Iceland and Images of the North

Islands on the Edge: Medieval and Early Modern National Images of Iceland and Greenland

Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson, “Islands on the Edge: Medieval and Early Modern National Images of Iceland and Greenland,” in Iceland and Images of the North, ed. Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson with the collaboration of Daniel Chartier, Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, “Droit au Pôle” series, and Reykjavík: ReykjavíkurAkademían, 2011. Islands on the Edge: Medieval and Early Modern National Images of Iceland and Greenland1 Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson The Reykjavík Academy (Iceland) Abstract – In this article accounts of Iceland and Greenland from the late Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century will be examined with consideration given to the type of national images appearing there. The aim of the article is to explain these images and discuss their development and origin, not least how ideas about islands and the North in general have influenced the descriptions of these two countries. The research is based on two connected research traditions: the field of imagology and postcolonial studies, which means that the sources are studied as representations, as a discourse on islands in the periphery in the far North. Keywords – National images, islands, far North, periphery, utopia Introduction Between the late Middle Ages and the end of the 18th century, two large islands on the European edge—Iceland and Greenland—were subjected to considerable descriptive effort from the outside world. This article argues that there was ambivalence about these islands, an incertitude about whether they were dystopian hell or utopian paradise isles. Although islands in general had a special status that made them suspect—either as wondrous or evil—it is likely that these islands were particularly prone to these two divergent attitudes because they had a peripheral status and were situated in the far North. Writers living in civilized Europe could project a variety of opposites onto the unseen far North: good or bad, rich or poor, civilized or barbarian. The duality of being islands and being in the far 1 Translated from Icelandic by Elisabeth Ida Ward. ICELAND AND IMAGES OF THE NORTH [ 42 ] North put these countries within a complex matrix of otherness that authors during this time period struggled to comprehend. It is especially important to see how standardized and similar these descriptions became through time, considering that the countries and peoples in question are different in many aspects. This article will examine the accounts of Iceland and Greenland during this 500-year period to show the most important images of each country. It is the aim of this article to explain their development and origins, not least the extent to which ideas about islands and the North have influenced the descriptions of these two countries. The article is based mainly on two connected research traditions: the field of imagology and postcolonial studies.2 The sources for the research will therefore be studied as representations, as images, not as texts representing some kind of truth on the situation in these countries. They will instead be treated as a discourse, building on different traditions and ideas about the situation and life in the far North, about islands and about the periphery in general. These traditions were moulded over a long period of time, though new factors were constantly added. An important concept connected with this discourse is the concept of hegemony, as the balance of power between the centre and the periphery is never equal concerning these representations. Representations of these two countries in this period are mainly composed outside these two islands and coloured by the views of the “civilized” world. Iceland in the Late Middle Ages The honour of writing the first account of Iceland goes to the German priest Adam of Bremen.3 In his work Historia Ecclesiae Hamburgensis (written between 1070 and 1080), he describes an island lying at the end of the world that very few know of. Unique to the island, in his view, was black ice that was so old it was combustible. He also reports that the inhabitants dressed in skin, since it was very cold, and lived solely off their domestic animals, since no grain grew 2 See for example Riesz 2007: 400–404; Leerssen 2007: 17–33. 3 Adam of Bremen 2000: 191–192. ISLANDS ON THE EDGE [ 43 ] there. Because there were no forests, he says, the Icelanders lived in earthen houses with their domestic animals, sleeping under the same roof and even eating the same...