The Barbarian North in Medieval Imagination: Ethnicity, Legend, and Literature

ISBN-13: 9780367871130 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 224 str.

Robert Rix

Opis

This book examines the ‘out-of-Scandinavia’ legend (Scandinavia as an ancestral homeland) in a wide range of medieval texts, focusing on the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Rix maps how these discourses informed ‘national’ legends of ancestral origins, showing how an ‘out-of-Scandinavia’ legend can be found in works by writers like Jordanes, Bede,

Recenzje

"Through sound, comprehensive research and analysis, Rix successfully unfolds plausible geographical, cultural, and political aspects of a topos that originates as an expression of alterity as much as a historical reality. Summing Up: Recommended." - A. P. Church, CHOICE

Spis treści

Introduction 1. Ethnogenesis and the ‘Out-of-Scandinavia’ Legend  2. The Goths and the Legend of Scandza  3. Ethnic History and the Origin of Nations  4. Ancestral Rhetoric in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People  5. Northumbrian Angels in Rome: Religion, Race and Politics in the Anecdote of St Gregory  6. Scandinavian Ancestors in Anglo-Saxon Texts  7. Danes and Geatas: Heroes of the Legendary North

O autorze

Robert W. Rix is Associate Professor in the Department of English, Germanic, and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of the book William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity (2007) and is chief editor of Romantik – Journal for the Study of Romanticisms. In recent years, Rix has written a number of articles on the use of Norse mythology in British fiction, and he has published an anthology on Norse tradition in English poetry.