Jón Karl Helgason

the afterlife of the eddas and sagas

Echoes of Valhalla

The Rewriting of Njáls saga concerns itself with the process which enables literary texts to cross cultures and endure history. Through six interrelated case studies, Jón Karl Helgason focuses on the reception of Njáls saga, the most distinguished of the Icelandic sagas, in Britain, the United States, Denmark, Norway and Iceland, between 1861 and 1945. The editions and translations in question claim to represent a medieval narrative to their audience, but Helgason emphasises how these texts simultaneously reflect the rewriters' contemporary ideas about race, culture, politics and poetics. Introducing the principles of comparative Translation Studies to the field of Medieval Literature, Helgason's book identifies the dialogue between literary (re)production and society.

Translation, Ideology, and Icelandic Sagas

The Rewriting of Njáls Saga

Tolkien’s wizard Gandalf, Wagner’s Valkyrie Brünnhilde, Marvel’s superhero the Mighty Thor, the warrior heading for Valhalla in Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” and Donald Crisp’s portrayal of Leif Eriksson in the classic film The Viking—these are just a few examples of how Icelandic medieval literature has shaped human imagination during the past 150 years. Echoes of Valhalla is a unique look at modern adaptations of the Icelandic eddas (poems of Norse mythology) and sagas (ancient prose accounts of Viking history, voyages, and battles) across an astonishing breadth of art forms. Jón Karl Helgason looks at comic books, plays, travel books, music, and films in order to explore the reincarnations of a range of legendary characters, from the Nordic gods Thor and Odin to the saga characters Hallgerd Long-legs, Gunnar of Hlidarendi, and Leif the Lucky. Roaming the globe, Helgason unearths echoes of Nordic lore in Scandinavia, Britain, America, Germany, Italy, and Japan. He examines the comic work of Jack Kirby and cartoon work of Peter Madsen; reads the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Gordon Bottomley; engages thought travelogues by Frederick Metcalfe and Poul Vad; listens to the music of Richard Wagner, Edward Elgar, and the metal band Manowar; and watches films by directors such as Roy William Neill and Richard Fleischer, outlining the presence of the eddas and sagas in these nineteenth- and twentieth-century works. Altogether, Echoes of Valhalla tells the remarkable story of how disparate, age-old poetry and prose originally recorded in remote areas of medieval Iceland have come to be a part of our shared cultural experience today—how Nordic gods and saga heroes have survived and how their colorful cast of characters and adventures they went on are as vibrant as ever.

The Afterlife of the Eddas and Sagas

Tim William Machan

This volume investigates the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural and imaginative consequences. Inspired by Leif Eiriksson’s visit to Vinland in about the year 1000, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all come to reflect rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, From Iceland to the Americas approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities on mythology, language, film and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception. Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.

Vinland and historical imagination

From Iceland to the Americas

Laurence de Looze

Russell Poole

Torfi H. Tulinius

The contributors to this collection of essays approach Egil's story from a variety of perspectives, including psychology, philology, network theory, social history, and literary theory.

New Approaches to 'Egil's Saga'

Egil, the Viking Poet

Marijan Dović

In National Poets, Cultural Saints Marijan Dović and Jón Karl Helgason explore the veneration of artists, writers, and poets in Europe, especially in the period 1840–1940, and present an analytical model of canonization for further studies on “cultural sainthood”.

Jón Karl Helgason

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