Describe Regarding Books The Kalevala
| Title | : | The Kalevala |
| Author | : | Elias Lönnrot |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Oxford World's Classics |
| Pages | : | Pages: 679 pages |
| Published | : | May 13th 1999 by Oxford University Press (first published 1835) |
| Categories | : | Poetry. Fantasy. Mythology. Classics. Fiction. European Literature. Finnish Literature |
Elias Lönnrot
Paperback | Pages: 679 pages Rating: 4.06 | 4321 Users | 290 Reviews
Representaion During Books The Kalevala
When Elias Lönnrot was born in 1802, Finland was a province of Sweden; by the time he came to compile the Kalevala in the 1830s and 1840s, it was part of the Russian Empire. ‘Finnishness’ was (and had been since the twelfth century) little more than a shared idea, and sometimes a dangerous one at that. So this epic is a part of that nineteenth-century fashion for literary and linguistic nationalism that also gave us curiosities like Pan Tadeusz in Poland or The Mountain Wreath in Serbia-Montenegro – albeit dealing less with history, here, than with mythic prehistory.
I said this was ‘compiled’, and indeed in that sense the Kalevala is a nineteenth-century book, despite the ancientness of much of its material; it is not like the Edda, or Beowulf. In most cases we have examples of the old Finnish myths and legends that Lönnrot used, but the finished product is its own animal; characters have been conflated, and legends have been expertly arranged into a framework that seeks to tell a composite story of Finland's magical past.
The Defence of the Sampo (1896)
It's a past absolutely different in its sensibilities from Anglo-Saxon or Nordic equivalents, let alone those from the Classical world. I suppose I was expecting tales of heroic warriors and epic battles, but there is very little of that. The heroes of the Kalevala are singers and shamans, not soldiers, and when they face off against each other, instead of reaching for their weapons they break into song:
The old Väinämöinen sang: the lakes rippled, the earth shook the copper mountains trembled the sturdy boulders rumbled the cliffs flew in two the rocks cracked upon the shores.Väinämöinen, indeed, goes on a quest not unlike those of more familiar epics; but instead of seeking a magical weapon, he is simply seeking ‘words’ – spells and tales that have been lost. (He is repeatedly described in formulaic epithets as ‘the singer’ and ‘the everlasting wise man’ – just compare this with Homer's ‘man-killing’ Hector, ‘spear-famed’ Menelaus!) One on occasion when two heroes do set out on the war-path, they just end up getting lost in the woods somewhere in Lapland, and decide to turn around and go home for a restorative sauna. The inhabitants of this poem are not fighters: they're farmers, hunters, fishermen, metalsmiths. The world is full of mystery but it revolves around cattle, populations of fish, the threat of wolves and bears outside the village, occasional ritualised celebrations like a birth or a wedding. Despite the supernature, it is refreshingly down-to-earth.
By the River of Tuonela (1903)
Some of my favourite parts in this are in fact the most domestic – narratives that Lönnrot wove in from the rich Finnish tradition of women's songs, which tend to be more concerned with practical matters. The advice given to a bride at her wedding is typical, and it brought home to me more forcefully than anything I can remember how nerve-racking it must have been for a girl to leave her parents' home and head off to run the household of her new husband, perhaps miles away:
What a life was yours on these farms of your father's! You grew in the lanes a flower a strawberry in the glades; you rose from bed to butter and from lying down to milk […]. You'll not be able to go through the doors, stroll through the gates like a daughter of the house; you will not know how to blow the fire, to heat the fireplace as the man of the house likes. Did you really, young maid did you really know or think you'd be going for a night coming back the next day? Look— you'll not be gone for a night not for one night nor for two: you'll have slipped off for longer for always you'll have vanished for ever from father's rooms and for life from your mother's.
