Malcolm Kevin Read

Spanish Literature and Linguistics, 1300-1700

The Birth and Death of Language

James N. Hardin

Brian Murdoch

The first volume of this set views the development of writing in German with respect to broad aspects of the early Germanic past, drawing on a range of disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, and philology in addition to literary history. The first part considers the whole concept of Germanic antiquity and the way in which it has been approached, examines classical writings about Germanic origins and the earliest Germanic tribes, and looks at the two great influences on the early Germanic world: the confrontation with the Roman Empire and the displacement of Germanic religion by Christianity. A chapter on orality -- the earliest stage of all literature -- provides a bridge to the earliest Germanic writings. The second part of the book is devoted to written Germanic -- rather than German -- materials, with a series of chapters looking first at the Runic inscriptions, then at Gothic, the first Germanic language to find its way onto parchment (in Ulfilas's Bible translation). The topic turns finally to what we now understand as literature, with general surveys of the three great areas of early Germanic literature: Old Norse, Old English, and Old High and Low German. A final chapter is devoted to the Old Saxon Heliand.Contributors: T. M. Andersson, Heinrich Beck, Graeme Dunphy, Klaus D wel, G. Ronald Murphy, Adrian Murdoch, Brian Murdoch, Rudolf Simek, Herwig Wolfram.Brian Murdoch and Malcolm Read both teach in the German Department of the University of Stirling in Scotland.

Early Germanic Literature and Culture

Read locates both the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Western ideas on language in their historical context. He reviews the theoretically diverse critical approaches to Borges's work, including both those that collude with the texts and others that are hostile to the Argentinian writer, and argues that all are inadequate for understanding Borges. He maintains that the modern subject is now characterized by narcissism associated with philosophical skepticism.

Malcolm Kevin Read

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