Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands by Ursula Dronke Ursula Dronke obituary. Ursula Dronke, who has died aged 91, was an inspirational scholar and teacher of literature, and a specialist in the sagas and poetry of medieval Iceland. In 1969, she published the first volume of her monumental edition of the , a medieval anthology of the great Icelandic mythological and heroic poems. The second volume, published in 1997, includes her translation of the poem Völuspá, whose textual complexity and allusive obscurity are unparalleled. Völuspá is spoken by a mysterious prophetess, summoned, as it seems, by the god , and she transmits, unwillingly, the arcane knowledge she alone knows: about the creation of the world (and a time even before that), and then about its end, Ragnarök, the great Norse apocalypse, which she describes in dramatic detail. Ursula, with endless patience, and after years of study, developed a confident understanding of the text's literary dynamic, with its interplay of mediumistic voices, and its sudden switches between past, present and future. For Old Norse scholars, Völuspá had been a challenge; Ursula restored it as a work of art. The third volume of the Poetic Edda went to press in Ursula's 90th year; the projected four volumes now remain incomplete. Nevertheless, this series has completely dominated Eddaic studies worldwide, with the sophistication of its literary analyses and the tremendous breadth of background knowledge brought to bear on the poetry. As Vigfússon reader in Old Icelandic literature and antiquities at Oxford University from 1976 to 1988, Ursula supervised many graduate students and I was privileged to be one of them; the vast majority have gone on to teach Old Norse-Icelandic at universities around the world. Her students loved her because of the total commitment and loyalty she showed them: their difficulties were hers too, and she rejoiced in their success. Ursula Brown was born in Sunderland. When she was four, the family moved to Newcastle, where her father was a lecturer at the university. She attended Church High school there and, in 1939, went to Tours University as a visiting student in French language and literature. The outbreak of the second world war cut short her studies, and she returned to to take up the Mary Ewart scholarship in English at Somerville College, Oxford. Graduating in 1942, she went to work briefly for the Board of Trade, but returned to Somerville as a graduate student in 1946, specialising in Old Norse, and supervised by the leading Old Norse specialist in Britain, Gabriel Turville-Petre, and JRR Tolkien. Her graduate work gained her a BLitt in 1949; it became her first major publication, an edition of the Old Norse Þorgils saga (1952) which immediately gained international recognition. Ursula was a fellow and tutor in English at Somerville from 1950 to 1961. She met her husband, Peter Dronke, in 1959, at a meeting of the Medieval Society there. Peter recalls being overwhelmed by her warmth and intellectual vitality at one of her legendary parties later that year, packed as always with students and scholars from all over the world. They married in 1960 and Ursula moved to Cambridge with Peter, who took up a post in medieval Latin there. In 1962, their daughter Cressida was born. Cressida was a source of immense pride to Ursula and one of the great joys of her life. After a spell as professor and acting head of Scandinavian studies at Munich University in the early 1970s, Ursula was elected to the readership at Oxford in 1976 and to a professorial fellowship at Linacre College. This was rightly regarded as a coup for Oxford. Some of her many publications were produced jointly with Peter. Their day-to-day scholarly collaboration, as leading medievalists in adjacent fields, enriched the work of both. Her essays, collected as Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands (1996), reveal her range and dominant concerns: the essays situate Old Norse literature in general, and its celebrated mythology in particular, in the wider context of both ancient Indo- European traditions and medieval European learning. Each one demonstrates, as one reviewer put it, "the palpable enthusiasm of a fine scholar and teacher". A lasting contribution to the study of Old Norse was her securing of a donation from the Swedish Rausing family to support the Old Icelandic readership at Oxford in perpetuity. Ursula was knowledgable about the good things in life – art, music, wine, food, people – and was always great fun, hospitable, stylish, energetic and witty. Her politics were as rigorous and uncompromising as her academic standards: throughout her life, she hated and spoke passionately against anything reactionary, ungenerous or cynical. After retiring in 1988, Ursula continued to work on the Poetic Edda and enjoyed time with her beloved grandchildren. As often as they could, she and Peter visited their house in Brittany, where Ursula had always been able to immerse herself in her work. She was incommoded, though never dispirited, by a series of hip operations; visitors to her hospital bedside would find her sitting up proofreading her own or others' work. The conviction that great literature should be a fundamental part of human life never left her. She is survived by Peter, Cressida and her two grandchildren. Ursula Miriam Dronke, scholar of Old Norse-Icelandic, born 3 November 1920; died 8 March 2012. ISBN 13: 9780860785453. Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands (Variorum Collected Studies) Dronke, Ursula. This specific ISBN edition is currently not available. The first group of essays in this volume explores the links between early Norse literature, from the 9th to the 13th century, and the learned world of medieval Europe. In the second group the focus is upon the range of theme and style in Norse mythological poetry. Some of the key texts are considered in relation to Anglo-Saxon poetry as well as to the wider and more archaic Indo-European cultural inheritance. The third group offers detailed analyses of early Norse heroic poetry, of the formatic role of verse in the Icelandic sagas and of the final perfecting of prose as the ultimate saga medium. The 16 essays, taken together, are essential reading for all scholars, critics and historians who seek to understand the development of one of the world's most unusual and sophisticated literatures. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Ursula Dronke, Emeritus, , UK. '. an invaluable resource, not to say essential reading, for all who interest themselves in Old Norse/Icelandic literature and mythology and can respond to the palpable enthusiasm of a fine scholar and teacher.' Parergon, Vol. 16, No. 1. Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands by Ursula Dronke. Inspirational Teacher of Old Norse Literature Specialising in the Sagas and Poetry of Medieval Iceland. Ursula Dronke, who has died aged 91, was an inspirational scholar and teacher of Old Norse literature, and a specialist in the sagas and poetry of medieval Iceland. In 1969, she published the first volume of her monumental edition of the Poetic Edda, a medieval anthology of the great Icelandic mythological and heroic poems. The second volume, published in 1997, includes her translation of the poem Völuspá, whose textual complexity and allusive obscurity are unparalleled. Völuspá is spoken by a mysterious prophetess, summoned, as it seems, by the god Odin, and she transmits, unwillingly, the arcane knowledge she alone knows: about the creation of the world (and a time even before that), and then about its end, Ragnarök, the great Norse apocalypse, which she describes in dramatic detail. Ursula, with endless patience, and after years of study, developed a confident understanding of the text's literary dynamic, with its interplay of mediumistic voices, and its sudden switches between past, present and future. For Old Norse scholars, Völuspá had been a challenge; Ursula restored it as a work of art. The third volume of the Poetic Edda went to press in Ursula's 90th year; the projected four volumes now remain incomplete. Nevertheless, this series has completely dominated Eddaic studies worldwide, with the sophistication of its literary analyses and the tremendous breadth of background knowledge brought to bear on the poetry. As Vigfússon reader in Old Icelandic literature and antiquities at Oxford University from 1976 to 1988, Ursula supervised many graduate students and I was privileged to be one of them; the vast majority have gone on to teach Old Norse-Icelandic at universities around the world. Her students loved her because of the total commitment and loyalty she showed them: their difficulties were hers too, and she rejoiced in their success. Ursula Brown was born in Sunderland. When she was four, the family moved to Newcastle, where her father was a lecturer at the university. She attended Church High school there and, in 1939, went to Tours University as a visiting student in French language and literature. The outbreak of the second world war cut short her studies, and she returned to England to take up the Mary Ewart scholarship in English at Somerville College, Oxford. Graduating in 1942, she went to work briefly for the Board of Trade, but returned to Somerville as a graduate student in 1946, specialising in Old Norse, and supervised by the leading Old Norse specialist in Britain, Gabriel Turville-Petre, and JRR Tolkien. Her graduate work gained her a BLitt in 1949; it became her first major publication, an edition of the Old Norse Þorgils saga (1952) which immediately gained international recognition. Ursula was a fellow and tutor in English at Somerville from 1950 to 1961. She met her husband, Peter Dronke, in 1959, at a meeting of the Medieval Society there. Peter recalls being overwhelmed by her warmth and intellectual vitality at one of her legendary parties later that year, packed as always with students and scholars from all over the world. They married in 1960 and Ursula moved to Cambridge with Peter, who took up a post in medieval Latin there. In 1962, their daughter Cressida was born. Cressida was a source of immense pride to Ursula and one of the great joys of her life. After a spell as professor and acting head of Scandinavian studies at Munich University in the early 1970s, Ursula was elected to the readership at Oxford in 1976 and to a professorial fellowship at Linacre College. This was rightly regarded as a coup for Oxford. Some of her many publications were produced jointly with Peter. Their day-to-day scholarly collaboration, as leading medievalists in adjacent fields, enriched the work of both. Her essays, collected as Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands (1996), reveal her range and dominant concerns: the essays situate Old Norse literature in general, and its celebrated mythology in particular, in the wider context of both ancient Indo- European traditions and medieval European learning. Each one demonstrates, as one reviewer put it, "the palpable enthusiasm of a fine scholar and teacher". A lasting contribution to the study of Old Norse was her securing of a donation from the Swedish Rausing family to support the Old Icelandic readership at Oxford in