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. Cultural development Poems from a common Gmc. era: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

3. The problem of sources Historical writings in XII3
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. The Sagas Sagas of Icelanders or Family Sagas - Prototypical novels…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 ( )
Historical sources?
Written in XIII-XIV centuries
Sagas online -

5. Literature as mirror of society5
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. Death and Revenge from literature to society6
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
Women´s image and role
Ctd.
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. Where is madness in the middle ages?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 )

10. More recent history - or 800 ys in a slide (or two)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. The Dark Ages XIV c. ‘lying tales’, decline of literature,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 ( 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
XVIII Smallpox, other diseases and famine kill people
Lakagígar: dead - Relocation?

13. Age of Independence 1800 Alþing dissolved13
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
miles Cod War with Britain - 3 ys of conflict
miles - second Cod War

15. Recent history 1974 The last stretch of Ring Road completed15
Recent history
1974 The last stretch of Ring Road completed
miles - Third Cod War
1980 Vigdís Finnbógadóttir president
1983 First women´s party % 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. Literature & Cinema Traditional motifs, folk tales16
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….