John Martin Crawford
Published: 2010-01-30
Total Pages: 556
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This book is a reproduction of the first complete English translation of the Kalevala, the epic poem of Finland, which was originally published in 1888 by John Martin Crawford. Crawford-who kept to the original meter, the "archaic trochaic tetrameter" or Kalevala-meter, unlike some later translators-based his translation on Franz Anton Schiefner's earlier (1852) German edition, which was in turn based on Elias Lönnrot's. Lönnrot, who originally compiled the Kalevala, significantly edited the work to form a coherent whole. His publication, "The Kalevala, or old Karelian poems about ancient times of the Finnish people" (also called the Old Kalevala), was published in two volumes in 1835-36.This volume is complete and unabridged.