Finnish Folk Poetry and the Kalevala

Since its initial publication in the early nineteenth century, Elias Lonnrot’s Finnish epic Kalevala has attracted international interest and scholarship. However, the author comments that the distorting lenses of translation, cultural difference and historical distance, have rendered the work a cryptic and often misinterpreted text outside of its country of origin. Even within Finland, scholars have found it difficult at times to judge the relation of the Kalevala to its oral sources. Lonnrot’s