Often compared to the epics of Homer, The Kalevala consolidates a rich oral tradition with prehistoric roots. Created only 150 years ago as the tradition was dying out, this Finnish epic presents a rare portrait of an ancient people in both war and peace. The Kalevala played a central role in the process towards Finnish independence and inspired some of the greatest works of the composer Sibelius.

The Kalevala (The ^AWorld's Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Lönnrot, Elias

Bosley, Keith

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

This is the first appearance in English of The Kanteletar (1840-1), the companion volume to the Finnish national epic poem The Kalevala. Based on Finnish oral tradition, The Kanteletar (roughly "zither-daughter", a kind of muse) is a selection from a treasury of nearly seven hundred lyrics and ballads that celebrate the everyday life of a rural society at work and play. The ballads range from a beautiful sequence of legends about the Virgin Mary, through the grim tales of Elina, to a hilarious account of a dragon that refuses to devour its victims.

The Kanteletar: Lyrics and Ballads after the Oral Tradition by Elias Lönnrot (The ^AWorld's Classics)

Over a period of fifteen years, the authors of this beautiful volume have collected and translated 450 orally transmitted poems, songs, charms, prayers, and laments from Finno-Ugrian languages such as Finnish, Estonian, and Lapp. Presented in both English and the original languages, these works offer unique insights into the worldview and lives of pre-literate peoples in various stages of cultural and social development. The poems reveal the beliefs, perceptions, and artistic genius of fifteen peoples scattered across Northern Europe from Scandinavia, deep into Russia and beyond the Urals, and of the Hungarians in Central Europe. Magnificently produced, with more than forty-five illustrations, the book begins with contexualizing essays on the Finno-Ugrian peoples, oral poetry, and the beliefs and ritual practices reflected in the poems. The poems themselves are arranged thematically, according to such topics as cosmology, hunting, agriculture, animal husbandry, love, marriage, healing, and death. They are followed by a poem-by-poem commentary which contextualizes and explicates the text.

The Great Bear: A Thematic Anthology of Oral Poetry in the Finno-Ugrian Languages

Honko, Lauri

Timonen, Senni

Branch, Michael

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 millennium 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 L�nnrot, 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. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Kalevala (Oxford World's Classics)

A Trail for Singers presents a selection of the ancient epic poetry of the Baltic-Finnish region, from Estonia in the south to Finnish and Russian Karelia in the north. Springing from the same background as the more famous Kalevala, the Finnish national epic', the 148 poems in this book bring alive the vanished world of the hunters and fishermen of Karelia and the serfs of Ingria, bound to the land. From ancient myths about the origin of the universe to an eighteenth-century elegy sung to army recruits as they left home, the poems take the readers back to an age when shamanism was still prevalent and show how Christianity replaced the old beliefs. At the same time they are a testimony to the power of the human imagination and to man's need for art.

A Trail for Singers: Finnish Folk Poetry

Poetry

Finnish Literature Society