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Christian attitude to his poetry: the pagan Other is accepted, albeit with
necessary precautions.31
Integrating the other is a major characteristic of european culture.
one could even say that it is based upon this integration, since Christianity,
which is the dominant ideology of the Medieval West, is founded on a
fusion of Jewish religion and Greco-Roman culture. One could continue to
say that the vibrant culture of lay men throughout the countries of Western
europe is a consequence of the integration of the Celtic and/or Germanic
cultural heritages into the mainstream. the best example of this is the
importance of the Celtic “matière de Bretagne” in the develop ment of
medieval literature. The way Icelanders integrated their pagan heritage
while at the same time participating in producing a culture common to all
Christian countries in the West is quite in line with this tendency; this is
why the concepts of purity and influence are not useful to understanding
Iceland’s relationship to Southern Europe in the Middle Ages. I would
prefer a more dynamic concept, that of culture as something which is con
tinually reinventing itself, both in its relationship to the cultures of others
but also in relationship to itself as other. Medieval Icelanders constructed
their own identity and culture by viewing their pagan past as other but also
by integrating this particular otherness of their past into the Christian
secular culture of their own time.
RefeRenCeS
Andersson, theodore M. “Skalds and troubadours.” Mediaeval Scandinavia
(1969): 7–41.
Ármann jakobsson. Í leit að konungi. Konungsmynd íslenskra konungasagna.
Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 1997.
Ármann jakobsson. “Royal biography.” A Companion to Old NorseIcelandic
Literature and Culture, ed. by Rory McTurk. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, 388–
402.
Ármann jakobsson. Staður í nýjum heimi. Konungasagan Morkinskinna. Reykjavík:
Háskólaútgáfan, 2002.
31 for a discussion of egill’s theological status, see torfi H. tulinius, “Le statut théologique
d’egill SkallaGrímsson,” Hugr. Mélanges d'histoire, de littérature et de mythologie offerts à
Régis Boyer pour son 65e anniversaire (Paris: Presses de l’université de ParisSorbonne, 1997),
279–88.
tHe SeLf AS otHeR