Flesh and Word: Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Literature PDF
Preview Flesh and Word: Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Literature
SarahKünzler FleshandWord Trends in Medieval Philology Edited by Ingrid Kasten, Niklaus Largier and Mireille Schnyder Editorial Board Ingrid Bennewitz, John Greenfield, Christian Kiening, Theo Kobusch, Peter von Moos, Uta Störmer-Caysa Volume 31 Sarah Künzler Flesh and Word Reading Bodies in Old Norse-Icelandic and Early Irish Literature GedrucktmitUnterstützungdesDoktoratsprogramms „Medialität–HistorischePerspektiven“ desDeutschenSeminarsderUniversitätZürich. ThisworkwasacceptedasaPhDthesisbytheFacultyofArtsandSocialSciences,Universityof Zurichinthespringsemester2015ontherecommendationoftheDoctoralCommittee:Prof.Dr. JürgGlauser(mainsupervisor),Dr.GeraldineParsons. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ACIPcatalogrecordforthisbookhasbeenappliedforattheLibraryofCongress. BibliografischeInformationderDeutschenNationalbibliothek DieDeutscheNationalbibliothekverzeichnetdiesePublikationinderDeutschen Nationalbibliografie;detailliertebibliografischeDatensindimInternetüberhttp://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. ISBN978-3-11-045538-0 e-ISBN(PDF)978-3-11-045587-8 e-ISBN(EPUB)978-3-11-045542-7 ISSN1612-443X ©2016WalterdeGruyterGmbH,Berlin/Boston Druck:CPIBooksGmbH,Leck ♾GedrucktaufsäurefreiemPapier PrintedinGermany www.degruyter.com Contents Preface VII Introduction 1 . Bodies and Mediality: Mapping Horizons 1 . Research Questions 21 . Studying Bodies in Medieval Literature: Some Remarks on Concepts and Terminology 27 .. Studying Texts as Texts 27 .. Looking Beyond Literature: Adjusting Methodology 39 .. Minor Matters 41 . Texts 44 Speak for Yourself! Expressive Mediality and the Self 61 . Bodies that Speak 61 . Expressive Mediality and Social Identity 70 .. Early Irish Literature: Reading Cú Chulainn with(in) The Politics of Anatomy 70 .. A Remarkable Presence or an Unmarked Presence? Bodies and Social Status from Rígsþula to Saga 96 . How (not) to Be a Proper Man: Reading Beardless Faces 125 .. Beating a Boy? The Beardless Cú Chulainn in TBC 126 .. Female or No-Male? A Study of the Beardless Njál in Brennu-Njáls saga 142 I am the Other – Who are You? Expressive Mediality and the Other 155 . Ideas of Otherness in Medieval Literature 155 . Reading Encounters with the Other 162 .. Original riddarasögur: Male Heroes and Female Others 162 .. ‘What Manner of Man,’ asked Ailill, ‘is this Hound?’: Cú Chulainn’s ríastrad 194 . Hamhleypa and Metamorphosis: Reading the Unfixed Body 225 .. Revisiting Cú Chulainn’s Shifting Body 227 .. Crossing Boundaries: Hamhleypa in a fornaldarsaga Norðurlanda 236 . Expressing Categories, Categories of Expression 249 VI Contents Scratching the Surface: Reading Bodies in Transmissive Mediality 253 . The Transmissive Nature of Inscribed Skin 253 . Show Me Your Skin and I’ll Tell You Who You Are: Reading Scars and Woundsin Ásmundar saga kappabani and Scéla Mucce Meic Dathó 259 . And the Flesh Was Made Word: Cethern, Tuán and the Body Bearing (His‐)story 277 . And the Flesh Was Made Shame: Mutilated Bodies in Sigurðar saga þǫgla 313 . Inscribed Bodies before Tattoo-Theory 322 The Need to Need: Natural Bodily Matters in Mediality Discourse 326 . Writing with Faeces, Writing about Faeces 326 . What’s the Matter with the Matter? Urinating, Defecating and Social Space 329 .. Natureand Bodily Matters: The Early Irish Tradition 332 .. Culture and Bodily Matters: The Old Norse-Icelandic Tradition 358 . Bloody Women, Bleeding Men? A New Reading of Fúal Medba 395 . ‘Human’ Waste 404 Concluding Matters 409 . Reading Bodies as Texts, Reading Bodies in Texts 409 . Revisiting Ideas 419 . Situating the Findings 420 List of Abbreviations 425 Bibliography 426 . Primary Sources 426 . Secondary Sources 428 . Electronic Sources 445 Index 446 Preface IwriteaboutbodiesbecauseIamsurroundedbybodies,bodiesthatcommunicate.I alsowriteaboutbodiesbecauseIhaveabody,abodythatbearsmypersonalhis- tory.ItwasperhapsthisawarenessofthegazesofothersonmyownbodythatIfelt gave me the permission to openly gaze back at other bodies, both medieval and modern, literary and real. What I discovered was that although I too looked at other people’s bodies as marked by discourses of identity and social affiliation, the fact that I had consciously andvisibly modified myown body seemed to give peoplepermissiontovoicetheirjudgementaboutitinvariouscontexts.Somepeo- ple – usuallybut notexclusively the ones sharingsimilar ideas of beauty– freely expressedtheirappreciation.Othersneededtovoicetheirdisapprovalortheiropin- ionthatthiscouldnotpossiblybeseen