essay
The theft of blood, the birth of men: cultural constructions of gender in medieval Iceland
From sagas to society : comparative approaches to early Iceland • Enfield Lock, Middlesex, Uk • Published In 1992 • Pages: 265-288
By: Linke, Uli.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article Linke examines the cultural conceptions of gender in Icelandic mythology, as represented in the Edda -- a thirteenth century collection of mythological, heroic, and aphoristic poems in alliterative verse. The author then goes on to explore medieval ideas about manhood or maleness in relation to femaleness, with special emphasis on the underlying ideologies of reproduction. Further discussion is then centered on '…how Icelandic models of social order are embedded in mythological images of sex, birth, and creation', and how '…competing concepts of creative power (equated with chaos and order, good and evil) are expressed through mythic representaiton of female eroticism or motherhood and the antithetical images of male androgyny and male creativity' (p. 265). These concepts are frequently masked in the mythology and it is necessary to interpret narrative detail in these myths in order to reveal certain social themes in the society relevant to incest, murder, procreation and male sexual domination.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Verbal arts
- Mythology
- Spirits and gods
- Sexuality
- Reproduction
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Early Icelanders
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2004
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Europe
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Scandinavia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 2002
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- ninth-thirteenth centuries
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- general Iceland
- NotesAdditional notes
- Uli Linke
- For bibliographical references see document 10: [Gísli Pálsson]
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 93150093
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Icelanders