
Conversing with Angels and Ancients
Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland
Joseph Falaky Nagy(Author)
Cornell University Press
Published on 14. August 1997
Book
Hardback
376 pages
978-0-8014-3300-9 (ISBN)
Description
How does a written literature come into being within an oral culture, and how does such a literature achieve and maintain its authority? Joseph Falaky Nagy addresses those issues in his wide-ranging reading of the medieval literature of Ireland, from the writings of St. Patrick to the epic tales about the warrior Cu Chulainn. These texts, written in both Latin and Irish, constitute an adventurous and productive experiment in staging confrontations between the written and the spoken, the Christian and the pagan. The early Irish literati, primarily clerics living within a monastic milieu, produced literature that included saints' lives, heroic sagas, law tracts, and other genres. They sought to invest their literature with an authority different from that of the traditions from which they borrowed, native and foreign. To achieve this goal, they cast many of their texts as the outcome of momentous dialogues between saints and angelic messengers or remarkable interviews with the dead, who could reveal some insight from the past that needed to be rediscovered by forgetful contemporaries. Conversing with angels and ancients, medieval Irish writers boldly inscribed their visions of the past onto the new Christian order and its literature. Nagy includes portions of the original Latin and Irish texts that are not readily available to scholars, along with full translations.
Reviews / Votes
A convincing, absorbing, and challenging analysis.... This book is an essential book for all those involved in the interpretation of Old Irish texts, but it is also a book designed to encourage fresh dialogue, both between scholars and texts, and among scholars themselves. For a work that explores the theme of conversation, there can be no higher recommendation.(The Medieval Review) Many interesting points are raised throughout.
(Medium Aevum)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paper over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8014-3300-9 (9780801433009)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Joseph Falaky Nagy is Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies at Harvard University. He was the founder and first editor of The Celtic Studies of North America Yearbook.