Aino Myth (1891)
This translation was published in 1989 by Keith Bosley, a poet and fluent Finnish-speaker who set about to improve what he sees as the defects of previous versions. To judge how successful he is, let's look at some of the original – it has a very particular rhythm. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, but with vowel length instead of stress – in other words, every line has four feet, each of which contains a long syllable followed by a short one. Here's the opening six lines:
Mieleni minun tekevi aivoni ajattelevi lähteäni laulamahan, saa'ani sanelemahan, sukuvirttä suoltamahan, lajivirttä laulamahan.The first English translator, John Martin Crawford in 1888, worked from a German version rather than from the original; he tried to simulate the rhythms of the Finnish by using stress-trochees. The effect is quite unusual, and you may recognise it:
MASTERED by desire impulsive, By a mighty inward urging, I am ready now for singing, Ready to begin the chanting Of our nation's ancient folk-song Handed down from by-gone ages.If it sounds familiar, it's because the German source also caught the fancy of Longfellow, who borrowed it for his Song of Hiawatha, still almost the only example of true trochaic poetry in English (‘Downward through the evening twilight, / In the days that are forgotten, / In the unremembered ages’ etc.). WF Kirby in 1907, working from the original Finnish, took the same approach:
I am driven by my longing, And my understanding urges That I should commence my singing; And begin my recitation. I will sing the people's legends, And the ballads of the nation.Which doesn't seem a big improvement. Bosley, for his part, dismisses trochaic metre in English as ‘monotonous’ and restrictive ‘to the point of triviality’ – this ‘matters little in a romance of Indians without cowboys,’ he breezes, ‘but it matters a great deal in an epic of world stature’. His solution is to construct his own version around lines of five, seven or nine syllables in length, disregarding stress altogether. The result is very different from previous incarnations:
I have a good mind take into my head to start off singing begin reciting reeling off a tale of kin and singing a tale of kind.The advantages of this solution grew on me, but I wouldn't say I view it with undiluted approbation. It allows for much greater fidelity to the original sense of the lines, but at the cost of sacrificing its power as oral poetry. The driving rhythms of the original (listen, for instance, to this) are simply not there. Nevertheless, and despite a few odd-sounding lines, it can work very well. Little laments such as this:
This is how the luckless feel how the calloos think— like hard snow under a ridge like water in a deep well.…have an appealing straightforwardness that is not available to more restrictive metres (e.g. Kirby: Such may mournful thoughts resemble, / Thus the long-tailed duck may ponder,/ As 'neath frozen snow embedded, / Water deep in well imprisoned).
Lemminkäinen's Mother (1897)
Quite apart from the many pleasures to be found here, I am grateful for the fact that the Kalevala introduced me to artists in two other fields: the composer Sibelius, whose work I knew very little of, and the painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela, whom I'm not sure I'd even heard of. Many of Sibelius's works are set to lyrics from the Kalevala (one example I've been listening to a lot); and Gallen-Kallela illustrated several scenes from the epic in the sort of bold, almost cartoonish style that I have always found very appealing – some examples are scattered above. All contributing to the sense that the Kalevala is Finland's most essential cultural touchstone, a shared reference of wonderful richness….
Out of this a seed will spring constant good luck will begin; from this, ploughing and sowing from this, every kind of growth out of this the moon to gleam the sun of good luck to shine on Finland's great farms on Finland's sweet lands!
Declare Books Toward The Kalevala
| Original Title: | Kalevala |
| ISBN: | 019283570X (ISBN13: 9780192835703) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Väinämöinen, Joukahainen, Lemminkäinen, Ilmarinen, Kullervo, Louhi, Hiisi, Kalevatar, Aino |
| Setting: | Finland |
Rating Regarding Books The Kalevala
Ratings: 4.06 From 4321 Users | 290 ReviewsEvaluate Regarding Books The Kalevala
Thank god for that charm against bears! I have yet to be eaten by one, so it must have worked. The book itself is very very very dry and very very very difficult to get through, but again, no more bears!As you know, this book is writtenin trochaic tetrameter;therefore, I will be reviewingit that way. It just seems fitting.This might be my favorite epic;well, Paradise Lost excepted.I don't mean the most well-written(though it's certainly well-written);what I mean is, well, the feeling.This book has a lovely feelingof cold, harsh old Scandinavia.Even the poetic Eddacannot match that lovely feeling.Only five stars is enough forsuch a wonderful old classic.
In fact i decided to read kalevala because one of my favorite band,Amorphis from Finland,writes music that deals with stories from this epic poem.Well,i did right,cause as a fan of worldwide Mythologies,Kalevala offered me all the things i just wanted to read.Gods,evil witches,heroes,battles and exciting,heroic,funny or tragic stories.Recommended to all people who like such stuff,by reading this you will also put yourself in a place comparing the stories with similar of other's Mythologies.One
Notes on reading the Kalevala:I don't want to offer a scholarly analysis here. Instead I want to offer my impressions on first reading this work, and assume you all can fire up Google for more information. (This edition's introduction is excellent, and I recommend it)I read the Kalevala because I was visiting Finland for the first time and wanted to dive into that nation's culture. I ended up staying in a Kalevala-themed hotel, which was fun.It's an unusual work to read, mostly for formal
This is a thought-provoking piece of majestic work. Thought-provoking because as I read it, an insane amount of questions kept coming to mind which I will try (completely incompletely) to compile here, although not with the mastery of Elias Lonnrot.So, without further ado, three important lessons that I learned from The Kalevala:Lesson 1: The Kalevala has fuck-all to do with Lord of the Rings. Yes, yes, I know. Tolkien studied Finnish - an impressive feat because it holds the records for the
Storyteller and musician Nick Hennessey travels to Finland to explore the mythical world of the country's national poem, The Kalevala.First published in 1835, this 50-chapter epic inspired a 19th-century artistic awakening and remains a cornerstone of contemporary Finnish culture. Speaking to musicians and critics, Hennessey finds out how the poem helped shape the nation.
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