Romantic Norths

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Introduction: ‘the less known, but equally romantic, regions of the north’

   • Cian Duffy

   Pages 1-27

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3. ‘Imaginary circles round the human mind’: Bias and Openness in Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796)

   • Christoph Bode

   Pages 29-51

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4. British Travellers Visiting Finland: from ‘Enlightened’ Expectations to ‘Romantic’ Fulfilment

   • Leena Eilittä

   Pages 53-73

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5. Constructing and Classifying ‘the North’: Linnaeus and Lapland

   • Annika Lindskog

   Pages 75-99

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6. Inventing Jutland for the ‘Golden Age’: Danish Artists Guided by Sir Walter Scott

   • Gertrud Oelsner

   Pages 101-127

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7. ‘They dance all under the greenwood tree’: British and Danish Romantic-Period Adaptations of Two Danish ‘Elf Ballads’

   • Lis Møller

   Pages 129-152

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8. ‘The North’ and ‘the East’: The Odin Migration Theory

   • Robert Rix

   Pages 153-179

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9. ‘These children of nature’: Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth-Century Danish Imaginings of Greenland

   • Lone Kølle Martinsen

   Pages 181-202

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10. Locating Norway in ‘the North’: the Cultural Geography of Norway in Strickland’s ‘Arthur Ridley; or, a Voyage to Norway’ (1826) and Andersen’s ‘Elverhøi’ (1845)

    • Elettra Carbone

    Pages 203-229

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11. A ‘remote and cheerless possession’: Early Nineteenth-Century British Imaginings of Newfoundland

    • Pam Perkins

    Pages 231-249

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12. Coda: Comparing the Literature of ‘the North’ – William Wordsworth and Jens Baggesen

    • Cian Duffy

    Pages 251-258

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13. Back Matter

    Pages 259-281

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This book explores various forms of cultural influence and exchange between Britain and the Nordic countries in the late eighteenth century and romantic period. Broadly new-historicist in approach, but drawing also on influential descriptions of genre, discipline, mediation, cultural exchange, and comparative methodologies, these essays not only constitute a substantial and innovative contribution to scholarly understanding of the development of romanticisms and romantic nationalisms in Britain and the Nordic countries, but also describe a pattern of cultural encounter which was predicated upon exchange and a sense of commonality rather than upon the perception of difference or alterity which has so often been discerned by critical descriptions of British romantic-period engagements with non-British cultures. The volume ought to appeal to a broad and genuinely international academic audience with interests in eighteenth-century and romantic-period culture in Britain and Scandinavia as well as to undergraduates taking courses in eighteenth-century, romantic, and Scandinavian studies.

• Sweden
• Nationalism
• Scandinavia
• Historiography
• Cultural Exchanges

“Romantic Norths challenges the assumption that European Romanticism was dominated by the supposedly major British, French and German traditions. The collection instead focuses on complex reciprocal influences through trans-national circulation, and demonstrates that canon-formation in Britain has close parallels to, and frequent dependence on, Nordic culture. It exemplifies the high quality of recent European scholarship and debate throughout, providing a salutary reminder to most Anglophone readers of how little they know about these issues (and how much of what they had assumed was wrong).” (Prof Stephen Clark, Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, Japan)

• Lund University, Lund, Sweden

  Cian Duffy

Cian Duffy is Professor of English Literature at Lund University, Sweden.  He has published articles, books and editions dealing with various aspects of the intellectual life and cultural history of late eighteenth-century and Romantic-period Britain.

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