Full text loading...
This article argues that play is prioritized and placed centrally in the Prose Edda. It shows that this medieval text engages with play both on a metacommunicative level and in the stories it tells. It points out that the actual subject matter of the Prose Edda, skaldic poetry, is a serious mode of expression which contains several play-elements. The article draws on theories of play (Huizinga, Caillois, Sutton-Smith, Classen) and investigates how various definitions of play can help us to qualify and explain play as a complex and ambiguous phenomenon in a particular textual and historical setting.
Article metrics loading...
Full text loading...