{"id":419,"date":"2020-11-28T13:29:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-28T13:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dlf.uzh.ch\/sites\/skandinavien-postkolonial\/?p=419"},"modified":"2021-03-05T08:09:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T08:09:18","slug":"the-latin-discursive-tradition-behind-the-icelandic-accounts-of-the-first-european-journey-to-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dlf.uzh.ch\/sites\/skandinavien-postkolonial\/the-latin-discursive-tradition-behind-the-icelandic-accounts-of-the-first-european-journey-to-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Latin Discursive Tradition Behind the Icelandic Accounts of the First European Journey to America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A review on Jerold Frakes\u2019 article \u201cViking, V\u00ednland and the Discourse of Eurocentrism\u201d published in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology<\/em>, vol. 100 n\u00b02 in 2001, pp. 157\u2013199.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For centuries it has been taught in schools all around the globe that Christopher Columbus was the first European who had ever travelled to America, reaching it in 1492. Nowadays, we know that this was a misconception, as the discovery of a Viking settlement in L\u2019Anse aux Meadows<\/a> (Canada) in the 1960s proved that the Norse reached the North American coast five centuries before Columbus. The only medieval accounts of the Vikings\u2019 presence on the other side of the Atlantic are the so-called V\u00ednland sagas,<\/em> which include the Eir\u00edks saga Rau\u00f0a<\/a><\/em> and the Gr\u0153nlendinga saga<\/em> <\/a>written in the 13th<\/sup> century, almost exclusively transmitted in manuscripts from the 14th<\/sup> century or later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Viking journey to Greenland and to the so-called V\u00ednland (America). A map created by the Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement (IDEA) and edited by Michael Douma.\u00a9 <\/em>WebExibit<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jerold Frakes shows in his enthralling article that V\u00ednland is represented in these sagas by a certain type of colonialist discourse, now known as Eurocentrism<\/strong>. He analyses the patterns shared by the sagas and medieval Latin travel narratives. Both genres use Eurocentric motifs in the representation of the lands of the West. Frakes explains that the sagas are full of references to the Latin literary topoi<\/em> because Icelandic writers received their education through the Latin Church and \u201cwere imbued by the great books of medieval pan-European Christian intellectual culture\u201d (167). In order to prove his argument, he enumerates the Latin sources to which the Icelanders had access in the 13th<\/sup> century, as for instance Etymologi\u00e6<\/em> by Isidore of Seville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Frakes, the garden of Eden from the Bible and the Fortunate Isles from Greek mythology are the basis for describing V\u00ednland as an earthly paradise<\/a> with an idealized landscape. This land can appear as an Eden because the Skr\u00e6lingar<\/em> \u2014the inhabitants of V\u00ednland\u2014 are potentially Christians, but in the same time it is a mythic place due to its anomalous inhabitants, such as unipeds. However, the most striking features that transform the unknown land of the West into a biblical and mythological idyll are the self-sown wheat and grapes that inspired the name given to V\u00ednland \u2014 the land of Wine. Since Antiquity, the motif of uncultivated grapes and grain growing in the western region has suggested a mythical place of abundance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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