ICELANDIC LITERATURE IN THE U.S.: ON THE NATIONAL BORDERS IN LITERATURE
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2016, Vol 1, Issue 1
Abstract
Literature has been central to Icelandic culture in the history of the nation. Icelandic immigrants in the U.S. created an original literature in their native tongue that, on the one hand, continued a rich Icelandic literary tradition going back to sagas and Edda texts, on the other hand, adopted New World themes and images and was influenced by literary forms inherent in American culture. American-Icelandic Literature exists as an independent cultural phenomenon and belongs to both cultures: American and Icelandic. Icelandic-American authors did not lose their national identity when writing in English as they preserved national narrative and poetic forms yet at the same time were part of American literature. National borders in the world literature are mainly defned by geographic and linguistic factors. The concept of national literature very often draws on the concept of national identity, literature being one of the most important components of cultural self-identifcation. Usually, immigrant literature intended for a specifc immigrant community, is interesting only to this community and is not seen as part of national culture in the home country. But in the case of Icelandic-American literature, it is possible to say that this literary tradition did not break its connections with Iceland, and regardless of the fact that Icelandic-American authors were writing in English, their works became part of Icelandic cultural heritage.
Authors and Affiliations
Andrey V. Korovin
Rabelais’ “culture of folk humor” as a Technique of Archaicized Narration
The French reception of Bakhtin’s book on Rabelais excludes the author of Gargantua and Pantagruel. However, by analyzing Rabelais’s text as a reflection of national culture and ignoring the author’s role in the develo...
AKHMATOVA’S “LEONARDESCHI”: A COMMENTARY ON THE PICTORIAL REALITY
This article explores why N. Nedobrovo mentioned Il Sodoma (Giovanni-Antonio Bazzi) among the artists of da Vinci School in her poem that was of particular importance to Anna Akhmatova. The referenced studies by Merezh...
THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL SELF-IDENTIFICATION IN SCANDINAVIAN CULTURE AND LITERATURE
The article examines the development of national self-identification in the three main countries of the Scandinavian region — Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. All the three countries have been interconnected for centuries,...
ON LITIGATION CONCERNING “LITIGATION”: THE PROBLEMS OF DATING ONE EPISODE OF GOGOL’S BIOGRAPHY
This article focuses on the problems around the exact dating of the final edition of Gogol’s play The Letigation read aloud by the author in house of Aksakov on his first return to Russia from abroad (1839–1840). Gogol’...
“I WILL RETURN / COME BACK TO YOU UNRECOGNIZED”: THE FATE OF POETRY OF MOTHER MARIA IN POST-SOVIET RUSSIA AND IN FRANCE
The article examines the history of the reception of mother Maria’s poetry in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, in France and in Great Britain. It analyses how her image and “hypostasis” became mythologized in Russian and...