Nordic Women's Writing and Religious Faith

Female Agency From the 16th Century to the Early 20th Century
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-42905-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Historical Women's Writing

This book explores how Nordic women writers had one thing in common for more than 400 years: they had to relate to a Lutheran state church. This cross-disciplinary anthology brings together 13 studies on Nordic women's writing, examined through the lens of religion. Whereas the Lutheran state churches restricted women's agency, they simultaneously provided platforms for women's voices during the period covered in the anthology: from the Protestant Reformation around 1550 until around 1920. A wide range of material is investigated—from a prayer book owned by a noblewoman during the Reformation in Denmark to transcriptions of spiritualist séances held in the early twentieth century by the Norwegian women's rights activist Ragna Nielsen; from Icelandic poetry on female martyr saints to Finnish late-nineteenth-century feminist magazines; from unpublished poems written in a leprosy hospital in Iceland by the unknown Kristín Guðmundsdóttir to novels written by the world-famous Swedish author Fredrika Bremer. The focus is on Lutheran Christianity, but the anthology unearths an undercurrent of Catholic, Marian devotion running through the centuries. As the twentieth century drew near, the religious landscape was diversified—the revivalist movements are highlighted in Norwegian hymns and Finnish novels, while the Swedish-Jewish Sophie Elkan's short stories are related to Rabbinic storytelling.

This volume is essential reading for students and scholars of Nordic literature, women's studies, religious studies, and cultural history. It addresses broad subject areas including gender and religion, literary history, Scandinavian studies, feminist theology, and the intersection of faith and women's agency in early modern and modern Europe.

The chapters in this book were originally published as special issues of Women’s Writing.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bohlin, Anna

Eggertsdóttir, Margrét

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Gattungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Schreiben und Publizieren, Kreatives Schreiben
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Feminismus, Feministische Theorie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: Nordic Women and Religious Faith 1. “Pray for me”. The Case of Marine Lauridsdatter’s Prayer Book 2. The Company She Keeps: Poetry on Female Martyr Saints in Early Modern Icelandic Manuscripts 3. The Saint and the Sea: Úrsúlukvæði and Women’s Mobility in Premodern Iceland 4. Sacred poetry at Snæfellsnes: Kristín Árnadóttir's book of rímur 5. The Excessive Grief of Helga Jónsdóttir: Poem, Response Poem, and Historical Context 6. The Cross and the Pen: On Ingeborg Grytten’s writing 7. Norwegian Hymnwriter Berte Kanutte Aarflot’s Contemporary Role and her Indebtedness to The Forgotten Women Emissaries of The Hauge Movement 8. Awakenings: Women Writers, Religious Faith, and Women’s Agency in Nineteenth-Century Finland 9. The Nordic Emancipation Novels of the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Between Lutheran Nationalism and Catholic Calling 10. The Cheerful Leprous Poet of Suffering: The Case of Kristín Guðmundsdóttir 11. Fiction, Moral Reform, and Religion – Finnish Feminists at the Turn of the Century 12. Hebrew Motifs in a Secularized Jewish Context: Sophie Elkan’s Short Stories 13. “Is it you, Bjørnson?” Ragna Nielsen’s Spiritualism as a Hauntology of the Modern Breakthrough

Über Autor(innen)

Anna Bohlin is Professor of Nordic Literature at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her main research interests are in Scandinavian nineteenth-century literature, with a focus on feminism, religion, and nationalism. Recent publications include co-editing the cross-disciplinary anthology Tracing the Jerusalem Code III: Christian Cultures in Modern Scandinavia (ca. 1750–ca. 1920) (2021).

Margrét Eggertsdóttir is Research Professor at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík. She has co-edited an edition of the works of Hallgrímur Pétursson (1614–1674), authored numerous scholarly publications on the literature of late pre-modern Iceland, and led several research projects on early modern Icelandic literature.