Nordic Terrors

Robert William Rix

ISBN 10: 1839990457 / ISBN 13: 9781839990458

Published by Anthem Press, 2024

New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # CX-9781839990458

Synopsis:

In late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British literature, Scandinavia emerged as a setting for Gothic terror. This book explores the extensive use of Nordic superstition as it provided a vocabulary for Gothic texts, examining the cultural significance these references held for writers exploring Britain’s northern heritage. In Gothic publications, Nordic superstition sometimes parallels the representations of Catholicism, allowing writers to gloat at its phantasms and delusions. Thus, runic spells, incantations, and necromantic communications (of which Norse tradition afforded many examples) could replace practices usually assigned to Catholic superstition. Yet Nordic lore did more than merely supplant hackneyed Gothic formulas; it presented readers with an alternative conception of ‘Otherness’. Nordic texts―chiefly based on the Edda and the supernatural Scandinavian ballad tradition―were seen as pre-Christian beliefs of the Gothic (i.e., Germanic) peoples, including the Anglo-Saxons. The book traces the development of this Nordic Gothic, situating it within wider literary, historical, political, and cultural contexts.

About the Author:

Robert W. Rix is Professor and Director of Research at the University of Copenhagen. He is widely known for his numerous publications on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Nordic Terrors
Publisher: Anthem Press
Publication Date: 2024
Binding: PAP
Condition: New