Viking America : the first millennium / Geraldine Barnes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barnes, Geraldine.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--Old Norse influences.

American literature.

Discoveries in geography.

Historiography.

America--Discovery and exploration--Norse--Historiography.

America.

Old Norse literature--History and criticism.

Old Norse literature.

English literature--History and criticism.

English literature.

Geographical discoveries in literature.

Imperialism in literature.

Explorers in literature.

Iceland--In literature.

Iceland.

America--In literature.

Vikings in literature.

Physical Description:

xx, 187 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Woodbridge, UK ; Rochester, NY : D.S. Brewer, 2001.

Summary:

The accounts in the Vinland sagas of the great voyages to the northeast coast of America in the early years of the eleventh century have often been obscured by detailed argument over the physical identity of the West Atlantic land which its Scandinavian discoverers named Vinland. Gillian Barnes leaves archaeological evidence aside and returns to the Old Norse narratives, Groenlendinga saga (Saga of Greenlanders) and Eiriks saga rauoa (Saga of Eric the Red), in her study of the writing and rewriting of the Vinland story from the middle ages to the late twentieth century. She sets the sagas in the context of Iceland's transition from paganism to Christianity; later chapters explore the Vinland story in relation to issues of regional pride and national myths of foundation in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century America, to the ethos of popular imperialism during the same period in English literature, and, in the late twentieth century, to postcolonial concerns.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-182) and index.

ISBN:

0859916081

OCLC:

44517854