Conversing With Angels and Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland [Paperback]

Joseph Falaky Nagy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

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 as 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, some not readily available, along with translations.

Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801483689
• ISBN-13: 978-0801483684
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,728,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nagy's insights shine brightly over a sea of controversy, February 15, 2000

By 

Francine Nicholson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conversing With Angels and Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland (Hardcover)

Today, scholars debate the question: what was the real source of the tales about pagan heroes and pre-Christian deities that Irish monks recorded in medieval times? Was the primary source the pre-Christian oral tradition with its Celtic culture and Indo-European roots? Or were the monastic scribes primarily influenced by the Latin sources they acquired from the Continent and Mideast, such as Biblical apocrypha and works of philosophy and nature by authors like Isidore of Seville? Professor Nagy brings to the controversy his careful study of the imagery and motifs used by the monks, showing how the same motifs and treatments were used to recount both saints' lives and hero tales. There are no final answers to the controversy here, but Nagy's insights and scholarship bring clarity to the discussion. NOTE: Readers should have at least some familiarity with the Irish stories.

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, November 25, 2011

By 

Billy Thomas Sullivan "Billy T. Sullivan" (NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conversing With Angels and Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland (Paperback)

Received this book from another priest. It's a truly facinating look at the written Irish Tradition of the middle ages, a fascinating look at the interweaving of Celtic Christian and pagan lore, which is Irish and Scottish Tradition.