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January 24, 2003

I've at least started thinking

I've at least started thinking about my Norse essay again, and reading the ghost passage from Njal's Saga just reminds me of how important the theme of defiance has be. Yes, both Gunnar's are defiant as such, but what is the essential difference between them? One is elaborating a textually ambivalent challenge to the operation of the law, while the other directs that defiance against an adversarial other who represents the antithesis of order. And yet both maintain the centrality of what is right - correct personal conduct which in many was is made seperate from the aegis of the law. That would be how one text illuminates the other, that while Atlakvida presents the defiance of disorderly and anarchic forces, Njal's Saga shows that defiance to be independant of notions of law or prescriptive order. Atlakvida is the raw presentation of the extreme ideal, whereas Njals Saga puts that ideal in a broader socialogical context.
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Posted by subtitles at January 24, 2003 7:17 PM | Blogger Entries