Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

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Luigi
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Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

Postby Luigi » Thu Dec 31, 2020 1:21 am

So this is actually something that I stumbled upon and started researching maybe 6 months ago, but have been constantly sidetracked by one thing or another so it has sat patiently as a tab in my phones web browser for months only for me to do nothing with it, so I decided its best I just make a thread here if for no other reason than to reduce the chances my phone explodes and I forget all about it.

This is a topic that dovetails well with my thread about the shift towards classicism and also with my thread about early modern survivals of folk beliefs. I was quite tempted to put it in one or the other but really its more like a bridge that links the two. To explain what is going on exactly, the Renaissance hits England and all the typical classicism stuff pops up there complete with the celebration of translated classic tales. Then in 1765 Thomas Percy has the idea of "why not treat the English tradition with value as well?" and goes about collecting and recording all the oldest English poetry he can find, often from the kind of rural bardish types familiar from my study of the Finnish collection of runesongs from runesingers. He publishes them in a book and surprisingly it really catches on and gains mainstream legitimacy. It was this that lead a commenter of the time to say something like "Isnt is surprising that this most ancient knowledge isnt best known by the learned scholars, but by the drunken rural transients"(me paraphrasing). I dont remember where I read this quote but its significance immediately struck me and its what made me start looking into it. I also remember reading that this is one of the things that inspired the brother Grimm to take up their folklore project which alone demonstrates the significance of this work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliques_ ... ish_Poetry

I wish I could provide more commentary of my own at this time, but all I can say really is that the late 1700s seem to be a time of change, or at least a time of juxtaposition. On the one hand you have the sudden appreciation for this stuff, and on the other you have the Orkney churchman celebrating the eradication of local folk traditions. My thoughts in this moment are that the thoughts of southern Europe had not fully spread to the north yet, but England was a sort of middleground where French and Dutch scholarship were rapidly spreading. Ill add more to this thread later, I think this text is teeming with rabbitholes of dark depths.
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Edge Guerrero
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Postby Edge Guerrero » Thu Dec 31, 2020 2:49 pm

Luigi wrote:So this is actually something that I stumbled upon and started researching maybe 6 months ago, but have been constantly sidetracked by one thing or another so it has sat patiently as a tab in my phones web browser for months only for me to do nothing with it, so I decided its best I just make a thread here if for no other reason than to reduce the chances my phone explodes and I forget all about it.

This is a topic that dovetails well with my thread about the shift towards classicism and also with my thread about early modern survivals of folk beliefs. I was quite tempted to put it in one or the other but really its more like a bridge that links the two. To explain what is going on exactly, the Renaissance hits England and all the typical classicism stuff pops up there complete with the celebration of translated classic tales. Then in 1765 Thomas Percy has the idea of "why not treat the English tradition with value as well?" and goes about collecting and recording all the oldest English poetry he can find, often from the kind of rural bardish types familiar from my study of the Finnish collection of runesongs from runesingers. He publishes them in a book and surprisingly it really catches on and gains mainstream legitimacy. It was this that lead a commenter of the time to say something like "Isnt is surprising that this most ancient knowledge isnt best known by the learned scholars, but by the drunken rural transients"(me paraphrasing). I dont remember where I read this quote but its significance immediately struck me and its what made me start looking into it. I also remember reading that this is one of the things that inspired the brother Grimm to take up their folklore project which alone demonstrates the significance of this work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliques_ ... ish_Poetry

I wish I could provide more commentary of my own at this time, but all I can say really is that the late 1700s seem to be a time of change, or at least a time of juxtaposition. On the one hand you have the sudden appreciation for this stuff, and on the other you have the Orkney churchman celebrating the eradication of local folk traditions. My thoughts in this moment are that the thoughts of southern Europe had not fully spread to the north yet, but England was a sort of middleground where French and Dutch scholarship were rapidly spreading. Ill add more to this thread later, I think this text is teeming with rabbitholes of dark depths.


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