
Landscape of Desire
Partial Stories of the Medieval Scandinavian World
Gillian R. Overing(Author)
University of Minnesota Press
Published on 19. August 1994
Book
Paperback/Softback
168 pages
978-0-8166-2375-4 (ISBN)
Description
An exhilarating journey across a distant literary landscape, this book takes us to those places described, evoked, or invented in Beowulf and the sagas of Iceland. Chronicling their own travels in Scandinavia, charting the geography of medieval history and fiction, the authors negotiate the complex territory where past and present meet. In this encounter, ancient and modern viewpoints converge, forming a new way into the northern world of medieval literature.
Overing and Osborn use a variety of approaches, borrow from different disciplines, and employ an array of styles to discover and "reinvent" the landscape of these texts. Through their scholarly appraisals and personal encounters, maps and photographs, we accompany them as they follow Beowulf's sea route and travel to Drangey, the remote island in the Saga of Grettir. Here and at numerous other legendary sites, we see how the past is made up of divergent stories told in the present, and how our own histories and desires influence the shape and purpose of those stories.
These experiences and places, imagined and real, frame a new and essentially interdisciplinary space where a conversation among different professional, personal, and cultural viewpoints-a conversation that engages individual desire-can take place. This book will appeal to medievalists, historians, cultural geographers, critical theorists, and those who like to travel, whether in literature or their own good time.
Contents
Introduction
1.Mapping Beowulf
Reinventing Beowulf's voyage to Denmark
Traveling home with Beowulf
2.Geography in the Reader
Place in Question
Iceland and Icelanders
Places in Question
Selves in Place
Places in Translation and the Metonymy of Terrain
3.The Saga of the Saga
The Road to Drangey
Where's Grettir?
Overing and Osborn use a variety of approaches, borrow from different disciplines, and employ an array of styles to discover and "reinvent" the landscape of these texts. Through their scholarly appraisals and personal encounters, maps and photographs, we accompany them as they follow Beowulf's sea route and travel to Drangey, the remote island in the Saga of Grettir. Here and at numerous other legendary sites, we see how the past is made up of divergent stories told in the present, and how our own histories and desires influence the shape and purpose of those stories.
These experiences and places, imagined and real, frame a new and essentially interdisciplinary space where a conversation among different professional, personal, and cultural viewpoints-a conversation that engages individual desire-can take place. This book will appeal to medievalists, historians, cultural geographers, critical theorists, and those who like to travel, whether in literature or their own good time.
Contents
Introduction
1.Mapping Beowulf
Reinventing Beowulf's voyage to Denmark
Traveling home with Beowulf
2.Geography in the Reader
Place in Question
Iceland and Icelanders
Places in Question
Selves in Place
Places in Translation and the Metonymy of Terrain
3.The Saga of the Saga
The Road to Drangey
Where's Grettir?
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-8166-2375-4 (9780816623754)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Gillian R. Overing is professor of English at Wake Forest University. Marijane Osborn is professor of English at the University of California, Davis.
Content
Part 1 Mapping "Beowulf"; reinventing Beowulf's voyage to Denmark; travelling home with Beowulf. Part 2 Geography in the reader; place in question; Iceland and Icelanders; places in question; selves in place; places in translation and the metonymy of terrain. Part 3 The sage of the saga "The road to Drangey"; where's Grettir?