From Iceland to the Americas - (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture) by Tim William Machan & Jón Karl Helgason (Paperback)

About the Book

This volume looks at how Leif Eiriksson's visit to Vinland around the year 1000 has been reimagined in the modern era, taking on a range of media from scholarly works on history and mythology to novels, films and comic books. More broadly, it asks why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.

Book Synopsis

This volume investigates the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural and imaginative consequences. Inspired by Leif Eiriksson's visit to Vinland in about the year 1000, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all come to reflect rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, From Iceland to the Americas approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities on mythology, language, film and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception. Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.

From the Back Cover

From Iceland to the Americas, a collection of thirteen original chapters, is an exercise in the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural, and imaginative consequences.

Medieval records claim that around the year 1000 Leif Eiriksson and other Nordic explorers sailed westwards from Iceland and Greenland to a place they called Vinland. Archaeological evidence has in fact verified this claim, though primarily by way of one small, short-lived Norse settlement in Newfoundland, which may not even have been Leif's. Whether or not this settlement was his, however, the contact associated with him has had an outsized impact on cultural imagination in and of the Americas. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all reflected a rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, From Iceland to the Americas approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities (including Seth Lerer and Heather O'Donoghue) on mythology, language, film, and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception.

Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in Scandinavian studies, cultural studies, ethnography, medieval English literature, popular culture, and literary history.

Review Quotes

'Anyone interested in the history of the idea of Vinland, the Vikings, and the impact these ideas had (and still have) on the historical imagination of the Americas will find ample food for thought in this volume.'
-- David F. Johnson (Florida State University) Arthuriana

About the Author

Tim William Machan is Mary Lee Duda Professor of Literature, University of Notre Dame
Jón Karl Helgason is Professor of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland