Kalevala | Essays and Criticism

  • The Importance of Finn's National Epic

    In the following essay, Miller discusses the importance of the Finn's national epic to a sense of national pride and as an historical artifact.

  • The Balto-Finnish Epics

    The following discussion of the genesis, form, content, and national importance of the Kalevala is taken from a chapter on Balto-Finnish epic literature. The editors have included only those footnotes that apply to the excerpted material reprinted below.

  • The Kalevala

    In the following excerpt, Rexroth examines reasons that the Kalevala has endured as a work of literature that still has meaning for modern readers.

  • A Foreward to the Kalevala

    In the following excerpt, Magoun notes ways that the Kalevala is significantly different from most national epics, and proposes that first-time readers of this work abandon the usual approach of a straight-through reading and instead read different sections or story cycles almost at random. He identifies several sections that stand well on their own and repay such an approach.