Band 44, Heft 1

Sigurður the Blind is a relatively obscure Icelandic poet, and there has been very little study of his work since the early 20th century, perhaps due to the fact that any such study is prone to get lost in the confusion concerning the identity of this late medieval “Homer of the North”. While this may be distracting from the study of his work, this fog may in fact be paradoxically illuminating as to the problems facing scholarship of the late Middle Ages, often revolving around sparse but nevertheless seemingly contradictory sources. Furthermore, one of the most interesting aspects of previous scholarship concerning the poet is how his blindness has figured in the attribution of various poems to Sigurður, and how this blindness has linked him to other blind poets of the 14th to the 17th centuries.

In 1272 some dozen men in Northamptonshire, England were pursued by king’s wardens for poaching deer in the royal forest of Rockingham. Legal records for the ensuing case, a “forest plea,” tell us that the wardens caught up with the poachers at a certain forest track where members of the band set up a deer’s head on a stake, intended as an insult to the king and his men. Bo Almqvist, in his defining work Norrön Niddiktning (1965), cites this incident, which occurred in a Norse settlement area, as an instance of Old Norse sculptural níð . Thomas L. Markey references it again in his own study (1972). Since then little notice has been given to it. But should there be? After all, detailed descriptions of sculptural níð are rare in historical sources. This study revisits the claim that this forest plea contains an instance of sculptural níð . In examining the strength of the evidence, the study raises several methodological questions specific to this case but also to the study of níð in general. This study finds that the Rockingham forest plea cannot be definitively linked to sculptural níð as depicted in Old Norse sources. Nevertheless, it is a warranted comparison that informs us about the structure, function, and possible boundaries of níð . Moreover, certain agreement in details might be used to discern additional níð -like practices in Old Norse sources.

Up until now, Scandinavianist criticism has barely touched the question of a specific literary function of anti-Semitic stereotypes. This paper starts with a discussion of an older but persistent critical controversy about anti-Semitic tendencies in Knut Hamsun’s work. It then focuses on two novels, Siste kapitel (1923) by Knut Hamsun and Lykke Per (1898–1904) by Henrik Pontoppidan. Both depict “the Jew” as the incarnation of capitalist modernity, however arrive at quite different conclusions. This article defends the thesis that Siste kapitel uses a well calculated play by constructing the character Fru Ruben as possibly but indeterminably Jewish. It thus has the potential to activate anti-Semitic pre-dispositions in the reader. Lykke Per on the other hand, depicts stereotypical Jews in a clearly anti-Semitic manner. However, it can be shown that these depictions are used to unveil both the narrator’s, his contemporary society’s and thus potentially also the reader’s own prejudice.

This article examines the intricate functions of Jewish speech in Meïr Goldschmidt’s novel En Jøde . Starting out with an analysis of literary antisemitism, differences between the representation of Jewish figures in specific genre conventions are highlighted. It can be shown that in Danish literature until 1845 Jewish speech is presented in narrative and dramatic texts in very different ways. It is argued that in En Jøde diverse representational conventions of Jewish speech are made use of. Contrary to non-jewish fiction writers, Goldschmidt gives his Jewish characters a voice that is diverging from the Danish norm. Their particular language is not artificial like in contemporary plays but aims at showing genuine Jewish speech. This turns En Jøde into the first novel of a Jewish author that tries to present the speech of its Jewish characters as authentic. Mainly in the last chapter, Goldschmidt also implements the speech of the “comic stage Jew”, which serves several functions. First, its use points at the connection between this kind of representation on stage and anti-Semitic attitudes in Danish society. Second, it establishes an ultimate alternative draft to the failed protagonist. Third, it alienates the readers’ trust in literary representations of Jewish figures and unmasks them as fictitious. Focusing on its use of Jewish figural vocabulary, this essay offers a new perspective on Goldschmidt’s most famous novel.

Matthias Toplak: Kleidung und Tracht in der altnordischen Sagaliteratur und im archäologischen Fundkontext (Anita Sauckel: Greifswald, E-Mail: anita.sauckel@uni-greifswald.de) Arnulf Krause: Die wirkliche Mittelerde (Elisabeth Maria Magin: Göttingen, E-Mail: Elisabeth.Magin@gmx.de) Merrill Kaplan: Thou Fearful Guest (Julia Zernack: Frankfurt, E-Mail: Zernack@em.uni-frankfurt.de) Ebbe Volquardsen: Die Anfänge des grönländischen Romans (Ingo Sundmacher: Berlin, ingosundmacher@nordsprachen.de) Stephen Pax Leonard (Ed.): Language, Society and Identity in early Iceland (Michael Schulte: Kristiansand, E-Mail: michael.schulte@uia.no) Endre Mørck: 2011 Leddstillinga i mellomnorske heilsetninger (Erik Magnusson Petzell: Göteborg, E-Mail: Erik.Petzell@sofi.se) Julia Prentice: På rak sak (Roger Reidinger: Wien, E-Mail: roger.reidinger@univie.ac.at) Magdalena Bator (Ed.): Obsolete Scandinavian Loanwords in English (Michael Schulte: Kristiansand, E-Mail: Michael.schulte@uia.no) Stephan Michael Schröder: Ideale Kommunikation, reale Filmproduktion (Ulrik Lehrmann: Odense, E-Mail: lehrmann@sdu.dk)