál (Sv), are hardly to be understood without reference to the ballad " Ungen Svejdal " (in about thirty separate recordings in Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish). It is argued here that rather than the ballad being an offshoot of the eddic Sv (the usual assumption), both derive from a common source, an oral Norwegian fornal-darsaga (flourishing about 1300 or later). The story as realized in this *Svipdagssaga can be partially reconstructed by triangulation from the surviving Sv and ballads. This forms the basis for a reconsideration of the hero and narrative of Sv, especially through gender and genre analysis, and finally of the myth that informs the main narrative and of the distinction between that " myth " and the " mythology " of the Sv poet's elabo rations on the reconstructed story. Zusammenfassung: Zwei späte eddische Gedichte, Grógaldr und Fjölsvinnsmál, die zusammen Svipdagsmál (Sv) genannt werden, kann man ohne nähere Betrachtung der Volksballade " Ungen Svejdal " kaum verstehen; die Ballade existiert in etwa dreißig Varianten in Norwegisch, Dänisch und Schwedisch. Traditionell wird angenommen, dass man die Ballade von den Sv ableiten müßte; hierbei werden Gründe angegeben, dass beide aus einer gemeinsamen Quelle schöpfen, einer mündlichen fornaldarsaga, die in Norwegen etwa im vierzehnten Jahrhundert tradiert wurde. Die Geschichte, wie sie in dieser *Svipdagssaga realisiert wurde, kann man, wenn auch nur teilweise, durch Vergleiche von den noch existierenden Sv und den Balladen wiederherstel-len. Dies soll die Grundlage einer neuen Überlegung zu " Held und Narration " der Sv sein; die Auswertung bedient sich der Methoden der Gender-und Genre-Studien, um am Ende den Mythos der Hauptgeschichte der Sv zu charakterisieren und zwischen diesem " Mythos " und der " Mythologie " des Sv-Dichters, d.h., seinen weiteren Ausar-beitungen der zu Grunde liegenden gemeinsamen Quelle, zu unterscheiden. Svipdagsmál (Sv) came into existence only in 1860 when Sophus Bugge suggested that title for the two separate poems, Grógaldr (Gg) and Fjölsvinnsmál (Fj), which he had recently recognized as parts of the same literary whole.¹ Before that date and sporadically afterward, Gg and Fj were considered to be unrelated (or more precisely: before Bugge the question of their relationship was never raised), and practically all
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Reconstruction and reading of the damaged line 20 of the Rök Stone's inscription.
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History and Literature: Essays in Honor of Karl S. Guthke. Ed. William C. Donahue and Scott Denham. Tübingen: Stauffenberg. 2000. 221-230, 2000
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Myth in Early Northwest Europe. Ed. Stephen Glosecki. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 320. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS and Brepols. 2007. 153-173, 2007
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Gripla 20 (2009): 257-279, 2009
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The Vikings. Ed. R. T. Farrell. London & Chichester: Phillimore. 1982. 157-164 plus bibliography, 1982
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Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide. Ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow. Islandica 45. Ithaca & London: Cornell University P. 1985. 68-156., 1985
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Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism. Ed. J. Lindow et al. Odense: Odense U P.1986. 187-219, 1986
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Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Tr. Seamus Heaney. Ed. Daniel Donoghue. NY & London: Norton. 2002. 98-100, 2002
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Arkiv för nordisk filologi 104 (1989): 103-122, 1989
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Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse. Ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer. 1997. 131-163, 1997
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Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse. Ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer. 1997. 131-163, 1997
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Teaching Oral Traditions. Ed. John M. Foley. NY: The Modern Language Association of America. 1998. 382-390, 1998
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Papers by Joseph C Harris
Table of Contents Preface; Jeffrey Turco, volume editor: Introduction; Andy Orchard: Hereward and Grettir: Brothers from Another Mother?; Richard L. Harris: “Jafnan segir inn ríkri ráð”: Proverbial Allusion and the Implied Proverb in Fóstbrœðra saga; Torfi H. Tulinius: Seeking Death in Njáls saga; Guðrún Nordal: Skaldic Poetics and the Making of the Sagas of Icelanders; Russell Poole: Identity Poetics among the Icelandic Skalds; Jeffrey Turco: Loki, Sneglu-Halla þáttr, and the Case for a Skaldic Prosaics; Thomas D. Hill: Beer, Vomit, Blood and Poetry: Egils saga, Chapters 44-45; Shaun F. D. Hughes: The Old Norse Exempla as Arbiters of Gender Roles in Medieval Iceland; Paul Acker: Performing Gender in the Icelandic Ballads; Joseph Harris: The Rök Inscription, Line 20; Sarah Harlan-Haughey: A Landscape of Conflict: Three Stories of the Faroe Conversions; Kirsten Wolf: Non-Basic Color Terms in Old Norse-Icelandic