Publisher's Synopsis
This work has a range of different topics including: the theme of friendship in Old Norse and Old English wisdom verse; cultural origin and the presentation of an English past - how Celtic a figure is King Arthur in 19th century English literature?; The Southey Circle and Scandinavian mythology and literature; German influences in "The Mill on the Floss"; and The Nibelungenlied and the Third Reich (on the ideological appropriations of the ancient Germanic legacy by the National Socialists). The text argues that at all times the communal goal has been to view modern problems in an historical perspective which includes a consideration of that racial stereotyping which has sometimes marred our European civilization.
