Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how Elias Lönnrot, the compiler of the Finnish Kalevala, entwined various types of verses - epic motives, lyric themes, and generic verses - in his composition of what we commonly consider to be a collection of epic narratives, or a national epos.

Paper long abstract:

The Finnish epos Kalevala, compiled by Elias Lönnrot, was first published in 1935, and in 1849 in a complemented and rearranged form. Both editions were based on Lönnrot's and other folk poetry collectors' field work. Between the two publications, Lönnrot travelled in Southern Karelia, where he found a different singing culture: female singers and lyric themes, rather than long epic poems, which were sung by men in Northern Karelia. In the new edition of Kalevala, he inserted many of these lyric themes between the epic motives. In order to do this, he also stretched the use of verses that create structure: to explain, introduce a speaker, or maintain a dialogue.

Although it is commonly known by researchers that Kalevala also draws from lyric folk poetry, research has primarily focused on its mythic and narrative thematic, as well as its role as a national epos and an emblem of peoplehood. Kalevala is established as the "narratives of ancient Finnish people". While recent research has increasingly elaborated on the lyric themes appearing both in Kalevala and the folk poems, this common perception of Kalevala as narratives has not yet changed.

This paper presents an ongoing effort to exhibit the poems of Kalevala in a new light. The multitude of forms and expressive goals of folk poetry, which were also included by Lönnrot in the Kalevala, will be analyzed in a critical edition "Open Kalevala", a project of the Finnish Literature Society, to be published as an Open Access data base.