perpetuity. Ursula was knowledgable about the good things in life – art, music, wine, food, people – and was always great fun, hospitable, stylish, energetic and witty. Her politics were as rigorous and uncompromising as her academic standards: throughout her life, she hated and spoke passionately against anything reactionary, ungenerous or cynical. After retiring in 1988, Ursula continued to work on the Poetic Edda and enjoyed time with her beloved grandchildren. As often as they could, she and Peter visited their house in Brittany, where Ursula had always been able to immerse herself in her work. She was incommoded, though never dispirited, by a series of hip operations; visitors to her hospital bedside would find her sitting up proofreading her own or others' work. The conviction that great literature should be a fundamental part of human life never left her. She is survived by her husband Peter, their daughter Cressida, and two grandchildren. by Heather O'Donoghue The Guardian, Sunday 25 March 2012. (as Ursula Brown). Þorgils Saga ok Hafliða. Oxford English Monographs 3. London: Oxford, 1952. (The Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 13:51–77). The Poetic Edda Volume I: Heroic Poems. Edited with translation, introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 1969. (with Peter Dronke). Barbara et Antiquissima Carmina. Publicaciones del Seminario de Literatura Medieval y Humanística. Barcelona: Universidad Autónoma, Faculdad de Letras, 1977. (with Peter Dronke). "The Prologue of the : Explorations of a Latin Background". Sjötíu ritgerðir helgaðar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júlí 1977. Ed. Einar G. Pétursson and Jónas Kristjánsson. Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1977. 153-76. The Role of Sexual Themes in Njáls Saga: The Dorothea Coke Memorial Lecture in Northern Studies delivered at University College London, 27 May 1980. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1981. ( pdf ) "The War of the Æsir and the Vanir in Völuspá". Idee, Gestalt, Geschichte: Festschrift Klaus von See. Ed. Gerd Wolfgang Weber. Odense: Odense University, 1988. 223-38. "Marx, Engels and ". Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 20 (1989), 29- 1989. "Eddic Poetry as a Source for the History of Germanic ". Germanische Religionsgeschichte: Quellen und Quellenprobleme. Ed. Heinrich Beck, Detlev Ellmers and Kurt Schier. Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 5. : De Gruyter, 1992. pp. 656-84. "Pagan Beliefs and Christian Impact: The Contribution of Eddic Studies". Viking Revaluations: Viking Society Centenary Symposium. Ed. Anthony Faulkes and Patrick Thull. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1993. Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands. Collected Studies 524. Aldershot, Hampshire/Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, 1996. (Collected articles) The Poetic Edda, Volume II: Mythological Poems. Edited with translation, introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 1997. (with Peter Dronke). Growth of Literature: The Sea and the God of the Sea. H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 8. Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, 1997-98. The Poetic Edda, Volume III: Mythological Poems II. Edited with translation, introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford University, 2011. . Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands by Ursula Dronke. 1992 Ursula Dronke "Völuspá and the Sibylline Traditions" in Latin Culture and Medieval Germanic Europe , ed. Richard North and T. Hofstra, 1992 Reprinted in her book Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands. 1882 Samuel Crocker, editor The Literary World Vol. 13. " is, as has been said, a controversialist. Two recent works from his pen serve to indicate a field in which he has won distinction. About eighteen months ago, a Norwegian scholar, Dr. Anthon Christian Bang, published a small pamphlet entitled Völuspaa og de Sibyllinska Orakler (The Vala's Prophecy and the Sibylline Oracles), in which he attempted to show that the Völuspa poem in the Old Norse Elder Edda was a plagiarism from the Sibylline oracles of the middle ages. The little pamphlet made quite a sensation, largely, however, because of general ignorance concerning the Sibylline oracles, while Mr. Bang was understood to have the support of 's greatest mythologist, . Subsequently Mr. Bugge defined his position, and is now publishing a work on the origin of Norse mythology, in which he tries to show that, during the last centuries of the viking heathendom, the Christian religion exercised a pronounced influence upon the primitive religion of the North. He claims that Christian and classic traditions were found in the British Isles by the Scandinavian bards, blended with their original religion, and that from this union came the mythology described in the Eddas. Mr. Bugge claims that Balder of the Edda is Christ; that the blind Hoder, who throws the mistletoe at Balder, is the blind Roman soldier Longinus, who, according to the Christian Hebrew legend, pierced Christ with his lance; that Luke is Lucifer, and so on. Doubtless he is right in claiming that Teutonic traditions have been more or less colored by South-European legendary lore, but his conclusions are too definite to pass unchallenged. In reply to Dr. Bang, Viktor Rydberg has published a small work called Sibyllinerna och Voluspa (The Sibylline Oracles and Voluspa), in which he shows on how weak a foundation the hypothesis was based; nay, he shows that there was no foundation whatever for Mr. Bang to build upon. It