Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1931. / Bibliography: p. 107-121.

Thesis--Utrecht. / "Stellingen" inserted at end.

Thesis--Utrecht. / "Stellingen" inserted at end.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Bryn Mawr college, 1933. / Vita. "Saga texts": p. 101.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Bryn Mawr college, 1933. / Vita. "Saga texts": p. 101.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1938. / Lithoprinted. "Private edition, distributed by the University of Chicago libraries, Chicago, Illinois." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen, 1985. / Summaries in English and Dutch. Includes bibliographical references (p. 218-224) and index.

The nature of life after death is only tentatively sketched out in the canonical writings of the Christian Church, yet it represents one of the most prominent literary subjects in medieval Europe. The so-called Visiones represent a genre that enjoyed a particularly broad dissemination between the fourth and thirteenth centuries. This study aims to assess the impact of this Latin tradition on Norse-Icelandic authors and processes of cultural appropriation evident in medieval vernacular adaptations of the genre. The first chapter outlines the historical and theological conditions surrounding the genre’s dissemination in Western Scandinavia and identifies the primary corpus of vernacular adaptations of the genre to be analysed in this study. Chapter II considers the literary contexts in which Visio-conventions have been integrated, highlighting the distinctive generic and creative diversity exhibited in the primary corpus. Chapters III and IV are concerned with the literary motif of the journey to the otherworld and its importance in Old Norse literary traditions across the period of Christianisation. The former examines signs of continuity on a conceptual level between traditional native and Christian narratives about the otherworld, suggesting that the journey motif represented a sustained source of literary creativity in pre- and post-conversion societies. The latter examines this notion of continuity with reference to two significant literary symbols, the otherworld shoe and the otherworld bridge, and their pregnant resonances in Norse Icelandic records of myth, law, and religious ritual; it will here be shown how certain symbols found in vernacular accounts of the afterlife produce a rich set of connotations meaningful within their particular cultural setting. The final Chapter analyses the social mentality encoded in portrayals of the idealised hereafter, and it will be argued that portrayals of eschatological justice and the topography of heaven reflect attitudes characteristic of the societies from which these visions emerge. The thesis as a whole thereby calls attention to the broad and deep nature of the Visio genre’s impact on Western Scandinavian literary culture, suggesting that this particular genre-oriented study may serve as a case study of the reception of Christian literary traditions in medieval Iceland and Norway more generally.

The development of the video game industry and the increasing popularity of the medium as a form of entertainment have led to significant developments in the discipline of game studies and a growing awareness of the cultural significance of video games as cultural artefacts. While much work has been done to understand the narrative aspect of games, there are still theoretical gaps on the understanding of how video games generate their narrative experience and how this experience is shaped by the player and the game as artefact. This interdisciplinary study investigates how meaning is created in Western Role Playing Games (WRPGs) video games by analysing the narrative strategies they employ in relation to those commonly used in Heroic Epic and Fantasy narratives. It adopts the Bakhtinian concepts of chronotope and dialogue as the main theoretical tools to examine the creation and integration of narratives in WRPGs with a special focus on the time-space perspective. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Dragon Age Origins were chosen as representatives of the WRPG video game genre while Beowulf and the tale of Sigurd, as it appears in the Poetic Edda and the Volsung Saga, were chosen as representatives of the Heroic Epic poetic tradition. References are also made to Fantasy novels, especially the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Textual analysis along with some techniques employed by researchers working with visual methodologies and compositional interpretation were used to analyse relevant aspects of the texts and games. The findings suggest that intertextual and genre materials considerably shape the narrative of WRPGs and exercise a profound dialogical effect on the ludonarrative harmony of the games investigated through their interaction with the game world and gameplay systems. This relationship is most visible in the chronotopic (time-space) aspect of the chosen games. The findings also suggest that Epic material dialogically orients the WRPG players' experience and adjusts their expectations and understanding of the fictional world. This study as well as the refining of chronotopic analytical tools to encompass chronotopic awareness, transportation, and flow may be of use in further chronotopic investigations of different games, literary genres, and/or other media artefacts.

This thesis investigates the representation of land and landownership in medieval Icelandic texts. I shall demonstrate that there is scant homogeneity in this representation; the variation between different narratives is startling and unusual. I seek to categorise this variability by identifying the lack of a secure tradition surrounding land and landownership, and exploring the possibilities open to the saga author to use land practices and myths as literary devices or to glorify the past. I also examine variability caused by the differences in the realm of 'actual' experience. I shall explore a range of narratives, from stories of the initial settlement of Iceland, to issues of inheritance, to conveyance and to dispute over territory. The last chapter takes a flip-side view of landownership to consider the representation of the landless of family saga narrative. The texts which I shall examine are the Íslendingasögur, Landnádmabók and Íslendingabók. Throughout the thesis I also make reference to Grágás for illumination and comparison. In the first and second chapters I also include archaeological evidence for discussion.