Hello to all,
On 7/10/06, jacqueline simpson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Rudolf Simek's 'Dictionary of Northern Mythology'
> (1984 German edition, 1993 Eng transl) mentione a book
> by G.W.Weber 'Wyrd' (Bad Homburg, 1969). He writes on
> p. 374: "Weber has been able to show that the
> expression 'wyrd' (which glosses Latin 'fortuna') is
> unlikely tohand down heathen-Germanic thought, but
> rather a medieval view of the world based on late
> Classical-Christian beliefs, and therefore ought not
> to be brought as evidence for a belief in fatalism
> among Germanic peoples."
The obituary "Gerd Wolfgang Weber (1942–1998)" signed by Lars Lönnroth
and appeared on alvíssmál 9 (1999), pp. 93-94 (electronic edition
here: http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~alvismal/9obitgww.pdf) had:
***
[...]
His doctoral dissertation, Wyrd: Studien zum Schicksalsbegriff der
altenglischen und
altnordischen Literatur (Bad Homburg 1969), supervised by Klaus von
See, also reveals to
some extent the influence of Turville-Petre, but it is at the same
time an independent, learned,
and far-reaching study in Germanic philology, dealing with the idea of
fate in early West Ger-
manic and Old Norse texts. Weber demonstrates that the concept of wyrd
is not genuinely or
exclusively Germanic, but rather is influenced by classical Roman and
Christian thinking,
transmitted to Anglo-Saxon writers through Latin texts such as De
consolatione philosophiae
by Boethius. The dissertation shows that Weber, even at the earliest
stage of his career, was able to deal with a variety of Germanic and
Latin sources and draw critical conclusions from many kinds of
philological and literary evidence.
[...]
***
Best regards,
Roberto
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