The Saxon Savior

Download or read book The Saxon Savior written by G. Ronald Murphy and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an interpretation and appreciation of the art of the Heliand, the 9th-century Saxon epic poem in which the Christian Gospel of the four evangelists is reexpressed in Germanic terms. Murphy examines in detail the ingenious and sensitive poetic analogies through which familiar texts--the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer, the Passion and Resurrection--are transformed into Northern settings and concepts. The first book in English on the Heliand, this study offers a new socio-political explanation of the possible motives of the unknown Heliand author in undertaking this enormous and brilliantly realized poetic task.