Northern Barbarians: Icelandic canons of civilisation

Abstract

The notion of civilisation implies its own negation – that which is not civilised. For civilisation to register, a negative mirror image must be invoked, located either in another time or in another place. Whether the opposition is constructed temporally or spatially, and whether it is symbolic or real, images of otherness may provide fresh insights into the constitution of the declared civilisation. For the early Nordic civilisation on the edge of the European world, a study of its proposed ‘others’ reveals how the idea of being civilised owes as much to classical thought as to the contemporary Nordic outlook. In the case of Iceland, literary and other written sources provide rich material for reflecting on the Icelanders’ perceived position in the world; by defining and redefining ‘the others’, they constantly sought to distinguish themselves and to draw the relevant boundaries of their own civilisation. This paper starts by exposing some of the classical ideas of civilisation and otherness by which the Icelandic singularities may be measured. Having themselves once been perceived as Barbarians of the North, the Icelanders were particularly explicit in redrawing the boundaries of proper culture. Through their literary efforts, they provided canons of a civilisation that is recognisably ‘European’, yet also quite distinct.