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Unsettling: Transgression And Travel In The Literature Of The Medieval North Atlantic, Jeremy P. Deangelo

Doctoral Dissertations

This project examines the significance of travel, both as practice and metaphor, in Anglo-Saxon literature, placed in the context of the neighboring traditions of the Irish and the Icelanders. It identifies in early Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse literature a metaphor wherein one’s literal movement (“conduct”) in the story represents their behavior (“conduct”) in life. Using the poem The Whale as its test case, it describes the Christian concept of discretio spirituum (“the Discernment of Spirits”) as a tool for distinguishing good conduct from bad. With these terms established, the project examines actual travelers in Anglo-Saxon literature for lessons in conduct. …