Norwegian Literature Giuliano D’Amico, Volda University College

1. General NLÅ, ed. Heming Gujord and Per Arne Michelsen, Oslo, Det norske samlaget, 284 pp., contains the usual overviews of Norwegian fiction, poetry and literary criticism from 2012 and a number of scholarly articles. In this issue, Dag Solstad and Johan Harstad are the subject of two articles each, with individual articles on Karl Ove Knausgård, Øyvind Berg, Knut Faldbakken, Kristofer Uppdal, Ulav Duun and Sigbjørn Obstfelder. Geschichte der Edition in Skandinavien, ed. Paula Henrikson and Christian Janss, Berlin, de Gruyter, vii + 537 pp., includes several well-researched chapters on the history of publishing in Norway, ranging from Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla to the collected works of Petter Dass and the different critical editions of Henrik Ibsen’s works. The book also contains overviews of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Essayet, ed. Arne Melberg, Oslo U.P., 482 pp., is a comprehensive critical anthology of essays from the Western canon translated into Norwegian. Among the many authors, M. comments upon selected texts by Ludvig Holberg, Aasmund O. Vinje, Camilla Collett, Nils Kjær, Sigrid Undset, Jens Bjørneboe, Georg Johannessen and Gunnhild Øyehaug. Kjønnsforhandlinger. Studier i kunst, film og litteratur, ed. Anne Birgitte Rønning and Geir Uvsløkk, Oslo, Pax, 294 pp., is an anthology of gender studies-influenced articles on art, film and literature. Three articles focus on Norwegian literature, the first on the representation of mothers in contemporary novels, the second on the critic Mathilde Schjøtt and her readings of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Henrik Ibsen, and the third on gender roles in Knut Hamsun’s Sult.

2. Tenth to Sixteenth Centuries Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, Women in Old Norse Literature. Bodies, Words and Power, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 192 pp., mainly focuses on the representation of women in Icelandic sagas, but offers a number of references to the Norwegian kings’ sagas as well. Magnús Fjalldal, ‘Beware of Norwegian Kings: Heimskringla as Propaganda’, ScSt, 85.4:455–68, proposes an intriguing reading of Snorri Sturluson’s sagas of the Norwegian kings as a warning of the danger they represented for the stability of Iceland. Drawing upon detailed descriptions of the kings’ atrocities and the rare cases in which Snorri comments on their behaviour, F. gives a curious yet convincing picture of one of Heimskringla’s possible goals. Bjørn Bandlien, ‘Hegemonic Memory, Counter-Memory, and Struggles for Royal Power: The Rhetoric of the Past in the Age of King Sverrir Sigurðsson of Norway’, ib., 85.3:355–77, is a study of the concept of memory in King Sverrir’s time, with a number of references to contemporary sagas of Norwegian matter. Suzanne Marti, ‘Tristrams saga revisited’, MM, 1:39–68, is a lexical study of Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, which has long been considered as the first riddarasaga composed in Norway. Drawing, among other things, on translation studies, the author suggests a revision of such assumption based on lexical evidence. Siân Grønlie, ‘þáttr and Saga: The Long and the Short of Óláfr Tryggvason’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 9:19–36, is a study of the short stories (þáttir) included in different compilations of Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar en mesta, which focuses on the eponymous Norwegian king. Francesco Norwegian Literature 543

Sangriso, ‘La proprietà non è un furto: beni fondiari e potere sovrano nella Norvegia medievale’, Quaderni di palazzo Serra, 22:74–90, is a study of the concept and representation of land tenure in medieval Norway that partially draws upon Heimskringla. Nicolas Meylan, ‘The Magical Power of Poetry’, Saga-book, 37:43–60, argues that 13th-c. Icelandic and Norwegian skaldic poetry had experienced such a dramatic lack of interest that the skalds started representing their poetry as a carrier of magical power, in order to regain recognition in the public sphere. Åslaug Ommundsen, ‘The Word of God and the Stories of Saints: Medieval Liturgy and Its Reception in Norway’, pp. 45–66 of The Performance of Christian and Pagan Storyworlds: Non-Canonical Chapters of the History of Nordic Medieval Literature, ed. Alexandra Bergholm, Turnhout, Brepols, x + 448 pp., focuses on liturgical texts and stories of saints in the Norwegian medieval church. It includes a discussion of specifically Norwegian material such as the story of St Olaf.

3. Seventeenth to Mid-Nineteenth Centuries Hansen, Maurits C. Lars Rune Waage, ‘“Min Grav den er som Natten mørk” - om det uhyggelige og traumatiske i Maurits C. Hansens “Novellen” (1827)’, NLitT, 16.1:4–15, is a well- informed study of repetitions in H.’s short story and their relationship to Freud’s ‘uncanny’. As a whole, it is a valuable contribution to the limited number of studies of this author. Holberg, Ludvig. Rolv Nøtvik Jacobsen, ‘Vekselbruk mellom skjønnlitteratur og sakprosa. Holbergs Den politiske Kandestøber som replikk og eksempel til dei ulike utgåvene av Natur- og Folkeretten’, Edda, 113.2:130–45, is a witty contribution, inspired by political history and textual criticism, on the relationship and interplay between H.’s comedy of 1722 and his treaty on natural law of 1716. Lasse Gammelgaard, ‘Fortællende digte og sirlig løgn. Pseudofakticitet og urimeligt rimet aleksandrinertale i Ludvig Holbergs Peder Paars’, Nordica, 30:203–32, is a study of fact and fiction in H.’s poem. In the second part of the article, the author argues intriguingly that the verse form and its different features emphasize the pseudofactual nature of Peder Paars. Arild Linneberg, ‘From Natural Law to the Nature of Laws: Ludvig Holberg’, pp. 77–84 of Law and Justice in Literature, Film and Theater. Nordic Perspectives, ed. Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Berlin, de Gruyter, 169 pp., is a short discussion of the representation of natural law in Niels Klim and some of H.’s comedies. Florence Chapuis, ‘Du voyage d’étude à l’intertexualité: le dialogue avec la France dans l’œuvre de Ludvig Holberg’, Revue de la BNU, 8:19–26, is a short overview article on L.’s relationship to France, with a particular focus on the intertextuality between his texts and those of Molière. Munch, Andreas. Den Eensomme, ed. Ernst Bjerke and Bjørn Tysdahl, Oslo, Andreas Munch-selskapet, xxvii + 96 pp., features an informative introduction and an afterword (originally published in Edda in 2009), which emphasize the importance of M.’s 1846 short novel for Norwegian late romantic prose.

4. Mid-Nineteenth to Mid-Twentieth Centuries General. Dette skrev kvinner, ed. Lene T. Teigen, Oslo, Vidarforlaget, 178 pp., is a collection of articles on Scandinavian female playwrights and includes contributions on Magdalene Thoresen, Hanna Butenschon, Laura Kieler (who later became a model for Ibsen’s Et dukkehjem) and Hulda Garborg. It also includes a final chapter on other Norwegian female dramatists of the period 1870–1910. Kierkegaard’s Influence on Literature, Criticism and Art. III: Sweden and Norway, ed. Jon Stewart, Farnham, Ashgate, xiii + 202 pp., contains two chapters on the reception and influence of K.’s works on Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and Henrik Ibsen. In the former, Esben