The Sea in Nordic Literature

Oceanic Criticism and Blue Humanities
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-08941-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 298 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 598 g

Reihe: Routledge Environmental Humanities

The first collection to address the role of the oceanic in literary texts and traditions from across the Nordic region, this book explores applications of ecocriticism, postcolonial theory, new materialism, and gender studies at a time when interest in marine ecosystems and their vulnerabilities to anthropogenic climate change is generating new theoretical insights and interest across the humanities.

The Nordic countries with their long coastlines and archipelagic geographies have long histories of seafaring and mariculture. This book simultaneously introduces Nordic literatures about the sea to international scholars with an interest in the oceanic and blue humanities to scholars working within Scandinavian/Nordic Studies. Its historical sweep incorporates the work of Nordic writers of particular significance for European and world literature, such as Henrik Ibsen and Tove Jansson; it also explores texts known chiefly within the Northern countries, including contemporary literature engaging with the sea; and historical texts, such as the Icelandic sagas and Early Modern seafaring guides. The book takes an innovative geographical orientation, grouping chapters to correspond to the various pelagic ecosystems that surround the Scandinavian Peninsula and connect it to the rest of the globe.

The combination of canonical and lesser-known texts with key theoretical approaches makes the volume ideal for teaching. With its broad historical and theoretical scope, The Sea in Nordic Literature is a valuable resource for scholars and students in blue humanities, Scandinavian and Nordic studies, and comparative literature.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Felcht, Frederike

Frank, Søren

Ritson, Katie

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literatur: Sammlungen, Anthologien
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part 1: The Baltic Sea  1. The sea as an empty space in early modern literature: Johan Månsson's Sea-Book about Seafaring on the Baltic Sea  2. Gulf of Finland temporalities: Petroculture, geopolitics, and Tove Jansson’s resonant island 3. Obstructed passages: Archipelagic thinking and planetary reach in Tomas Tranströmer’s Östersjöar  4. Writing the deluge: Drachmann and the 1872 Baltic Sea flood  Part 2: The Wadden Sea, the North Sea, and the Norwegian Sea  5. Coastal writing: The Wadden Sea in the works of Steen Steensen Blicher, Peter Seeberg, and Dorthe Nors 6. The industrialised North Sea: Introducing tough oil fiction 7. Rimbereid’s waterscapes: The North Sea viewed from Stavanger 8. Longing for what’s lost: Evolution, ecology, and multispecies entanglements in Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea  9. Mapping seascapes with Olav Duun’s novel Floodtide of Fate  Part 3: Iceland Sea, Greenland Sea, and Arctic Sea  10. “Narrating the sea”: The journey to Iceland in travel narratives of the modern period 11. Plenty and peril: The sea in the sagas of Icelanders 12. Investigating the Arctic ecotone: The Arctic Ocean in Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow  Part 4: The Atlantic Ocean  13. The “Troll whale” demystified in the North Atlantic in the early modern period: From Olaus Magnus’ map to the witchcraft trials 14. Sexuality at sea: The challenge of entanglement in Amalie Skram’s Betrayed (1892) 15. The Atlantification of Faroese literature: An archipelagic reading of Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen’s Barbara  16. Atlantic crossings, departures, and returns in Marjam Indriss' Halvt  Part 5: The Global Sea and the Undersea  17. “All the world was blue”: The sea in Isak Dinesen’s stories 18. How to read a wave: August Strindberg in the surf 19. “A Sea Without Direction”: The Deep in contemporary Icelandic literature 20. Risen from the foam: Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales as aquatic texts

Über Autor(innen)

Frederike Felcht is Professor of Scandinavian Literature and Culture at Goethe University Frankfurt. Her current research focuses on literature and the environment and on poverty in Scandinavian literature.

Søren Frank is Professor of Nordic Literature at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on ocean and coastal literatures, blue humanities, and the Anthropocene.

Katie Ritson is Assistant Professor in the Scandinavian Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on literature and environment in the context of northern Europe, in particular on the North Sea and its coastlines.