National Poets, Cultural Saints : Canonization and Commemorative Cults of Writers in Europe

"In 'National Poets, Cultural Saints' Marijan Dovic and Jón Karl Helgason explore the ways in which certain artist, writers, and poets in Europe have become major figures of cultural memory, emulating the symbolic role formerly played by state rulers and religious saints. The authors develop the concept of cultural sainthood in the context of nationalism as a form of invisible religion, identify major shifts in canonization practices from the antiquity to the nationally-motivated commemoration of the 19th Century, and explore the afterlives of two national poets, Slovenia's France Preseren and Iceland's Jónas Hallgrímsson. The book presents a useful analytical model of canonization for further studies on cultural sainthood and opens up fruitful perspectives for the understanding of national movements."