Representations of the North in Victorian Travel Literature 1443870846, 9781443870849

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
PART I
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
PART II
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
PART III
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
PART IV
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
PART V
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
PART VI
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
PART VII
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Citation preview

Representations of the North in Victorian Travel Literature

Representations of the North in Victorian Travel Literature By

Dimitrios Kassis

Representations of the North in Victorian Travel Literature By Dimitrios Kassis This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Dimitrios Kassis All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7084-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7084-9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Abstract .................................................................................................... viii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Part I: Northern Utopia and British Nationhood Chapter One ............................................................................................... 12 The Concept of Northern Utopia Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 21 Nineteenth-Century Racial Theories on the North Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 35 Debates on Gender in Scandinavia and Britain Part II: Late Eighteenth-Century Travel Literature and the North Chapter One ............................................................................................... 44 William Coxe: Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 53 Mary Wollstonecraft: Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark Part III: Swedish Utopia Chapter One ............................................................................................... 66 Samuel Laing: Tour in Sweden in 1838: Comprising Observations on the Moral, Political, and Economical State or the Swedish Nation Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 94 Selina Bunbury: A Summer in Northern Europe, Including Sketches in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Aland Islands, Gothland

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Table of Contents

Part IV: Norwegian Utopia Chapter One ............................................................................................. 118 Frederick Metcalfe: The Oxonian in Thelemarken Chapter Two ............................................................................................ 156 Emily Lowe: Unprotected Females in Norway: Or, the pleasantest Way of Travelling there, passing through Denmark and Sweden Part V: Icelandic Utopia Chapter One ............................................................................................. 184 Sabine Baring-Gould: Iceland its Scenes and Sagas Chapter Two ............................................................................................ 205 Elizabeth J. Oswald: By Fell and Fjord or Scenes and Studies in Iceland Part VI: Danish Utopia Chapter One ............................................................................................. 234 Horace Marryat: A Residence in Jutland, the Danish Isles, and Copenhagen Chapter Two ............................................................................................ 261 Lady Wilde (Jane Francesca Elgee): Driftwood from Scandinavia Part VII: Finnish Utopia Chapter One ............................................................................................. 280 Charles Boileau-Elliott: Letters from the North of Europe; Or a Journal of Travels in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Prussia and Saxony Chapter Two ............................................................................................ 302 Ethel Brilliana (Alec) Tweedie: Through Finland in Carts Conclusion ............................................................................................... 338 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 347

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to those who supported me throughout this three-year research. First and foremost, I would like to thank my mother and sisters who needed to make several sacrifices, both financially and emotionally, so that I could complete this research project; indeed without their understanding I would not have been able to complete my research. Apart from my family, it is equally vital to acknowledge the contribution of my supervisors Dr. Efterpi Mitsi, Dr. Vassiliki Markidou and Professor William Schultz; they provided me with the appropriate feedback and enlightened me about various issues of a practical nature. In addition, I wish to thank CIMO for financing my six-month research stay at the University of Eastern Finland under the supervision of Professor Jopi Nyman who undoubtedly contributed to my familiarisation with the Nordic historical context. Finally, I would like to thank Professor Risto Turunen for kindly assisting me in my research on nineteenth-century Finnish culture.

ABSTRACT

Travel literature has always been associated with the construction of utopias which were founded on the idea of unknown lands. During their journeys in foreign lands, British travellers tended to formulate various critical opinions based on their background knowledge on the country visited. Their attempts to interpret other nations were often misinterpretations of the peoples in question as the Other. At the close of the eighteenth century, when Grand Tourism started to fade away and travelling became a mainstream activity for the middle-class Briton, travel writers attempted to identify with the corners of Europe which had not been spoiled by the spirit of industrialisation. Influenced by the concepts of the Noble Savage, the Volksgeist and the Theory of Climate, British travellers were eager to discover a utopia in sequestered places commonly labelled as peripheries, like Scandinavia. Moreover, throughout the nineteenth century, racial theories such as Teutonism, Anglo-Saxonism, and Nordicism dominated the imperialist discourse of Britain. Therefore, an increasing number of Victorian travellers treated the North as a utopian locus which could be examined in the light of the aforementioned racial theories, or were attracted to the Nordic countries due to their rediscovery of the Old Norse literature. This book deals with travel narratives on the North that were produced from 1784 to 1897 by both male and female writers whose conceptualisation of gender impacted on their writing. In addition, I demonstrate that these travellers address Britishness through the narrative positions they assumed and through their split cultural identity: partially British, yet concurrently English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh. Given the increasing anti-Celtic spirit which emerged at that time, it is worth reflecting upon the instances in which the North was viewed as the hotbed of racial discourse on British nationhood.

