We're dealing with the Frontier when we deal with Viking literature--"when men were men, and women were women"--except there's a bit of a difference, which perhaps is best illustrated by quoting the excerpt below and is only one example of the tensions that existed (perhaps still exist) between between males and females in the race to achieve one's own individuality.

[excerpt from Erik the Red's Saga]:
[The weapons flying over their heads terrified the men] so much that their only thought was to flee; they retreated farther up the river. . . .Freydis came out, saw the retreat and shouted, "Why do you flee from such pitiful wretches, brave men like you? You should be able to slaughter them like cattle. If I had weapons, I could fight better than any of you." Freydis [ran after them] but could not keep up with them because she was pregnant. She was following them into the woods when the Skraelings closed in on her. In front of her lay a dead man with a flintstone buried in his head, and his sword beside him. She snatched up the sword and prepared to defend herself. When the Skraelings came rushing towards her, she pulled one of her breasts out of her bodice and slapped it with the sword. The Skraelings were terrified at the sight and fled back to their boats and hastened away."

This image, one of many, exemplifies the theme of this course--frontier woman's defiance: of authority, of the patriarchal system, of nature and the elements, of hunger and disease, of death. We'll be studying and assessing the female role in the frontier society of the sagas.

Texts IN TRANSLATION: The Saga of Gisli, Laxdaela Saga, Njal's Saga, Vinland Sagas, Eyrbyggja Saga,Egil's Saga, plus excerpts from poems, chronicles, travelogues.

Three exams; 2 SHORT PAPERS, PLUS LONGER Paper (FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS). This course applies toward the undergraduate minor and the MA and Ph.D. concentrations in Medieval Studies in English.