The Kalevala by Elias Lonnrot

The Kalevala by Elias Lonnrot

The Kalevala is the great Finnish epic, which like the Iliad and the Odyssey, grew out of a rich oral tradition with prehistoric roots. During the first millenium of our era, speakers of Uralic languages (those outside the Indo-European group) who had settled in the Baltic region of Karelia, that straddles the border of eastern Finland and north-west Russia, developed an oral poetry that was to last into the nineteenth century. This poetry provided the basis of the Kalevala. It was assembled in the 1840s by the Finnish scholar Elias Lonnrot, who took 'dictation' from the performance of a folk singer, in much the same way as our great collections from the past, from Homeric poems to medieval songs and epics, have probably been set down. Published in 1849, it played a central role in the march towards Finnish independence and inspired some of Sibelius's greatest works. This new and exciting translation by poet Keith Bosley, prize-winning translator of the anthology Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic, is the first truly to combine liveliness with accuracy in a way which reflects the richness of the original.

Elias Lonnrot (1802-1884) was a philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry who lived in Finland from 1802 to 1884. He is primarily renowned for writing the Kalevala, a national epic of Finland based on mythology. His main love was the Finnish language, which he grew up speaking. In 1827, he began writing on the early Finnish language and began collecting folk tales from individuals living in the countryside at the time. This resulted in a series of books: Kantele, 1829-1831 (the kantele is a Finnish traditional instrument); Kalevala, 1835-1836 (perhaps Land of Heroes; better known as the old Kalevala); Kanteletar, 1840 (probably Kantele Daughter); Sananlaskuja, 1842 (Proverbs); and Finsk-Svenskt lexikon, 1866-1880 (Finnish-Swed He died at Sammatti, in the region of Uusimaa, on March 19, 1884.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780192835703
ISBN 10	019283570X
Title	The Kalevala
Author	Elias Lonnrot
Series	Oxford World's Classics Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1999-04-01
Number of pages	736
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.