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A Store of Common Sense: Gnomic Theme and Style in Old Icelandic and Old English Wisdom Poetry

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A Store of Common Sense is the first comparative study in English of Old Icelandic and Old English wisdom poetry. It examines problems of form, unity, and coherence, and how the genre responds to social change, both reflecting and shaping the thinking of the communities which originated it. Larrington's book explores the possibility of Christian influence on Norse texts and demonstrates the impact of Christian learning on the ancient pagan genre. The existence of a gnomic "key" in Norse and English narrative verse is also shown.

254 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 1993

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About the author

Carolyne Larrington

51 books109 followers
Carolyne Larrington is a Tutorial Fellow in English at St. John's College, Oxford.

Dr. Carolyne Larrington teaches medieval English literature in the college, ranging from the earliest Old English to the beginning of the Renaissance period.

Dr Larrington's research interests are in Old Icelandic literature, medieval women's writing, European Arthurian literature, and, most recently, medieval emotion. She has published on Old English and Old Icelandic wisdom poetry, compiled Women and Writing in Medieval Europe: A Sourcebook and edited two collections of essays on the Old Norse Poetic Edda. Her revised and expanded translation of the Poetic Edda, just published, is the standard. Her most recent monograph is King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition which appeared from IB Tauris in June 2006. Her book on sibling relations in European medieval literature, and a new popular book on British folklore, The Land of the Green Man will be published in 2015; a BBC Radio 4 series based on the folklore book has also been commissioned. She is currently editing a collection of essays on emotion in Arthurian literature, and a Handbook to Eddic Poetry. She has been until recently editor-in-chief of the journal Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, and the President of the Viking Society for Northern Research, the British scholarly society for Old Norse study.

(from https://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/945-714/Dr-C...)

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