asdesirable. The constant classification of my own body, and the increasing interest in classifyingthebodiesofothers,ledtotheconclusionthatbodiesarealwaysas- sessed,whether consciously or unconsciously, in public or in private (or in se- cret).Overtheyears,itbecameclearthatIwasnottheonlypersontoconscious- ly invitebut at the same time alsoguide the looks of other people on mybody. This realisation in turn made me ponder if this idea of ‘look at me,but look at this!’,ofcontrollingwhatotherpeopleperceived(firstormostvividly)aboutme, couldalsobeobservedinothercontexts.Eventually,itwasachanceencounter towardstheendoftheresearchprojectwhichputmyideasinanewperspective. Ittaughtme thatone andthe same bodycan be looked at and readverydiffer- ently.Itsreadingcandepend onwhoreadsitwithwhatkindofknowledgeand inwhatcontext.OnlyattheendoftheresearchdidIthereforefinallygraspthe full scale of what I was talking about: I realised that through these prolonged gazes, each body begins to unfold its own identity and position within the world it inhabits (and shapes) in relation to a particular gaze (and observer). As a medievalist, it was therefore only a matter of time before I started asking how bodies in medieval texts are shaped and perceived, gazed at and spoken about.Didthosetextssharemyinterestinreadingbodiesand,ifso,inwhatcon- texts can bodies be read? In reading through medieval literature as widely as possible, it quickly be- came clear that by no means all texts focus on bodies.Yet some offer deep in- sightsintohowbodiescanbeusedtoexpressmattersfarbeyondtheircorporeal being.Italsoemergedthat,insomeparticularcases,thetextsareasmesmerized bybodiesasIam.Thisstudyzoomsinonsuchmoments,butitdoessobytrying tounderstandtheconceptsofthepastandhowbodiesarecreatedinaparticular text rather than by presenting my own, post-modern ideas. Of course, one can VIII Preface neverleaveone’sowneyesinobservingbut,asCarolyneWalkerBynumsug- gests, ‘awareness of our individual situations and perspectives can be freeing rather than limiting, for it removes the burden of trying to see everything.’¹ I hopethatthroughmygaze,aninitialappreciationoftheextenttowhichbodies contributetothefascinationofmedievalliteraturemaybeachieved,evenif,ul- timately,everybody has to look for him- or herself. Inlookingbackontheprocessofresearch,Ilookbacknotonlyoncountless hoursspentinlibrariesandatmydesk,butfirstandforemostonthemanywon- derful encounters I had over these years. It is the nature of a preface that one cannot thank everybody who helped along the way.Yet some people I cannot help but thank, as they became hugely involved with this PhD thesis in one way or another. Most importantly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Jürg Glauser, for letting me read the texts in my own way but directing my gaze to where it was most needed. An inexpressibly big go raibh maith agat alsogoestomysecondsupervisor,DrGeraldineParsons,forguidingmethrough theseyearsbyalwaysencouragingmetokeepgoingbutpointingmeintheright direction;andforintroducingmetomanymedievalistsinScotland.Tothedoc- toralprogrammeMediality.Historical PerspectivesattheUniversitätZürich Iam indebted for its extremely generous financial support.The programme allowed metovisitmanyconferencesandalsotoorganisetwoworkshopsattheUniver- sität Zürich and it was also very generous in assisting with the printing of this PhD thesis.The doctoral programme, together with the Oskar Bandle Stiftung, also made a research stay at the Universityof Glasgow possible. Aspecialthanksalsogoestothemanypeoplewhopassedonvaluableadvice ontheindividualchapters.Prof.ErichPoppekindlyreaddraftsandsentmeimpor- tantarticlesthatIcouldnothaveobtainedinSwitzerland.Aheartythanksalsogoes tomyfellowskin-enthusiast,DrNicoleNyffenegger,whoatacriticalpointreminded metoshowthereadersthebodiesaboveallelse.IamalsoindebtedtoProf.Gísli Sigurðsson,who spent some of his time at Zürich reading through an early draft, and mycolleague and mellon, Dr Gerard Hynes, for his time and companionship. Prof. Ralph O’Connor kindly let me look at one of his articles before publication and this, together with his many comments on my own work, greatly sharpened mygaze.Other people shared their thoughts with me in conversation or personal correspondence: Prof. (em.) Hildegard L. C. Tristram, Dr Katherine Forsythe, Dr Kate Louise Mathis, Prof. (em.) Doris Edel, Dr Cherie Peters and Dr des.Ute Kühl- mann. I am also grateful to Dr Patricia Ronan, forgiving me the rare opportunity CarolineWalkerBynum,‘WhyAlltheFussabouttheBody?AMedievalist’sPerspective’, CriticalInquiry,/(),–(p.).
The list of books you might like
