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Keywords = Old Norse literature

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14 pages, 279 KiB  
Article
Race, Religion and the Medieval Norse Discovery of America
by Zachary J. Melton
Religions 2024, 15(9), 1084; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15091084 - 6 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1566
Abstract
In 1837, Danish philologist Carl Christian Rafn published Antiquitates Americanæ, which introduced Americans to the Vinland sagas—medieval texts that suggest that Norse explorers “discovered” North America around the turn of the first millennium. Rafn, who saw it as his mission to promote [...] Read more.
In 1837, Danish philologist Carl Christian Rafn published Antiquitates Americanæ, which introduced Americans to the Vinland sagas—medieval texts that suggest that Norse explorers “discovered” North America around the turn of the first millennium. Rafn, who saw it as his mission to promote Old Norse literature around the globe, presented some of his research in a way that would appeal to Anglo-American prejudices, particularly through the obsession with American Antiquities and the question of a pre-Columbian civilization. His conclusions and the Vinland sagas consequently entered the American racial and religious discourses. Like other discovery myths, the Vinland sagas were used by intellectuals to argue for an early white presence on the continent. Later that century, the Norse discovery was framed in religious terms as some white Americans attempted to replace the figure of Christopher Columbus with that of Leifur Eiriksson as the true discoverer of America. The ramifications of Rafn’s work and its reception can be seen in twentieth- and twenty-first-century representations of Vikings in American popular culture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Race, Religion, and Nationalism in the 21st Century)
14 pages, 335 KiB  
Article
The Emergence of Rationality in the Icelandic Sagas: The Colossal Misunderstanding of the Viking Lore in Contemporary Popular Culture
by Albrecht Classen
Humanities 2022, 11(5), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11050110 - 1 Sep 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 5054
Abstract
For a long time now, Old Norse literature has often been colonized and misappropriated by modern right-wing political groups for their own ideology, symbolism, and public appearance. A critical reading of Icelandic sagas, however, easily demonstrates that those public strategies are very short-sighted, [...] Read more.
For a long time now, Old Norse literature has often been colonized and misappropriated by modern right-wing political groups for their own ideology, symbolism, and public appearance. A critical reading of Icelandic sagas, however, easily demonstrates that those public strategies are very short-sighted, misleading, and outright dangerous for our democratic society. To stem the flood of misinformation regarding the Viking world and its literature, this article joins a small but forceful chorus of recent scholars who are hard at work deconstructing this politicization of saga literature by way of offering new readings of those texts in which the very Viking ideology is actually exposed by the poets, rejected, and supplanted by new forms of social interactions predicated on a legal system and an operation with rationality in the public sphere. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medieval Scandinavian Studies Today: Whence, Whereto, Why)
16 pages, 322 KiB  
Editorial
Medieval Scandinavian Studies—Whence, Whereto, Why
by Jan Alexander van Nahl
Humanities 2022, 11(3), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/h11030070 - 31 May 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3405
Abstract
Medieval Scandinavian Studies started emerging as a discipline in the 19th century, at a time when Old Norse literature had become an important source both for the reconstruction of an alleged Germanic worldview, and the substantiation of national political claims. Scholars in the [...] Read more.
Medieval Scandinavian Studies started emerging as a discipline in the 19th century, at a time when Old Norse literature had become an important source both for the reconstruction of an alleged Germanic worldview, and the substantiation of national political claims. Scholars in the early 20th century consolidated this view, and thereby even coined public ideas of a Germanic past that became influential in the reception of the Middle Ages in general. To the present day, the popular fascination with these Middle Ages thus is strongly informed by Old Norse sources, and a wealth of recent adaptations seem to perpetuate this view. However, the same sources, as well as earlier scholarship, are used by extremist groups to substantiate populist and racist claims. Scholars in Medieval Scandinavian Studies find themselves at the intersection of these conflicting and yet connected spheres of appropriation. Their task to take a stance in this situation is all the more challenging as the international field struggles with cutbacks of budgets, study programs, and institutes. The present special issue seeks to bring together current opinions on this ambivalent state. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medieval Scandinavian Studies Today: Whence, Whereto, Why)
16 pages, 292 KiB  
Article
Þingeyrar Abbey in Northern Iceland: A Benedictine Powerhouse of Cultural Heritage
by Gottskálk Jensson
Religions 2021, 12(6), 423; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060423 - 8 Jun 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3798
Abstract
Þingeyrar Abbey was founded in 1133 and dissolved in the wake of the Lutheran Reformation (1550), to virtually disappear with time from the face of the earth. Although highly promising archeological excavations are under way, our material points of access to this important [...] Read more.
Þingeyrar Abbey was founded in 1133 and dissolved in the wake of the Lutheran Reformation (1550), to virtually disappear with time from the face of the earth. Although highly promising archeological excavations are under way, our material points of access to this important monastic foundation are still only a handful of medieval artifacts. However, throughout its medieval existence Þingeyrar Abbey was an inordinately large producer of Latin and Icelandic literature. We have the names of monastic authors, poets, translators, compilators, and scribes, who engaged creatively with such diverse subjects as Christian hagiography, contemporary history, and Norse mythology, skillfully amalgamating all of this into a coherent, imaginative whole. Thus, Þingeyrar Abbey has a prominent place in the creation and preservation of the Icelandic Eddas and Sagas that have shaped the Northern European cultural memory. Despite the dissolution of monastic libraries and wholesale destruction of Icelandic-Latin manuscripts through a mixture of Protestant zealotry and parchment reuse, philologists have been able to trace a number of surviving codices and fragments back to Þingeyrar Abbey. Ultimately, however, our primary points of access to the fascinating world of this remote Benedictine community remain immaterial, a vast corpus of medieval texts edited on the basis of manuscript copies at unknown degrees of separation from the lost originals. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medieval Monasticism in Northern Europe)
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