From Iceland to the Americas : Vinland and historical imagination / edited by Tim William Machan and Jón Karl Helgason.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Machan, Tim William, editor.

Jón Karl Helgason, 1965- editor.

Series:

Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture Series

Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sagas--Appreciation.

Sagas.

Sagas--Influence.

Vikings--North America.

Vikings.

Vikings--North Atlantic Region.

Vikings in literature.

Vikings in motion pictures.

Vikings--Popular culture--21st century.

Iceland--In literature.

Iceland.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (296 pages) : digital file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, 2020.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

"<I>From Iceland to the Americas</i>, a collection of thirteen original chapters, is an exercise in the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural, and imaginative consequences.Medieval records claim that around the year 1000 Leif Eiriksson and other Nordic explorers sailed westwards from Iceland and Greenland to a place they called Vinland. Archaeological evidence has in fact verified this claim, though primarily by way of one small, short-lived Norse settlement in Newfoundland, which may not even have been Leif's. Whether or not this settlement was his, however, the contact associated with him has had an outsized impact on cultural imagination in and of the Americas. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all reflected a rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, <i>From Iceland to the Americas</i> approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities (including Seth Lerer and Heather O'Donoghue) on mythology, language, film, and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception.Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in Scandinavian studies, cultural studies, ethnography, medieval English literature, popular culture, and literary history." -- Back cover.

This volume investigates the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural and imaginative consequences. Inspired by Leif Eiriksson's visit to Vinland in about the year 1000, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all come to reflect rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, <i>From Iceland to the Americas</i> approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities on mythology, language, film and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception. Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Vinland on the brain: remembering the Norse / Tim William Machan

Part I: Imagination and ideology

2. Journeys to the centre of the mind: Iceland in the literary and the professorial imagination / Seth Lerer

3. The 'Viking tower' in Newport, Rhode Island: fact, fiction, and film / Kevin J. Harty

4. Critiquing Columbus with the Vinland sagas / Matthew Scribner

5. Vinland and white nationalism

Verena Höfig

Part II: Landscapes and cultural memory

6. Migration of a North Atlantic seascape: Leif Eiriksson, the 1893 World's Fair, and the Great Lakes <i>landnám </i> / Amy C. Mulligan

7. Norwegian-American 'missions of education' and Old Norse literature / Bergur Þorgeirsson

8. Americans in Sagaland: Iceland travel books 1854-1914 / Emily Lethbridge

9. The good sense to lose America: Vinland as remembered by Icelanders / Simon Halink

Part III: Recasting the past

10. Spectral Vikings in nineteenth-century American poetry / Angela Sorby

11. 'Who is this upstart Hitler?': Norse gods and American comics during the Second World War / Jón Karl Helgason

12. 'There's no going back': <i>The Dark Knight</i> and Balder's descent to Hel / Dustin Geeraert

13. Old Norse in the New World: the mythology of emigration in Neil Gaiman's <i>American</i> <i>Gods </i> / Heather O'Donoghue

Index.

Notes:

MUP 2020 titles.

Made available via: manchesterhive.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher's data.

ISBN:

1-5261-2876-4

OCLC:

1154278688