Grímr-Visaged War: Viking Age Battle, With an Eye to Performance
The tools of performance theory are applied to Old Norse material by casting battle in the late Scandinavian Iron Age and medieval period in terms of a performance process. The community analyzed is the hall-based warrior elite that developed throughout the Viking Age. By approaching the material from the performance perspective rather than warrior identity or ideology, a novel set of connections are made between the roles of personal preparation in battle, the role of the supernatural in battle, and the language used to discuss Viking Age battle in the later medieval sources. In particular, the idea of the mask is used to analyze warrior behavior, the idea-complex surrounding Óðinn, and skaldic language. The sources of the Viking Age as they are received today, material or literary, are products of action and interaction and the lens of performance allows for a language that rehabilitates them from a static interpretation.
Norræn miðaldafræði, Íslenskar bókmenntir, Víkingaöld, Bardagar
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