UC Berkeley

This study explores the bearing that theories of cultural and collective memory and national identity have on Icelanders' preoccupation with competing versions of their past, especially their foundational story. To enable a narrower focus, I place an emphasis on representations of the figure of the founding father and first settler of Iceland, the Norwegian chieftain-son and Viking Ingólf(u)r Arnarson, said to have settled on the island in the year 870 or 874. The material covered ranges from the twelfth century to the present, and comprises various forms of media, such as the earliest preserved texts in the Icelandic vernacular, geographical treatises in Latin, baroque and romantic poetry, visual art, political petitions and protest songs, and newspaper editorial letters.