Este trabalho apresenta a aplicação de técnicas de Decomposição de Domínio e Processamento Paralelo na solução de grandes sistemas de equações algébricas lineares provenientes da modelagem de fenômenos eletromagnéticos pelo Método de Elementos Finitos. Foram implementadas as técnicas dos tipos Complemento de Schur e o Método Aditivo de Schwarz, adaptadas para a resolução desses sistemas em cluster de computadores do tipo Beowulf e com troca de mensagens através da Biblioteca MPI. A divisão e balanceamento de carga entre os processadores são feitos pelo pacote METIS. Essa metodologia foi testada acoplada a métodos, seja iterativo (ICCG), seja direto (LU) na etapa de resolução dos sistemas referentes aos nós internos de cada partição. Para a resolução do sistema envolvendo os nós de fronteira, no caso do Complemento de Schur, utilizou-se uma implementação paralisada do Método de Gradientes Conjugados (PCG). S~ao discutidos aspectos relacionados ao desempenho dessas técnicas quando aplicadas em sistemas de grande porte. As técnicas foram testadas na solução de problemas de aplicação do Método de Elementos Finitos na Engenharia Elétrica (Magnetostática, Eletrocinética e Magnetodinâmica), sejam eles de natureza bidimensional com malhas não estruturadas, seja tridimensional, com malhas estruturadas. / This work presents the study of Domain Decomposition and Parallel Processing Techniques applied to the solution of systems of algebraic equations issued from the Finite Element Analysis of Electromagnetic Phenomena. Both Schur Complement and Schwarz Additive techniques were implemented. They were adapted to solve the linear systems in Beowulf clusters with the use of MPI library for message exchange. The load balance among processors is made with the aid of METIS package. The methodology was tested in association to either iterative (ICCG) or direct (LU) methods in order to solve the system related to the inner nodes of each partition. In the case of Schur Complement, the solution of the system related to the boundary nodes was performed with a parallelized Conjugated Gradient Method (PCG). Some aspects of the peformance of these techniques when applied to large scale problems have also been discussed. The techniques has been tested in the simulation of a collection of problems of Electrical Engineering, modelled by the Finite Element Method, both in two dimensions with unstructured meshes (Magnetostatics) and three dimensions with structured meshes (Electrokinetics).

Este trabalho apresenta a aplicação de técnicas de Decomposição de Domínio e Processamento Paralelo na solução de grandes sistemas de equações algébricas lineares provenientes da modelagem de fenômenos eletromagnéticos pelo Método de Elementos Finitos. Foram implementadas as técnicas dos tipos Complemento de Schur e o Método Aditivo de Schwarz, adaptadas para a resolução desses sistemas em cluster de computadores do tipo Beowulf e com troca de mensagens através da Biblioteca MPI. A divisão e balanceamento de carga entre os processadores são feitos pelo pacote METIS. Essa metodologia foi testada acoplada a métodos, seja iterativo (ICCG), seja direto (LU) na etapa de resolução dos sistemas referentes aos nós internos de cada partição. Para a resolução do sistema envolvendo os nós de fronteira, no caso do Complemento de Schur, utilizou-se uma implementação paralisada do Método de Gradientes Conjugados (PCG). S~ao discutidos aspectos relacionados ao desempenho dessas técnicas quando aplicadas em sistemas de grande porte. As técnicas foram testadas na solução de problemas de aplicação do Método de Elementos Finitos na Engenharia Elétrica (Magnetostática, Eletrocinética e Magnetodinâmica), sejam eles de natureza bidimensional com malhas não estruturadas, seja tridimensional, com malhas estruturadas. / This work presents the study of Domain Decomposition and Parallel Processing Techniques applied to the solution of systems of algebraic equations issued from the Finite Element Analysis of Electromagnetic Phenomena. Both Schur Complement and Schwarz Additive techniques were implemented. They were adapted to solve the linear systems in Beowulf clusters with the use of MPI library for message exchange. The load balance among processors is made with the aid of METIS package. The methodology was tested in association to either iterative (ICCG) or direct (LU) methods in order to solve the system related to the inner nodes of each partition. In the case of Schur Complement, the solution of the system related to the boundary nodes was performed with a parallelized Conjugated Gradient Method (PCG). Some aspects of the peformance of these techniques when applied to large scale problems have also been discussed. The techniques has been tested in the simulation of a collection of problems of Electrical Engineering, modelled by the Finite Element Method, both in two dimensions with unstructured meshes (Magnetostatics) and three dimensions with structured meshes (Electrokinetics).

This thesis will argue that the Beowulf Manuscript, which includes the poem Judith, Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum, and the Old-Norse-Icelandic Laxdæla saga highlight and examine the tension between the female pagan characters and their Christian authors. These texts also demonstrate that Queenship grew fragile after the spread of Christianity, and women’s power waned in the shift between pre-Christian and Christian Europe.

