Narrating Blindness and Seeing Ocularcentrism in Þorsteins saga hvíta

Abstract

This article explores Þorsteins saga hvíta using a disability studies approach. It considers how the saga’s depiction of the eponymous Þorsteinn might reflect how vision loss or blindness was perceived and may have affected the everyday life of medieval Icelanders. Greater focus, however, is placed upon how the saga makes use of Þorsteinn’s vision loss and subsequent blindness to confront the hegemony of vision in connection with both knowledge and narrative.