, Brepols, 2020 Hardback, 248 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:11 b/w, 3 tables b/w., 1 maps b/w, Language: English. ISBN 9782503585864.
Summary Medieval Icelandic literature has often been reduced to the supposedly realist slendingas gur and their main protagonists at the expense of other genres and characters. Indeed, such a focus obscures and erases the importance of those beings and narratives that move on the margins of mainstream culture - whether socially, ethnically, ontologically, or textually. This volume aims to offer a new perspective on a variety of theoretical and comparative approaches to explore depictions of alterity, monstrosity, and deviation. Engaging with the interplay of genre, character, text, and culture, and exploring questions of behavioural, socio-cultural, and textual alterity, these contributions examine subjects ranging from the study of fragmented and 'Othered' saga narratives, to attitudes towards foreign people and lands, and alterities in mythological and legendary texts. Together the papers effectively challenge long-held perceptions about the lack of ambiguity in medieval Icelandic literature, and offer a far more nuanced understanding of the importance of the 'Other' in that society. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations Introduction: Old Norse Alterities in Contemporary Context - REBECCA MERKELBACH AND GWENDOLYNE KNIGHT Categorizing the Werewolf; or, the Peopleness of Shapeshifters - GWENDOLYNE KNIGHT Taming the Wolf: Reading Bisclaret in Light of Old Norse Kennings - MINJIE SU Between Myths and Legends: The Guises of Go mundr of Gl sisvellir - TOM GRANT AND JONATHAN Y. H. HUI 'The coarsest and worst of the slendinga Sagas': Approaching the Alterity of the 'Post-Classical' Sagas of Icelanders - REBECCA MERKELBACH Considering Otherness on the Page: How Do Lacunae Affect the Way We Interact with Saga Narrative? - JOANNE SHORTT BUTLER Surface, Rupture and Contextualities: Conflicting Voices of the Iberian 'Other/s' in Old Norse Literature - RODERICK W. MCDONALD Otherness Along the Austrvegr: Cultural Interaction Between the Rus' and the Turkic Nomads of the Steppe - CSETE KATONA The Man Who Seemed Like a Troll: Racism in Old Norse Literature - ARNGR MUR V DAL N Afterword: Otherness, Monstrosity and Deviation: The Perpetual Making of Identities - RMANN JAKOBSSON