Fingal's Cave, the Poems of Ossian, and Celtic Christianity


Book Description

On the isolated island of Staffa, near Iona, Scotland, stands a natural wonder of the world: Fingal's Cave, a cathedral-like space of hexagonal balsatic columns and a floor made of ocean and tides create constant musical sounds. To understand Fingal and his importance to Celtic culture, we must understand the poems of Ossian and ancient Celtic Christianity. The authors describe Fingal's Cave and the poems of Ossian, showing why they influenced such figures as Mendelssohn, Jefferson, Napoleon, and Turner. Illustrated.




Routledge Handbook of Cultural Landscape Practice


Book Description

Cultural landscapes, which in the field of heritage studies and practice relates to caring for and safeguarding heritage landscapes, is a concept embedded in contemporary conservation. Heritage conservation has shifted from an historical focus on buildings, city centres, and archaeological sites to encompass progressively more diverse forms of heritage and increasingly larger geographic areas, embracing both rural and urban landscapes. While the origin of the idea of cultural landscapes can be traced to the late-19th century Euro-American scholarship, it came to global attention after 1992 following its adoption as a category of ‘site’ by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. Today, cultural landscape practice has become increasingly complex given the expansion of the values and meanings of heritage, the influence of environmental challenges such as human induced climate change, technological advancements, and the need to better understand and interpret human connections to place and landscapes. The aim of this handbook is to strike a balance between theory and practice, which we see as inseparable, while also seeking to achieve a geographical spread, disciplinary diversity and perspectives, and a mix of authors from academic, practitioner, management, and community backgrounds.




3D Imaging of the Environment


Book Description

This is a comprehensive, overarching, interdisciplinary book and a valuable contribution to a unified view of visualisation, imaging, and mapping. It covers a variety of modern techniques, across an array of spatial scales, with examples of how to map, monitor, and visualise the world in which we live. The authors give detailed explanations of the techniques used to map and monitor the built and natural environment and how that data, collected from a wide range of scales and cost options, is translated into an image or visual experience. It is written in a way that successfully reaches technical, professional, and academic readers alike, particularly geographers, architects, geologists, and planners. FEATURES Includes in-depth discussion on 3D image processing and modeling Focuses on the 3D application of remote sensing, including LiDAR and digital photography acquired by UAS and terrestrial techniques Introduces a broad range of data collection techniques and visualisation methods Includes contributions from outstanding experts and interdisciplinary teams involved in earth sciences Presents an open access chapter about the EU-funded CHERISH Project, detailing the development of a toolkit for the 3D documentation and analysis of the combined coastline shared between Ireland and Wales Intended for those with a background in the technology involved with imaging and mapping, the contributions shared in this book introduce readers to new and emerging 3D imaging tools and programs.




The Figure of the Shaman in Contemporary British Poetry


Book Description

This genealogical study focuses on the work of five contemporary British poets in order to locate them in a counter cultural tradition that is informed by strategic responses to ‘state terrorism.’ It identifies some historical moments of ruptures, such as the persecution of the Celtic druids by the Romans, the killing of the Welsh bards by Edward I, the appropriation of bardic materials by Romantic poets writing in a post-French Revolution era, and the beatnik response to a post-World War bipolar world in order to contextualise and discuss the poets of British Poetry Revival writing under Thatcherism. Drawing on Mircea Eliade’s notion of shamanism as ‘archaic techniques of ecstasy,’ these poets have transformed Eliade’s version of the shaman’s ‘elective trauma’ and enacted a critical rejection of totalitarian tools of the state and society. Categorised as the ‘Technicians of the Sacred’ and the ‘Technicians of the Body’ these shamanic poets include Iain Sinclair, Jeremy Prynne, Brian Catling, Barry MacSweeney, and Maggie O’Sullivan. Their poetic strategy is not a New Age fad; it rather investigates and inventories the ‘hidden’ energies of past and present to wrest spirituality away from the confines of religion and politics, while embodying it in textual praxis.




John Keats and Romantic Scotland


Book Description

Between 22 June and 18 August 1818, John Keats and his friend and collaborator Charles Armitage Brown embarked on an epic walking tour of the English Lake District, South West Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Ayrshire Burns Country, the Scottish Highlands and Western Isles, and the Great Glen north eastwards to Inverness, Beauly, the Black Isle, and Cromarty. During the tour, Keats and Brown both wrote extensive and detailed accounts of their experiences. The twelve new essays in this collection each explore the significance of the 1818 tour for understanding Keats's achievements, ranging across topics such as the contemporary Highland tour; Scottish literature, history, landscape and culture; Romantic responses to Robert Burns's life, works and places; and Keats's health and influence on Scottish artists.




Fionn mac Cumhail


Book Description

The Gaelic hero Fionn mac Cumhaill (often known in English as Finn MacCool) has had a long life. First cited in Old Irish chronicles from the early Christian era, he became the central hero of the Fenian Cycle which flourished in the high Middle Ages. Stories about Fionn and his warriors continue to be told by storytellers in Ireland and in Gaelic Scotland to this day. This book traces the development of Fionn's persona in Irish and Scottish texts and constructs a heroic biography of him. As aspects of the hero are borrowed into English and later world literature, his personality undergoes several changes. Seen as less than admirable, he may become either a buffoon or a blackguard. Somehow these contradictions exist side by side. Among the writers in English most interested in Fionn are James Macpherson, the "translator" of The Poems of Ossian ( 17601, William Carleton, the first great fiction writer of nineteenth-century Ireland, and Fiann O'Brien, the multifaceted author of At Swim-Two-Birds. Aspects of Fiann appear as far apart as Mendelssohn's "Hebrides (or Fingal 's Cave) Overture" and a contemporary rock opera. But the most complex use of Fionn's story in modern literature is James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.




The Publishers Weekly


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The Age of Johnson


Book Description