was this clever work that forced Professor Bugge to renounce Dr. Bang, and tell the world that he did not share his opinion that Völuspá was a Christian oracle based on the Sibylline books. In the 80 octavo pages of his book Rydberg argues conclusively that the author of Völuspá did not use the Asiatic-Egyptian Sibylline oracles as his source and model; that Bang's characterization of the Sibylline books is not trustworthy ; and that Voluspa is not a Norse-Christian oracle. Dr. Bang, in spite of all the stir he made with his little pamphlet, may now be considered out of the saga. But Professor Bugge, in renouncing Bang's hypothesis, raised another question, the settlement of which he conceives to be of great importance to his theory: "Has the Völuspá been influenced by any of the Christian prophecies which were produced in the middle ages and circulated as Sibylline oracles?" He thinks he has found evidence that these later prophecies were modified indirectly by the Asiatic-Egyptian Sibylline oracles, and that in this manner the Christian oracles may have transmitted some of their borrowed Asiatic-Egyptian color to the Völuspá. In support of this hypothesis, Professor Bugge cites the prophecies of Merlin in the Appendix to the Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, in which are described the great signs which are to appear in heaven and in the earth when the fate of England is foretold. Among these are several parallels to the description of the war among the stars, at the close of the fifth book of the Asiatic-Egyptian Sibylline oracles. One of these parallels is so striking that Professor Bugge does not hesitate to maintain that Geoffrey must have utilized in some way at least a portion of those oracles. Now, all that the West of Europe, during the middle ages, knew of these Sibylline oracles was contributed by Lactantius and Augustinus. But, as these church-fathers do not give a single extract in regard to the war of the stars, and as Geoffrey's Prophecy of Merlin does contain a parallel thereto, Geoffrey must, according to Bugge, be an exception to the accepted laws of Sibylline investigations. Hence he assumes that the knowledge which the Welsh enchanter appar ently shows of that fifth book must have come to him by way of Byzantium in a comparatively modern time. To this hypothesis Viktor Rydberg has just published a reply: Astrologien och Merlin (Astrology and Merlin), in which he demonstrates that Geoffrey was familiar with Lucanus. All the astrological elements in Merlin's prophecies are found in the Roman poets, particularly in the Pharsalia of Lucanus. The work closes with a detailed history and interpretation of the astronomy and astrology of the ancients. We are authorized to announce that a third work from Rydberg on this interesting subject will appear shortly. It will be a large work on Völuspá, containing a synopsis and interpretation of the poem; a discussion on the character of the Vala, or Prophetess; the texts in the Codex Regius, Hauks-bók, and the Upsala manuscripts; the restored text; text-criticism; the history of the text; and an estimate of the age of the poem. Chapters will be added on the age of the Balder myth, and on other questions germane to an exhaustive treatise on the Völuspá. It will unquestionably be a work of great importance to all students of mythology and of Norse literature." 1973 Völuspá, edited by Sigurður Nordal. Translated by B.S. Benedikt and John McKinnell. "Bang's essay attracted great attention and many good scholars agreed with him. Some have followed and his footsteps and traced the material of Norse mythology back to southern European and Christian writings of the Roman Empire and later years. The most prominent of these was Bugge, especially in his first volume of the Studier over de nordiske Gude- og Heltesagns Oprindelse . Bugge's views have been considered extreme by many (though he did not lack followers, especially in the early days) and the time of his greatest influence is now over. But there is always much to be learned from his works, even for those who differ from his basic principles. And Bugge is moderate in comparison with the German mythologist E. H. Meyer, who edited Völuspá with a commentary in 1889 and traced all its matter to mediaeval Christian writings. For in this large book (300 pages) I have not found a single observation which I thought worth mentioning in my commentary. It is from beginning to end a scholarly fable by a man whose learning had made him mad. Many came forward to oppose this line of research. Victor Rydberg attacked Bang, while Bugge defended him, and this resulted in Rydberg's producing his great work Undersökningar i Germanisk Mytologi. This is written with great learning and eloquence. Its chief fault is that the author makes it clear neither to himself nor to his reader where the learning stops and the eloquence begins." Ursula Dronke (Dronke, Ursula) More editions of Barbara et antiquissima carmina (Publicaciones del Seminario de Literatura Medieval y HumaniÌ​stica): More editions of Growth of Literature: The Sea and the God of the Sea (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures): More editions of Myth and Fiction in Early Norse Lands (Variorum Collected Studies): More editions of The Poetic Edda: Volume III Mythological Poems II (Dronke Poetic Edda): More editions of The Role of Sexual Themes in Njal's Saga: Founded in 1997, BookFinder.com has become a leading book price comparison site: Find and compare hundreds of millions of new books, used books, rare books and out of print books from over 100,000 booksellers and 60+ websites worldwide.