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 |
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Moderator/Chair: | Pétur Húni Björnsson, School of Humanities, University of Iceland, Reykjavík |
Paper 2112-a | Is It an Old Icelandic End and Renewal of Times?: Ragnarøkr under an Ecocritical Approach (Language: English) 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) Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Law, Political Thought |
Paper 2112-c | Upholding Power and Turning against It: The Shifting 'Weather' of Poetic Support for Power in Medieval and Post-Medieval Iceland (Language: English) 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. |