• Blog: A Single Leaf
  • Welcome
  • Teaching
  • Research
  • Service
  • Contact

Anna Smol

~ Department of English, Mount Saint Vincent University

Anna Smol

Category Archives: Old Norse

Adaptation as Analysis: Student Projects on Medievalism and Tolkien, part 1

31 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by Anna Smol in Fan studies, Medievalisms, Old Norse, pedagogy, Publications

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Adaptation as Analysis: Creative Work in an English Classroom, Dillon Hughson, ENGL 4475, Fandom as Classroom Practice, Harbard's Song, Poetic Edda

As usual, students in my Studies in Medievalism course have created wonderful projects to demonstrate their engagement with our texts and to experience first-hand the process of adaptation, a main theme in our seminar.

Fandom as Classroom Practice: A Teaching Guide book cover

I’ve written about this type of assignment before in my essay “Adaptation as Analysis: Creative Work in an English Classroom” that is in Katherine Anderson Howell’s volume, Fandom as Classroom Practice: A Teaching Guide (U of Iowa Press, 2018). One of the student projects illustrated and discussed in that essay can be seen here and a review of another year in the course is posted here.

In today’s post I’d like to share, with his permission, Dillon Hughson’s adaptation project, a modernized version of the Old Icelandic poem “Hárbarðsljóð” or “Harbard’s Song” that appears in the Poetic Edda. This is a “flyting” poem — a contest of insults between two people, in this case Thor and Harbard, a ferryman who is usually identified as Odin in disguise. As do all the students in my course, Dillon had to write an analysis of the source text and explain how he adapted it. He researched the elements of a flyting and then tried to reproduce those features by placing Thor and Odin in a modern comedic context.

Enjoy his video! And watch for more student projects posted here in the weeks ahead.

With the permission of Dillon Hughson. Written and directed by Dillon Hughson. Thor: Matthew Hughson. Odin: Brennan Hughson. Copyright Dillon Hughson.

https://annasmol.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/harbardssong2019-v22-dillon-hughson-1.mp4

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Eala! Unlock your word hoards!

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Anna Smol in Medieval, Medievalisms, Old English, Old Norse, Publications, Tolkien

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

adaptation, alliterative poetry, Beowulf, Eala, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Jane Chance, Modern Poets on Viking Poetry, Sellic Spell, Tolkien's poetry, Tom Shippey, Word Hoard Press

I’ve just heard about a new project, the journal Eala, which will publish compositions in Old English and other medieval Germanic languages. The founding editor and editor-in-chief of Word Hoard Press, Richard Littauer, plans to publish the journal online and include original compositions in Old English, Old Norse, and the like, as well as translations.

I can’t help thinking that Tolkien would be pleased to see this kind of venture, as he was a proponent of writing in the alliterative verse styles of Old English and Old Norse, either in the original languages or in modern English. As readers of his recently published Beowulf know, Tolkien was adept at composing in Old English – see his prose story “Sellic Spell” in that volume as an example. Tom Shippey has written about the difficulties of counting just how many poems and fragments Tolkien wrote in alliterative meter in both modern and Old English; in his essay “Tolkien as a Writer of Alliterative Poetry” in the book Tolkien’s Poetry, Shippey counts 22 compositions in modern English alliterative meter plus “The Homecoming”; another nine complete poems and five fragments in Old English, and that’s not including modern English poems imitating Old Norse alliterative style. In other words, Tolkien wrote a lot of alliterative verse.

Although Tolkien did write in other verse forms besides alliterative meter, he believed that alliterative verse was a natural form for English speakers and advocated its use – but who was listening? Lately, though, I’ve seen signs of interest in bringing medieval poetry more in contact with modern writers. Jane Chance, for example, is hosting an “Original Medievalistic Poetry Reading and Open Mic” at next year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I’ll have to check it out next May in the hopes of hearing some alliterative compositions. And here’s another sign of interest from a couple of years ago: Modern Poets on Viking Poetry: A Cultural Translation Project resulted in the publication of poems in modern English, which can be downloaded here.

These last two are projects that highlight the influence of medieval poetry on modern writers, but to write “correct” alliterative verse in a medieval language like Old English is another matter entirely. I’m looking forward to seeing what shows up in Eala.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Dr. Anna Smol

This site includes my blog, "A Single Leaf," and webpages about my research and teaching in Tolkien studies, medievalism, Old English, and higher education pedagogy. Creative Commons License: <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</a>.

Twitter Updates

  • RT @theJagmeetSingh: Yesterday was an act of domestic terrorism. The Proud Boys helped execute it. Their founder is Canadian. They opera… 6 days ago
  • “We have to do something more than hope and endure.” twitter.com/lukebshelton/s… 1 week ago
  • RT @julzmcintosh: Just gonna take this moment to remind my fellow Canadians (particularly maritimers) about this recently released report.… 1 week ago
  • RT @BlogTolkien: Why are Tolkien's works so personal for me: a thread related to Tolkien's unpublished diaries. On 1 January 1910, the 18… 1 week ago
  • RT @moor_north: This evening, @ProjNorthmoor did a Q&A on Reddit ( reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/…) I read and contributed to this discussion. H… 4 weeks ago
Follow @AnnaMSmol

Recent posts

  • Virtual IMC to include 2 Tolkien sessions
  • “It depends on what you mean by use”: teaching and learning in the arts now
  • Tolkien Society meetings go online
  • Tolkien Reading Day: Online Get-togethers
  • Adaptation as Analysis, part 3: “Misty Mountains” video

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: