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A carregar... The Seasons: An Elegy for the Passing of the Year (2013)por Nick Groom
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Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. The Seasons is an historical overview of various customs and traditions practiced by the English organized by season. Although evidence of former practices abound, there is much that has been lost with the transition away from an agricultural society (and for that matter, with the cultural break that was the Reformation). Still, as the author finds out, there are still places that maintain versions of customs that were once widespread and where you can participate in these cultural rituals and even make them your own. The overall tone is one of melancholy tinged with cautious optimism. But whether your interest is in Midsommer, Twelfth Night, or St. Swithin's Day, you'll definitely learn something new here. An interesting book about a neglected concept (celebrating the passing of the seasons) that has become lost in the rush of modern society. Highly recommended.
Groom offers folklore, facts, songs and saints' days mixed with bursts of polemic and a copious amount of poetry.
For millennia, the passing seasons and their rhythms have marked our progress through the year. But what do they mean to us now that we lead increasingly atomized and urban lives and our weather becomes ever more unpredictable or extreme? Will it matter if we no longer hear, even notice, the first cuckoo call of spring or rejoice in the mellow fruits of harvest festival? How much will we lose if we can no longer find either refuge or reassurance in the greater natural—and meteorological—scheme of things? Nick Groom's splendidly rich and encyclopedic book is an unabashed celebration of the English seasons and the trove of strange folklore and often stranger fact they have accumulated over the centuries. Each season and its particular history are given their full due, and these chapters are interwoven with others on the calendar and how the year and months have come to be measured, on important dates and festivals such as Easter, May Day and, of course, Christmas, on that defining first cuckoo call, on national attitudes to weather, our seasonal relationship with the land and horticulture and much more. The author expresses the hope that his book will not prove an elegy: only time will tell. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)398.2360942Social sciences Customs, Etiquette, Folklore Folklore Folk literature Tales and lore of places and times Days, times, seasonsClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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He starts with time, and how the months and days of a year have changed and moved over millennia, before reaching the main concern of any book on England, and a chapter on the weather, and how this ever changing entity has given us saints days, folklore and most of all something to always talk about.
Beginning then with spring, he moves through the seasons. He weaves songs and poems and prose, and highlights the fairs and festivals that punctuated each season. He has gone back to find the origins of these, from pagan celebrations, Christian holiday and there are even the odd one or two that can be traced back to the Roman period. Some of these are still celebrated, like May Day and Guy Fawkes night, but there are some he discovers in his research that have now been lost.
Well written throughout, and extensively researched, Groom has give us a book that will stand as a reference point for all those who are interested in the history of the English culture. ( )