Pre-Christian Religions of the North. Research and Reception, Volume II: From c. 1830 to the Present

Hardback, xxiii + 635 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:9 b/w, 10 col., 4 tables b/w., 2 Musical Examples, Languages: English, Old Norse. ISBN 9782503568805. Summary Over more than a thousand years since pre-Christian religions were actively practised, European - and later contemporary - society has developed a fascination with the beliefs of northern Europe before the arrival of Christianity, which have been the subject of a huge range of popular and scholarly theories, interpretations, and uses. Indeed, the pre-Christian religions of the North have exerted a phenomenal influence on modern culture, appearing in everything from the names of days of the week to Hollywood blockbusters. Scholarly treatments have been hardly less varied. Theories - from the Middles Ages until today - have depicted these pre-Christian religious systems as dangerous illusions, the works of Satan, representatives of a lost proto-Indo-European religious culture, a form of 'natural' religion, and even as a system non-indigenous in origin, derived from cultures outside Europe. The Research and Reception strand of the Pre-Christian Religions of the North project establishes a definitive survey of the current and historical uses and interpretations of pre-Christian mythology and religious material, tracing the many ways in which people both within and outside Scandinavia have understood and been influenced by these religions, from the Christian Middle Ages to contemporary media of all kinds. The previous volume (I) traced the reception down to the early nineteenth century, while the present volume (II) takes up the story from c. 1830 down to the present day and the burgeoning of interest across a diversity of new as well as old media. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations Abbreviations for Volume II The Contributors Introduction to Volume II - MARGARET CLUNIES ROSS Part 1 The Later Grundtvig 1.1 N. F. S. Grundtvig's Use of Norse Mythology (1815-72) and its Aftermath - FLEMMING LUNDGREEN-NIELSEN Part 2 The Influence of Cultural Milieu on the European Reception 2.1 Germany 1650-1860 - CHRISTINA LEE 2.2 Finns, Sámi and Swedes - THOMAS A. DUBOIS Part 3 Studies of Norse Myth and Religion in the Nineteenth Century 3.1 The Character of the New, Comparative Scholarship - MARGARET CLUNIES ROSS 3.2 The Nineteenth-Century Emergence of Religionswissenschaft and its Impact on the study of the pre-Christian Religions of the North - BERNHARD MAIER 3.3 The Heavenly Mountains of Asia: Old Norse Religion and Comparative Religion - ANNETTE LASSEN 3.4 The Comparative Study of Celtic and Nordic Religions - BERNHARD MAIER 3.5 Nordic, Germanic, German: Jacob Grimm and the German Appropriation of Old Norse Religion and Myth - SIMON HALINK 3.6 The Rise of Folklore Studies - JOHN LINDOW Part 4 The Influence of Old Norse Myth on Music in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 4.1 Wagner, the Ring and its influence - EDWARD HAYMES 4.2 Scandinavian Myths in Nineteenth-century Opera and Choral Music - BARBARA EICHNER 4.3 The Music of Jón Leifs - FLORIAN HEESCH Part 5 The Reception in Theatre and Performance 5.1 Theatre and Performance (1830-2012) - TERRY GUNNELL AND SVEIN EINARSSON Part 6 The Reception in Literature 6.1.1 Literary Modernism and Old Norse Myth - KATJA SCHULZ 6.1.2 Old Norse myth in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake CHRISTOPHER BLACK 6.2 Old Norse Mythology in Anglophone Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1940 - RANDI ELDEVIK 6.3.1 Norse Medievalism in Children's Literature in English - DAVID CLARK 6.3.2 Norse Mythology in Nordic Children's Literature 1970-2012 - ANNE-KARI SKARDHAMAR Part 7 The Reception in Mass Culture 7.1 Nordic Gods and Popular Culture - JÓN KARL HELGASON Part 8 The Reception in Modern and Contemporary Art 8.1 Norse Myths in the Visual Arts of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: A Short Catalogue Raisonné - SARAH TIMME Part 9 The Role of the pre-Christian Religions of the North in Modern National, Political and Religious Movements 9.1 Old Nors.…