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About the project
The project is concerned with explaining the Victorian fascination with medieval Icelandic culture by analysing the striking contrast between the Victorian middle-class, which was infamously restricted by rigid gender roles, and the women characters in medieval Icelandic literature, who often transgress those normative roles. By combining biographical research, Victorian cultural studies, gender studies, research on medievalism and Old Norse studies, the project aims to provide answers to the following questions: how did Victorian readers receive and explain the heroines’ considerable freedom and agency? Could we speak of the Old Norse heroines as role-models for progressive nineteenth-century British women?
Financing
Docotral Research Fellow, Centre for Gender Research, 2022-2026