Introduction

Summary

This volume of essays is the first that takes masculinities in Old Norse- Icelandic literature as its focus. The past few decades have seen a welcome proliferation of books – both monographs and edited collections – that consider masculinities in a range of other medieval literatures. But this flurry of activity has had a fragmentary influence upon Old Norse-Icelandic studies, meaning that a coherent exploration of the works that address masculinities in Old Norse-Icelandic literature – as well as a fuller consideration of masculinities across the many genres of Old Norse-Icelandic texts – is long overdue. Not only will more sustained attention to masculinity in Old Norse-Icelandic literature provide clearer frameworks for future work in this area, but it will also offer a valuable contribution to our understanding of the ways in which masculinities function and are expressed in a literature that frequently offers clear contrasts to other medieval literatures, especially other European literatures. The oft-remarked upon distinctiveness of saga-style narration, the existence of a variety of genres of extended prose texts, and the very particular forms of poetry that were produced mean that Old Norse-Icelandic literature is unique among medieval literatures. The socio-political context in which this literature flourished – a frontier community, in a harsh and unforgiving environment, that was without monarchical rule for much of its history – often enables representations and constructions of identity in general, and of masculinities in particular, that vary significantly from those found in other contemporary literatures; in a similar way, the distinctive literary forms of the Old Norse-Icelandic corpus have already provided valuable additions to understandings of medieval literature in other areas, for example of Romance in a pan-European context. This volume thus serves a dual purpose: to explore the textual performance and representation of masculinities in Old Norse-Icelandic literature and to provide a deeper understanding of masculinities more generally. In order to achieve these joint aims, this introduction first discusses the concept of gender (including masculinity) to provide a general statement of the approach to masculinities used throughout the volume.