Margins, Monsters, Deviants
Alterities in Old Norse Literature and Culture
Edited by Rebecca Merkelbach Edited by Gwendolyne Knight
Medieval Icelandic literature has often been reduced to the supposedly realist Islendingasogur and their main protagonists at the expense of other genres and characters. Indeed, such a focus obscures and erases the importance of those beings and narratives that move on the margins of mainstream culture – whether socially, ethnically, ontologically, or textually. This volume aims to offer a new perspective on a variety of theoretical and comparative approaches to explore depictions of alterity, monstrosity, and deviation. Engaging with the interplay of genre, character, text, and culture, and exploring questions of behavioural, socio-cultural, and textual alterity, these contributions examine subjects ranging from the study of fragmented and ‘Othered’ saga narratives, to attitudes towards foreign people and lands, and alterities in mythological and legendary texts. Together the papers effectively challenge long-held perceptions about the lack of ambiguity in medieval Icelandic literature, and offer a far more nuanced understanding of the importance of the ‘Other’ in that society.
Medieval Icelandic literature has often been reduced to the supposedly realist Islendingasogur and their main protagonists at the expense of other genres and characters. Indeed, such a focus obscures and erases the importance of those beings and narratives that move on the margins of mainstream culture – whether socially, ethnically, ontologically, or textually. This volume aims to offer a new perspective on a variety of theoretical and comparative approaches to explore depictions of alterity, monstrosity, and deviation. Engaging with the interplay of genre, character, text, and culture, and exploring questions of behavioural, socio-cultural, and textual alterity, these contributions examine subjects ranging from the study of fragmented and ‘Othered’ saga narratives, to attitudes towards foreign people and lands, and alterities in mythological and legendary texts. Together the papers effectively challenge long-held perceptions about the lack of ambiguity in medieval Icelandic literature, and offer a far more nuanced understanding of the importance of the ‘Other’ in that society.
- Edited by Rebecca Merkelbach
- Edited by Gwendolyne Knight
Other Titles in this Series
Alternative Facts and Plausible Fictions in the Northern European Past
How Politics and Culture Have Written and Rewritten History
Volume 8
History, Landscape and Language in the Northern Isles and Caithness
'A'm grippit dis laand'. A Gedenkschrift for Doreen Waugh
Volume 6
Ecocriticism and Old Norse Studies
Nature and the Environment in Old Norse Literature and Culture
Volume 7
Picts and Britons in the Early Medieval Irish Church
Travels West Over the Storm-Swelled Sea
Volume 2
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