Intro Seminar - Death, Revenge & Madness in Icelandic literature and culture

1. Intro Seminar - Death, Revenge & Madness in Icelandic literature and culture Welcome to class # 4 ! -Finish Hrafninn -History and Culture and early literature (compare the viking type Einar’s father, Egill) and the more complex figures -Women, the egging woman, -Why don’t we see any madness in medieval lit? -Bring up to present

2. 2 Cultural development • Poems from a common Gmc. era: • Alliteration, common deities, common motifs • Natural references to lands with a different geography or vegetation from Iceland (Völuspá The Seeress’s Prophecy) - reindeer in the Sayings of the High One • The versions we have are probably from the 10th century (MS XIV) - but stories older 5-7c • Attila - historical figure 406-453

3. 3 The problem of sources • Historical writings in XII • Lándnámabók and Íslendingabók • Genealogies, church documents • Very concise, often based on oral accounts • Writing about the settlement over two centuries later

4. 4 The Sagas • Sagas of Icelanders or Family Sagas - Prototypical novels… • Tales in prose, often extending 100s of pages, about the history of the people that settled in Iceland during the time of the Settlement (870-930) • Historical sources? • Written in XIII-XIV centuries Sagas online - http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/tarristi/sagas.htm

5. 5 Literature as mirror of society • What can we glean from the sagas? • Mostly peace-loving society w/ obsession for laws (compensates lack of police) • Excessive desire of revenge is worthy of blame (cf. Hrafnkel’s saga - Einar’s father) • Death and Revenge can be literary topoi to arrange narrative (Byock’s view) • On the other hand, few resources in med. Ice. Easy to step on each other’s toes

6. 6 Death and Revenge from literature to society • The Viking type (Einar’s father in Hrafnkel´s s., Egill Skallagrímsson in Egil´s s.) • In a man, strength, courage, character important • Death is irrelevant - fame is all important • The wisecracks - despair for unworthy deaths (Egill) • Insists on revenge as the only honourable solution (Einar´s f.) • Can be a gifted poet (Egill - has feelings…) - just like Odin, god of warriors, thieves and poets. • Not the result of an agricultural society - still migration time (Gestur in Hrafninn for ex.)

7. 6 Women´s image and role • The Viking type (Egging woman in Hrafnkel´s s., Gudrun in Laxdaela s. who incites her husband to kill her former fiance (after a slight…) • They had rights (inheritance, divorce) - how common in society though? • Never kills, gets a man to do it for her (see Þórdís, Gísli´s sister in The Outlaw who marries her dead husband´s brother to insure revenge)

8. 8 Ctd. Women´s image and role • Gmc topos: the impossible choice between blood ties (brothers) and acquired family (husbands) - Hilderbrandslied (father-son), Nibelungenlied, Völsunga s., • The Outlaw, Hrafninn • Maybe had to do with inbreeding, incest etc. • She usually holds ties w/ Nature (but there are sorcerers too) - (Völuspá The Seeress’s Prophecy) - the healer, the midwife, the one who predicts the future

9. 9 Where is madness in the middle ages? • Surely it existed, but just like mental retardation was not considered a topic worth exploring (Ingjaldur´s fífl -lit. Ingjaldur´s fool- in Gísla saga~The Outlaw). • Hard to define at a time when there was no clear notion of what the mind was, much less of its ailments. • We start seeing characters that are considered/ could be mad in XVI century (Shakespeare) • Otherwise soothsayers, prophets (Joan of Arc?), mystics (Píslarsaga Jóns Magnússonar 1658-9)

10. 10 More recent history - or 800 ys in a slide (or two) • XIII Age of the Sturlungs • 1238 Battle of Örlygsstaðir (death of 50+, and Sighvatur Sturluson, brother of Snorri S.) • Civil war caused by very powerful clans • 1264 Loss of independence to Norway • A century later Norway becomes part of Denmark by marriage

11. 11 The Dark Ages • XIV c. ‘lying tales’, decline of literature, • Loss of Greenlandic colonies • 1300 Eruption of Hekla, loss of cattle, famine • 1402 Black death - 1/3 population dies (30.000 left?) • XV c. English century - commerce with Britain (Hansa league throughout MA) • 1477 Christopher Columbus in Iceland

12. 12 The Dark Ages continue • 1550 Reformation imposed by Denmark, Jón Arason last Catholic bishop beheaded with his 2 sons. • 1602 Denmark imposes the Trade Monopoly (lifted only in 1854) • A number of disastrous eruptions from various volcanoes http://iceland.vefur.is/iceland_history/history.htm • XVIII Smallpox, other diseases and famine kill 28.000 people • 1783-5 Lakagígar: 10.000 dead - Relocation?

13. 13 Age of Independence • 1800 Alþing dissolved • 1801 new era of awakening national identity • 1843 Alþing re-established as a consultative body • Jón Sigurðsson struggles for more autonomy • 1874 New Constitution - Christian IX • 1904 Home Rule • 1911 First motor trawler arrives • 1915 Women acquire the right to vote

14. Blessed War • 1940 Denmark occupied by Nazi Germany • 1941 The US troops relieve the British • 1944 Iceland independent • 1945 troops leave - Ástandið • 1949 Iceland is one of founding members of NATO • 1951 Defence agreement between Iceland and US • 1952 fishing limit extended to 4 miles • 1955 Laxness wins Nobel Prize for Literature • 1958 12 miles Cod War with Britain - 3 ys of conflict • 1972 50 miles - second Cod War

15. 15 Recent history • 1974 The last stretch of Ring Road completed • 1975 200 miles - Third Cod War • 1980 Vigdís Finnbógadóttir president • 1983 First women´s party - 5.5 % in parliament • 1986 Reagan Gorbachev summit • 1989 Pope´s visit - strong beer sold (after 81 ys) • 1995 Avalanches in West Fjords kill 34 people • 1998 Laxness dies

16. 16 Literature & Cinema • Traditional motifs, folk tales • Einar Benediktsson: Solveig í Miklabæ • Madness creeps into (mostly female) literature • Oppressive husband, persecution mania, loss of a child, metaphor for oppression? Actual disease? Or simply the fear of the other, the one who is different, maybe weak & sensitive (Angels of the Universe, Nói Albinoi) • Difference between social classes • Dichotomy between Reykjavík vs. countryside (Nói Albinoi, Seagull´s laughter) But the old motifs are not altogether lost….