Word upon a word : parallelism, meaning, and emergent structure in Kalevala-meter poetry

This essay treats parallelism as a means for articulating and communicating meaning in performance. Rather than a merely stylistic and structural marker, parallelism is discussed as an expressive and cognitive strategy for the elaboration of notions and cognitive categories that are vital in the culture and central for the individual performers. The essay is based on an analysis of short forms of Kalevala-meter poetry from Viena Karelia: proverbs, aphorisms, and lyric poetry. In the complex system of genres using the same poetic meter parallelism transformed genres and contributed to the emergence of cohesive and finalized performances

Transformations of epic time and space : creating the world's creation in Kalevala-metric poetry

As a cosmogonic beginning for both epics, The Creation illuminates the respective mythological structures at work in its oral and literate renderings. In the present paper these transformations are going to be assessed by analyzing generic intertextuality, reported speech, and spatial description in Kalevala-metric epics. These factors seem to suspend narrative progression by describing, motivating, and expanding on themes, and they are often trivialized in narratological models and hierarchies of textual organization. Variable and subordinate to the narrative mainstream as they may be, however, they never remain epiphenomenal. They show that the epic, despite its textual, mythopoetic, and historical authority, is profoundly contextualized discourse emerging from a definite "now," "here," and ego.Issue title; "Epics Along the Silk Roads.

“Word upon a word” : Parallelism, meaning, and emergent structure in Kalevala-meter poetry

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Parallelism in verbal art and performance : an introduction

Frog is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow and Associate Professor in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki. He completed his Ph.D. in Scandinavian Studies at the University College London in 2010 and his Docentship (Habilitation) in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki in 2013. He specializes in theory and methods related to the study of oral poetry and mythology, working mainly with Finno-Karelian kalevalaic poetry and Old Norse poetry and prose.Lotte Tarkka is Professor of Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki. Her theoretical and methodological interests include oral poetics, theories of genre, intertextuality in oral poetry, processes of traditionalization and authorization, vernacular and mythic imagination, and reconstructive performance studies. She specializes in the study of Finnic oral traditions, especially poetry in the Kalevala-meter, Elias Lönnrot’s epic, the Kalevala, and Viena Karelian culture.Parallelism has been considered a fundamental feature of artistic expression. Robert Lowth (1753:180) coined the term parallelismus membrorum (“parallelism of members”) to describe a variety of different types of equivalence or resemblance that he observed between verses in Biblical Hebrew. Lowth’s study is in many respects the foundation of research on parallelism,2 although his terminology only began to spread across the nineteenth century. The concept expanded considerably during the twentieth century, especially through the far-reaching influences of Roman Jakobson. From early in his career, Jakobson looked at parallelism as an abstract text-structuring principle of “le rapprochement de deux unités” (Jakobson 1977 [1919]: 25) (“the bringing together of two units;” translations following a citation are by the present authors), later referred to in English as “recurrent returns” (1981 [1966]:98). Jakobson saw parallelism not only at the level of words, syntax, or meanings of verses as discussed by Lowth, but also at the level of sounds and rhythms within and across verses as well as in larger, complex structures. The breadth of Jakobson’s perspective allowed textual parallelism to connect fluidly with parallelism in music and other forms of expression. His views are the foundation for advancing the concept from language to a general semiotic phenomenon—a phenomenon observable within and across all sorts of media. Parallelism has become a central term and concept on discussions of literature, poetics, and beyond, and yet the phenomenon is so basic, so pervasive, that it is challenging to pin down.--Page 203.Frog, in collaboration with Lotte Tarkka

Meaning in mythic poetry : Metaphor, tradition and utopa in vernacular imagination

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The Kalevala’s Languages : Receptions, Myths, and Ideologies

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Kaanon ja marginaali : Kulttuuriperinnön vaiennetut äänet

Why the Kalevala and not the Kanteletar? The Kalevala Society’s 101st Yearbook maps the processes of canonizing and marginalizing in traditions, cultural heritage and literature by focusing on the fringes of cultural ideals and norms. How and using which criteria have researchers, artists and materials of cultural production been lifted up or pushed aside? What kind of nations would have emerged if writing the nation had rested on the alternatives: the marginal rather than the canonical genres? A look into the blind spots and fringes of culture and research reveals the endless movement in and between hierarchically positioned spheres of culture. Listening to margins changes not only the canon but also the idea of canon.Peer reviewe

Sopimatonta : Seksuaalisuuteen liittyvien kalevalamittaisten runojen perinnöllistäminen Suomessa 1818–1997

Kalevalamittaiset runot on 1800-luvulta alkaen sijoitettu ”suomalaisen kulttuuriperinnön” symboliseen keskiöön. Tätä näkemystä on tuettu esimerkiksi keruun, arkistoinnin, tutkimuksen ja taiteellisen toiminnan käytännöin. Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan seksuaalisuuteen ja ruumiillisuuteen liittyviä kalevalamittaisia runoja, joita on ajallisesta kontekstista riippuen joko suljettu pois kansallisesta kulttuuriperinnöstä tai sisällytetty siihen kansallisen kulttuuriperinnön kuvaa ja luonnetta samalla kyseenalaistaen. Artikkeli keskittyy perinnöllistämisen ja perinnöllistämättä jättämisten prosesseihin 1800-luvulta 1990-luvun loppupuolelle, ja näin ollen pohtii runojen vastaanottoa ja käyttöä osana suomalaisen ja myös ylirajaisen kulttuuriperinnön määrittelyjä. Artikkelin aineistona ovat erilaiset runokokoelmat, käsikirjoitukset, tutkimukset ja arkistoaineistot. Artikkelin keskeinen argumentti on, että kalevalamittaisiin seksiin ja ruumiillisuuteen liittyviin runoihin kutoutuvat perinnöllistämisprosessit heijastavat pitkällä aikavälillä tarkasteltuna yhteiskunnassa vallitsevien kehopolitiikkojen ja kansakäsitysten muutoksia. Analyysi osoittaa, että runojen käytöt ja vastaanotot kietoutuvat 1800- ja 1900-lukujen siveellisyyskeskusteluihin ja näiden tuottamaan kulttuuriseen ”ruumiittomuuteen” sekä seksuaalisuutta koskevaan tukahduttamiseen, jotka samalla olivat myös rahvaan ruumiillisuuden kontrolloinnin välineitä. Esitämme myös, että tämä paradigma murtui 1960-luvulta lähtien kulttuuriradikaalien liikehdintöjen, yksilökeskeisemmän ajattelun ja naistutkimuksen Suomeen leviämisen myötä. Tällöin seksuaalisuuteen liittyviä runoja alettiin vaikenemisen asemesta käsitellä tutkimuksessa ja yhteiskunnallisessa keskustelussa, ja samalla käsitys kansasta ja sen seksuaalisesta ruumiista muotoutui yksilökeskeisemmäksi ja lihallisemmaksi.Peer reviewe