Manchester University Press
13 Old Norse in the New World
Abstract
In American Gods, Neil Gaiman imagines how belief in the gods and folk heroes of the Old World is exported to the New World along with each successive wave of emigrants. In the novel, Gaiman fantasises about how these supernatural figures, reified in the narrative, fight for survival in their new setting, and come into conflict with the new gods of Gaiman’s America. This piece focuses on comparing and contrasting Gaiman’s Old Norse-derived gods with their originals in Old Norse mythological sources. It argues that these creatures are at the same time both sinister and comic but concludes that Gaiman’s representation of human immigration is a positive one which crucially does not privilege the value or contribution of one group over another.
Abstract
In American Gods, Neil Gaiman imagines how belief in the gods and folk heroes of the Old World is exported to the New World along with each successive wave of emigrants. In the novel, Gaiman fantasises about how these supernatural figures, reified in the narrative, fight for survival in their new setting, and come into conflict with the new gods of Gaiman’s America. This piece focuses on comparing and contrasting Gaiman’s Old Norse-derived gods with their originals in Old Norse mythological sources. It argues that these creatures are at the same time both sinister and comic but concludes that Gaiman’s representation of human immigration is a positive one which crucially does not privilege the value or contribution of one group over another.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures and tables vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- Preface and acknowledgements xii
-
Introduction
- 1 Vinland on the brain 3
-
Part I: Imagination and ideology
- 2 Journeys to the centre of the mind 27
- 3 The ‘Viking tower’ in Newport, Rhode Island 45
- 4 Critiquing Columbus with the Vinland sagas 61
- 5 Vinland and white nationalism 77
-
Part II: Landscapes and cultural memory
- 6 Migration of a North Atlantic seascape 101
- 7 Norwegian-American ‘missions of education’ and Old Norse literature 122
- 8 Americans in Sagaland 137
- 9 The good sense to lose America 160
-
Part III: Recasting the past
- 10 Spectral Vikings in nineteenth-century American poetry 181
- 11 ‘Who is this upstart Hitler?’ 198
- 12 ‘There’s no going back’ 215
- 13 Old Norse in the New World 236
- Bibliography 252
- Index 282
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures and tables vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- Preface and acknowledgements xii
-
Introduction
- 1 Vinland on the brain 3
-
Part I: Imagination and ideology
- 2 Journeys to the centre of the mind 27
- 3 The ‘Viking tower’ in Newport, Rhode Island 45
- 4 Critiquing Columbus with the Vinland sagas 61
- 5 Vinland and white nationalism 77
-
Part II: Landscapes and cultural memory
- 6 Migration of a North Atlantic seascape 101
- 7 Norwegian-American ‘missions of education’ and Old Norse literature 122
- 8 Americans in Sagaland 137
- 9 The good sense to lose America 160
-
Part III: Recasting the past
- 10 Spectral Vikings in nineteenth-century American poetry 181
- 11 ‘Who is this upstart Hitler?’ 198
- 12 ‘There’s no going back’ 215
- 13 Old Norse in the New World 236
- Bibliography 252
- Index 282
