Bauschatz Paul C. The Well and The Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Cultures

Monograph. — University of Massachusetts Press, 1982. — 256 р.The following essays have in common a concern with early Germanic culture. Although they deal severally with various manifestations of this culture, a central thesis runs through all of them. Most simply put, it is that Germanic culture was dominated by its conception of its own past. This is neither surprising nor new. The essays aim, however, not at elaborating the obvious fact of domination by the past but at examining how and in what form the Germanic conception of the past shaped events. Everywhere they emphasize not the events, actions, or constructs of the culture but those aspects of events, actions, and constructs that render them understandable and meaningful. Ultimately, this emphasis tries to articulate some significant aspects of the conceptual system that shapes action and event and underlies all human creation. To comprehend, even to a small degree, their conceptual system makes it possible for us to see more clearly how the Germanic peoples themselves experienced their world, how they thought and structured their existence, how they shaped their own reality.