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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 2112: Poetic Weathervanes: Shifting Climates of Thought as Manifested in Old Icelandic Poetry

Friday 9 July 2021, 11.15-12.45

Organisers:Ermenegilda Rachel Müller, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Eirik Westcoat, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland
Moderator/Chair:Pétur Húni Björnsson, School of Humanities, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Paper 2112-aIs It an Old Icelandic End and Renewal of Times?: Ragnarøkr under an Ecocritical Approach
(Language: English)
Pablo Gomes de Miranda, Núcleo de Estudos Vikings e Escandinavos (NEVE), Universidade Federal da Paraíba
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Mentalities, Pagan Religions
Paper 2112-b'Ordo ab Chao': From Mythic Chaos to Lawful Society - Icelandic Culture between Magic, Poetry, and Law
(Language: English)
Jan Jürgensen, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavík
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Law, Political Thought
Paper 2112-cUpholding Power and Turning against It: The Shifting 'Weather' of Poetic Support for Power in Medieval and Post-Medieval Iceland
(Language: English)
Eirik Westcoat, Faculty of Icelandic & Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Iceland
Index terms: Folk Studies, Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract

This session focuses on how Old Icelandic poets and poetry manifest cultural shifts triggered by climate changes or catastrophes (whether metaphorical or literal), across a variety of subjects. It will address how poetic portrayals - both early and late - of mythological catastrophes like the Ragnarøkr reveal such shifts. It will also address the role that Old Icelandic poetry and verse-making played into socio-political changes with papers on the ways that medieval court skalds and their successors support or oppose established power and the role that poetry may have had in producing a climate of law-based order.