This dissertation considers the literary treatment of revenge in medieval England and Iceland. Vengeance and feud were an essential part of these cultures; far from the reckless, impulsive action that the word conjures up in modern minds, revenge was considered both a right and a duty and was legislated and regulated by social norms. It was an important tool for obtaining justice and protecting property, family, and reputation. Accordingly, many medieval literary works seem to accept revenge without question. Many, however, evince a great sensitivity to the ambiguities and paradoxes inherent in an act of revenge. In my study, I consider three works that are emblematic of this responsiveness to and indeed, anxiety about revenge. Chapter one focuses on the Old English poem Beowulf; chapter two moves on to discuss Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale and Tale of Melibee from the Canterbury Tales; and chapter three examines the Old Icelandic family saga, Ljósvetninga saga. I focus in particular on the treatment of the avenger in each work. The poet or author of each work acknowledges the perspective of the avenger by allowing him to express his motivations, desires, and justifications for revenge in direct speech. Alongside this acknowledgement, however, is the author’s own reflection on the risks, rewards, and repercussions of the avenger’s intentions and actions. The resulting parallel but divergent narratives highlight the multiplicity of viewpoints found in any act of revenge or feud and reveal a fundamental ambivalence about the value, morality, and necessity of revenge. Each of the works I consider resists easy conclusions about revenge in its own context and remains incredibly current in the way it poses challenging questions about what constitutes injury, punishment, justice, and revenge in our own time.

From the eighth to the fourteenth century, places of wonder and dread appear in a wide variety of genres in Old and Middle English: epics, lays, romances, saints’ lives, travel narratives, marvel collections, visions of the afterlife. These places appear in narratives of the other world, a term which in Old and Middle English texts refers to the Christian afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, even Paradise can be fraught with wonder, danger, and the possibility of harm. But in addition to the other world, there are places that are not theologically separate from the human world, but that are nevertheless both marvellous and horrifying: the monster-mere in Beowulf, the Faerie kingdom of Sir Orfeo, the demon-ridden Vale Perilous in Mandeville’s Travels, or the fearful landscape of the Green Chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Fraught with horror or the possibility of harm, these places are profoundly different from the presented or implied home world of the text. My dissertation investigates how Old and Middle English narratives create places of wonder and dread; how they situate these places metaphysically between the world of living mortals and the world of the afterlife; how they furnish these places with dangerous topography and monstrous inhabitants, as well as with motifs, with tropes, and with thematic concerns that signal their marvellous and fearful nature. I argue that the heart of this poetics of marvellous spaces is displacement. Their wonder and dread comes from boundaries that these places blur and cross, from the resistance of these places to being known or mapped, and from the deliberate distancing between these places and the home of their texts. This overarching concern with displacement encourages the migration of iconographic motifs, tropes, and themes across genre boundaries and theological categories.

This dissertation considers the literary treatment of revenge in medieval England and Iceland. Vengeance and feud were an essential part of these cultures; far from the reckless, impulsive action that the word conjures up in modern minds, revenge was considered both a right and a duty and was legislated and regulated by social norms. It was an important tool for obtaining justice and protecting property, family, and reputation. Accordingly, many medieval literary works seem to accept revenge without question. Many, however, evince a great sensitivity to the ambiguities and paradoxes inherent in an act of revenge. In my study, I consider three works that are emblematic of this responsiveness to and indeed, anxiety about revenge. Chapter one focuses on the Old English poem Beowulf; chapter two moves on to discuss Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale and Tale of Melibee from the Canterbury Tales; and chapter three examines the Old Icelandic family saga, Ljósvetninga saga. I focus in particular on the treatment of the avenger in each work. The poet or author of each work acknowledges the perspective of the avenger by allowing him to express his motivations, desires, and justifications for revenge in direct speech. Alongside this acknowledgement, however, is the author’s own reflection on the risks, rewards, and repercussions of the avenger’s intentions and actions. The resulting parallel but divergent narratives highlight the multiplicity of viewpoints found in any act of revenge or feud and reveal a fundamental ambivalence about the value, morality, and necessity of revenge. Each of the works I consider resists easy conclusions about revenge in its own context and remains incredibly current in the way it poses challenging questions about what constitutes injury, punishment, justice, and revenge in our own time.

