Literature and Honour

328 Pages·2017·1.664 MB·English

by  Aasta Marie Bjorvand Bjørkøy, Thorstein Norheim (eds.)

LITERATURE AND HONOUR

AASTA MARIE BJORVAND BJØRKØY AND THORSTEIN NORHEIM (EDS.)
Literature and Honour
Universitetsforlaget
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Thorstein Norheim.
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This book is published with support by the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies,
University of Oslo, The Publishing Fund for UiO researchers and the foundation Fritt Ord.
ISBN printed edition (print on demand): 978-82-15-02956-6
ISBN electronic pdf-edition: 978-82-15-02955-9
DOI: 10.18261/978-82-15-02955-9-2017
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DOI: 10.18261/978-82-15-02955-9-2017-1
Preface
The articles included in this volume emanate from the project After Honour, ini-
tiated by the research group Literature and Affect, Department of Linguistics and
Scandinavian Studies, at the University of Oslo. The following 15 articles are
written by scholars from Norway, Denmark and Iceland.
In May 2015, the research group arranged a kick-off workshop, and during the
autumn we organized two seminars, each followed by workshop: ‘Honour, war
and violence in literature’ (25 September), and ‘The welfare state and the fall of
honour groups’ (20 November). In Spring 2016, the Master’ course NOR4460 Lit-
erature and honour was a part of the teaching portfolio at the Department of Lin-
guistics and Scandinavian Studies. It was led by Thorstein Norheim, and several
of the contributors to this volume, and research group members, contributed with
lectures. The course generated several Master’s theses related to the honour con-
cept. In August 2016, Cecilie Takle initiated her Ph.D.-project, ‘Honor Codes in
Contemporary Scandinavian Fantasy Literature for Children and Young Adults’.
We would like to thank the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies
at the University of Oslo for the financial support, which helped us to initiate the
research group and work out the research project. We are particularly grateful to
Per Thomas Andersen for his major role in initiating this, and outlining the
research project. We would also like to thank Stefka Georgieva Eriksen for her
contribution during the start-up phase and the first seminars.
This OA-book is financially supported by the Department of Linguistics and
Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, by the Publishing fund for UiO
researchers, and the foundation Fritt Ord.
University of Oslo
September 2017
Aasta Marie Bjorvand Bjørkøy and Thorstein Norheim
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0).
Toview a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/.

Content
1
THE CONCEPT OF HONOUR ANDHONOUR NARRATIVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Thorstein Norheim
and Aasta Marie Bjorvand Bjørkøy
I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
PART 1: HISTORYOFTHEDECLINE OF HONOUR CULTURE IN THE WEST
2
CODE OF HONOUR UNDER DEBATE IN TWO ICELANDIC SAGAS . . . . . . . . 37
Jon Gunnar Jørgensen
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Sagas of Icelanders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
The clan society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Transitional period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Gisli Sursson’s saga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Honour killing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
The killing of Vestein and Gisli’s revenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
The killing of Thorkel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Gisli’s downfall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Ambivalence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Problematic honour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
The Saga of Thorgils and Haflidi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Words for honour and shame in the two sagas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Conclusion – A new code of honour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
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8 INNHOLD | LITERATURE AND HONOUR
3
THE PRICE OF INTEGRITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Simen Syvertsen
Saga and honour – earlier research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Egil’s saga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4
HONOUR, SAGAS AND TRAUMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Torfi H. Tulinius
Gissur and his revenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Death instinct and literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Expression in literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Conclusion: Reconstructing a troubled identity in traumatic times . . . 93
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5
THE VALUE OF THE FACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Jan Erik Rekdal
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
PART 2: THEINDIVIDUALISATION OF THE CONCEPT OF HONOUR
6
AFTER HONOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Per Thomas Andersen
I. Old norse culture of honor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
II. Karl Ove Knausgård: My Struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
7
MEN’S AND WOMEN’S HONOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Anne-Marie Mai
To sacrifice one’s honour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Honourable emancipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Welfare and honour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Honour, body and sexuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
An honourable morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138