Friday Friyay: 'Strategies of Passion' by Bjørn Bandlien

Happy Friday! I'm currently in Germany to sort out paperwork for my upcoming job and to, hopefully, all fingers crossed, find an apartment for myself and my furbaby. But in order to distract myself from all the hullaballoo, I'm also getting started on reading which my PhD supervisor has recommended. One of those books is Stratiegies of Passion: Love and Marriage in Old Norse Society by Bjørn Bandlien.

This book is concerned with the social and gendered meanings of love in medieval Norway and Iceland. In the Viking Age, to love would most often imply a submissive social position, while being loved by a woman could elevate a man above the status of her family. Women were supposed to love upwards in the social hierarchy, but could also use their desire to negotiate the social position of men. A close reading of the skaldic poetry shows the dilemma men faced when longing for women's love and approval. These ideas of love relations shaped Norse interpretations of courtly love and marriage formation by consent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. However, new ideas of sexuality, gender and aristocratic culture changed several aspects of love and marital affection in the later middle ages. Men became the loving subject, but in a way that did not challenge the social order. For women, ideal love was attached to humility and submission to parents and husband. But even though the new ideology of love and marriage to some extent neutralized the tensions between consent and parental control, the sources show that both men and women could use the new conceptions of love to serve their own marital and social strategies.

Book Beginnings is at home on Rose City Reader, hosted by Gilion Dumas, and Friday 56 at Freda's Voice, hosted by Freda. I'll also be joining the Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Billy over at Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.

BB:

'Love stories are important stories. It is important to understand them: this experience we call love, as ostensibly personal and genuinely impulsive as it is, is also charged with culturally determined symbols, codes, and narrative structures.' p.1

I loved this opening, which is why I decided to feature it today! I always shied away from stories that were overtly about love because, as a grumpy teenager, I thought that this was somehow not as important as stories about other topics. But over the years I've come to realise how important love is for humanity, how much love stories tell us about ourselves, what we think is acceptable, what we think is good. So I'm very excited for this to be part of my research now as well!

F56:

'Through Vagn, the saga portrays women and the associated status of chieftain as a trophy the warrior must win on the battlefield. But the military brotherhood of Jómsborg is constructed as a masculine space where women are a threat to the warriors' toughness.' p.56

Aah here we have it, the double-edged sword of women in masculine spheres" on the one hand we're oh so necessary for status but we are also a threat. It is exactly this fine line I want to eplore further, and then focus on those women who find themselves stepping over that line and becoming dangerous.

BBH:

This week's question was suggested by Julie from Stepping Stone Book Reviews:

What are some of your favourite books?

Omg Julie, what a question! Where do I even start?! I think I'm just going to have to list this out... This list is in no specific order and I've kept it to "modern" books but just assume the Old English Beowulf and the Old Norse Eddas are also on this list.

• Persuasion and Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen.
• I love these books, specifically for Austen's razor-sharp insight into people and for the way I keep finding new things about them to appreciate.
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
• I love this book because it's not worried about people being likeable. It still feels so modern to me for that reason, because so few authors are willing to truly write characters that are irredeemable and yet human, characters that do horrible things and are yet capable of deep love. I'm obsessed with this book.
• The Actual Star by Monica Byrne.
• This book found me during a rough time last year and it managed to really take me out of myself. So I'm eternally grateful to Byrne. It also really changed what I thought a book could do, what an author could possibly juggle and bring together. Honestly, go read this book.
• The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.
• Yes, I'm one of those people. I just love the mythology and grandness of it, the scale is just epic and I don't even mind I can't keep the timeline or the characters straight, that's all part of the fun!
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
• I recently reread this book and it once again blew me away. Jackson is such a master of suspense, but she also knows just how to blend in some humour and utter tragedy to make her work insightful. Also, Eleanor as a character hits differently now that I'm older, which is rough for me.
• The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton.
• Of course I needed some fantasy on this list, aside from Tolkien, and Gratton's The Queens of Innis Lear is honestly amazing. It's so sumptuous and deep in its worldbuilding that you just get submerged in it. I didn't want to resurface, if I'm honest.
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
• This book first introduced me to the beauty of Russian literature while also just amazing me. It's so complex, with so many different storylines intertwining, but it's also a portrait of an artist struggling under censorship and a woman wanting to be free. It's just amazing and, in my opinion, pretty accessible so please give it a try!

That's me for today! What do you think of the opening of Strategies of Passion? And what are your favourite books?