Judy Quinn

A rogue moose wanders into a suburb near Quebec city, tramples lawns and gardens, stumbles in and out of a swimming pool, is tracked by three gun toting heads of family who shoot it down just as a school bus goes by wherein a little girl is trilling "Three Little Kittens." Thus begins No Grave For This Place. Here "streets are landing strips / for planes that will never arrive," the dead "descend / the steps of prefab houses / champagne flutes in their hands," and a pack of cats "throws itself on the electric fences / surrounding our inner lives." Quinn's voice will resonate with all those who have, by association or from experience, tasted the cultural barrenness that can underlie civilized life.

No Grave for This Place

Kate Heslop

Tarrin Wills

This volume presents twenty essays by leading scholars of Old Norse which bring into focus the nature of learned traditions - both oral and written - in medieval Scandinavia and the interpretation and re-interpretation of them over time. Theoretical frameworks for understanding Old Norse literature is the initial topic of the collection, which then moves on to present recent work on Old Norse myth and society; current perspectives on oral traditions in performance and text; and reflections on medieval ideas about language, both vernacular and Latin. The collection is rounded off by a section on prolonged traditions - the transformation of local and imported traditions into new literary forms. Individual essays in the volume offer significant primary research as well as reconsiderations of key issues in scholarship, their subjects ranging widely, both conceptually and chronologically, around the twin themes of learning and understanding. Like the research of the volume's honorand, Margaret Clunies Ross, Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World exemplifies the diversity and vigour of current research in the field of Old Norse and draws together philological, literary, historical and anthropological perspectives on the subject.

Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross

Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World

Maria Adele Cipolla

The compelling world of the Vikings and their descendants - preserved in the sagas, poetry, and mythology of medieval Iceland - has provided inspiration for centuries to artists and writers across Europe as well as to scholars devoted to editing and interpreting the manuscript texts. Imagining this distant'hyperborean' world has been the spur to a broad range of creative ventures, by editors, translators, playwrights, librettists, novelists, poets and cartoonists. The essays in this volume, by scholars from Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, and the UK, examine the scholarly and artistic reception of a variety of Old Norse texts from the beginnings of the manuscript tradition in twelfth-century Iceland to contemporary poetry, crime fiction and graphic novels in Britain, Ireland, Italy and Iceland. In between, the influence of Old Norse literature is explored in the context of Shakespeare's plays, eighteenth-century Italian opera, the Romantic movement in Sweden and Denmark, the so-called 'Nordic renaissance' of the late nineteenth-century (including the works of August Strindberg and William Morris) and some of the political movements of twentieth-century northern Europe. Interest in Old Norse literature is charted as it spread beyond the academies of Europe out to a wide reading and viewing public. The influence of the hyperborean muse is evident throughout - affecting editors as well as artists - as the idea of early Nordic culture has been refashioned to suit contemporary ideals.

The Hyperborean Muse

Studies in the Transmission and Reception of Old Norse Literature

Stefan Brink

John Hines

The conception of the field is broad, extending chronologically from the Viking Age and the sources of Viking activity to the end of the medieval period. The multidisciplinary focus will be enhanced by a newsletter section in future issues, in which recent discoveries, major publications and updates on long-term projects will be reported.

Viking and Medieval Scandinavia

Carolyne Larrington

Brittany Schorn

This is the first comprehensive and accessible survey in English of Old Norse eddic poetry: a remarkable body of literature rooted in the Viking Age, which is a critical source for the study of early Scandinavian myths, poetics, culture and society. Dramatically recreating the voices of the legendary past, eddic poems distil moments of high emotion as human heroes and supernatural beings alike grapple with betrayal, loyalty, mortality and love. These poems relate the most famous deeds of gods such as Óðinn and Þórr with their adversaries the giants; they bring to life the often fraught interactions between kings, queens and heroes as well as their encounters with valkyries, elves, dragons and dwarfs. Written by leading international scholars, the chapters in this volume showcase the poetic riches of the eddic corpus, and reveal its relevance to the history of poetics, gender studies, pre-Christian religions, art history and archaeology.

Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia

A Handbook to Eddic Poetry

Quand son père, imparable vendeur d’assurance, annonce qu’il a gagné deux millions à la loterie, sa fille, qu’il appelle affectueusement « fistoune », sent que s’ouvre devant elle une fente dans le réel. Fantasque, original, alcoolique, anticonformiste mais aussi tout bonnement honnête, doté d’un sens farouche de la liberté, ce père va dérouler sous les yeux de sa fille une partie de sa nouvelle vie. Mais la chance tourne et une encéphalite grave déjoue tous les plans d’avenir, maladie qui a parfois des airs de démence. À travers de pénibles hospitalisations dont l’évocation nous vaut de forts moments d’écriture – et du père et de sa fille –, cet homme hors du commun qui a déjà entrepris de traverser le fleuve à la nage sous le pont Pierre-Laporte et qui semble ne jamais devoir mourir, qui ressuscite même à la consternation des médecins qui l’avaient vu décliner rapidement, aura profondément marqué l’imaginaire de sa fille. Ce qui distingue ce roman, c’est le regard que « fistoune » porte sur les agissements de son père. Au lieu de faire une évocation de sa destinée de père irrespectueux, elle s’engage dans une lecture de ses propres réactions face à cet homme unique que la félicité du hasard vient de combler. Car elle a su développer les outils pour traverser l’opacité nouvelle de la réalité paternelle emportée par cette manne soudaine, et bientôt emportée dans l’enfer de la maladie. Cette troisième œuvre en prose, nourrie d’un matériau biographique certain qui classe le roman au registre des histoires incroyables mais vraies, confirme un univers personnel et une voix singulière qui s’impose à travers sa génération.

Judy Quinn

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