From the eighth to the fourteenth century, places of wonder and dread appear in a wide variety of genres in Old and Middle English: epics, lays, romances, saints’ lives, travel narratives, marvel collections, visions of the afterlife. These places appear in narratives of the other world, a term which in Old and Middle English texts refers to the Christian afterlife: Hell, Purgatory, even Paradise can be fraught with wonder, danger, and the possibility of harm. But in addition to the other world, there are places that are not theologically separate from the human world, but that are nevertheless both marvellous and horrifying: the monster-mere in Beowulf, the Faerie kingdom of Sir Orfeo, the demon-ridden Vale Perilous in Mandeville’s Travels, or the fearful landscape of the Green Chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Fraught with horror or the possibility of harm, these places are profoundly different from the presented or implied home world of the text. My dissertation investigates how Old and Middle English narratives create places of wonder and dread; how they situate these places metaphysically between the world of living mortals and the world of the afterlife; how they furnish these places with dangerous topography and monstrous inhabitants, as well as with motifs, with tropes, and with thematic concerns that signal their marvellous and fearful nature. I argue that the heart of this poetics of marvellous spaces is displacement. Their wonder and dread comes from boundaries that these places blur and cross, from the resistance of these places to being known or mapped, and from the deliberate distancing between these places and the home of their texts. This overarching concern with displacement encourages the migration of iconographic motifs, tropes, and themes across genre boundaries and theological categories.

This thesis examines Seamus Heaney’s approach to translation with specific reference to Sweeney Astray, The Cure at Troy, and Beowulf. An assessment of Heaney’s translations, and the ways in which they relate to his poetry, is essential to an understanding of his work as a poet. This thesis demonstrates the centrality of translation to Heaney’s oeuvre as an effective means to comment on his Northern Irish socio-political context without producing political propaganda. Translation is a valuable means for Heaney to elucidate his contemporary experience by considering it in terms of the recorded past captured within his chosen translations. Instead of comparing the three translations with their original texts, this thesis concentrates on Heaney’s translations as a continuation of his own creative work and as catalysts for further poetry. The translations are explored in chronological order to allow a sense of Heaney’s development as a translator and his efforts to remain critically attuned to the Northern Irish political situation. The first chapter examines Heaney’s translation of the Gaelic poem Buile Suibhne, which is published as Sweeney Astray. In this first major act of translation Heaney recognises the political role that translation is able to play. He draws attention to the protagonist’s sense of cultural ease in both Britain and Ireland, which he argues is exemplary for the people of Ulster and renders the narrative particularly accessible to a Northern Irish readership due to his anglicisation of the text, which is intended as a reminder to both Catholics and Protestants of their shared identity as Irishmen. The second chapter focuses on Heaney’s translation of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, entitled The Cure at Troy. Heaney’s translation contextualises the Ancient Greek concern for personal integrity in the face of political necessity, a situation relevant to his own complex relationship with Northern Irish politics. His alterations to the text accentuate the positive aspects of the play, suggesting the very real possibility of social change within the seemingly constant violence of Northern Ireland. The third chapter explores Heaney’s engagement with the Anglo-Saxon epic poem, Beowulf, as a means of coming to terms with the complex history of Irish colonisation through language. This chapter assesses Heaney’s incorporation of Irish dialectal words into his translation, which lend the poem political weight, and yet prove to be contextually appropriate, rendering Heaney’s Beowulf a masterpiece of readability and subtle political commentary.

This small study concerns occurrences of metaphor, metonymy and conceptual metaphor in the Old English poem Beowulf. The first 224 lines of Beowulf were searched for non-literal passages. Thefound passages were sorted into the groups conventionalized metaphor, metonymy and innovativemetaphor. The conceptual metaphors were in turn sorted into target domains and source domains and grouped within the domains. These were then compared to Modern English and Modern Swedish metaphors and conceptual metaphors with the help of dictionaries and corpus studies. Beowulf was also looked at as a small corpus. Words which were suspected to be used inmetaphorical senses were searched for in the full text and the results were examined and comparedwith modern language usage. It was found evident that Old English and Modern English, as well as Modern Swedish, have many conceptual metaphors in common both when in comes to experiential metaphors and culturally grounded metaphors.

Tradition in the study of Beowulf has held that the discussion between Beowulf and Unferth regarding Beowulf’s victory over Breca concerns a swimming competition. However, some scholars have suggested that this section refers to a rowing or sailing adventure, due to some ambiguity in the language of the passage. Linguistic evidence for the rowing interpretation, mostly from the 1970's, is well-known but has been neither accepted by editors nor effectively countered by subsequent scholarship. By applying literary, dramatic and cultural theoretical principles to the two alternative explanations it became apparent that the rowing interpretation of the Breca episode is more appropriate within the literary and social context of Beowulf. This more-or-less ambiguous episode has been modified to fit Beowulf into a folk-tale ethos in which scholarship no longer admits it has a place. This nineteenth-century interpretation has now passed out of favour, but recent scholarship has remained committed a traditional interpretation of the Breca episode which now is clearly incongruous.