INTRODUCTION

This book explores the concept of Northern Utopia in British travel literature of the Victorian period. My purpose is to focus on different dimensions of utopian writing on the Nordic countries, concentrating on issues which are intimately linked to the representation of Scandinavian countries by Victorian writers. The originality of the particular research lies in the fact that, while the representation of Anglo-Scandinavian relations- on various levels (political, cultural and racial)- in British travel literature has relatively recently become the focus of scholarship, I attempt to go one step further by analysing those travelogues that have sunk into oblivion. Another factor that reinforces the originality of the particular book is the connection I attempt to draw between the ways in which the Victorian British travellers viewed Scandinavia and how they perceived their national identity. This link brings to the foreground issues of ethnicity related to Englishness, Scottishness, Irishness, and the challenge they pose to these travellers’ self-definition. These issues have already been touched upon, yet in a different vein, in three books of seminal importance to my research: Hildor A. Barton’s Northern Arcadia: Foreign Travelers in Scandinavia, 1765-1815, Peter Fjågesund and Ruth A. Symes’ The Northern Utopia: British Perceptions of Norway in the 19th Century and Andrew Wawn’s The Vikings and the Victorians: Inventing the Old North in Nineteenth-Century Britain. I will be utilising rather extensively Barton’s term “Northern Arcadia” which denotes the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries’ set of perceptions about the North during, yet, I will lay greater emphasis on the nineteenth-century travel literature’s departure from those beliefs pertaining to the North. I have also relied on Fjågesund and Symes’ definition of the term “Northern Utopia” which aptly encapsulates the overall view of the North as a periphery “free from the burdensome conflicts of the past” or an “uncomplicated Utopia” (Fjågesund and Symes 42). However, unlike them, I treat Norway as only one facet of this Northern Utopia and attempt to prove how complicated this image of the North gradually became in the course of the nineteenth century. Indeed one of the aims of this book is to shed light on the parallel development of the inclusive British identity, on the one hand, and the “peripheral” identities of the Celtic populations of the British Isles as well as England,

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Introduction

on the other hand, as the British travellers who undertook journeys to the North inevitably carried with them stereotypical beliefs attached to their own nation. My work also draws upon Andrew Wawn’s racial and literary approach to the issue of Anglo-Saxonism in Victorian travel literature as is delineated in his aforementioned book on the Northernist movement in Victorian Britain. Inevitably, the perspective from which I seek to analyse Scandinavian and English identities entails historical and political dimensions, due to the nature of the research I have been conducting. First, I believe that the socio-cultural framework that influenced the travel writers’ view of the Scandinavian countries should be underscored. Second, I would like to stress the fact that the various depictions of Northern Utopia are deeply interwoven with the racial and philosophical theories underpinning the travel writers’ discourse. Third, I wish to point out that although the travel narratives I analyse provide by default useful insights into the Victorians’ opinion of Scandinavia, I chose not only to present the ideological framework of the epoch but also to incorporate theoretical ramifications into the analysis of these texts- such as the notion of Otherness and the Rousseausque concept of the Noble Savage- in order to be able to further substantiate my arguments. Notwithstanding the constant stress I will be laying on the reconstruction of Nordic identity by Victorian writers, the main purpose of my research is to link nineteenth-century Scandinavian nationhood with the Britons’ contemporary attempt to forge a new identity. The point I wish to make through my analysis of the texts in question is that the nation-building process of Britain is inextricably connected to its juxtaposition with other countries belonging to the ‘peripheral world’, that is, cultures which did not pertain to Britain. For this reason, when referring to the national awakening of the Scandinavians during the nineteenth century, it is equally necessary to scrutinise the respective political framework in Victorian Britain that influenced Britain’s own selfprojection in relation to other nations. It is also important to discuss how influential the writer’s gender was on the views of the foreign cultures of the North. Equal stress will be laid on the role of race in the national awakening of both the Britons and the Scandinavians in conjuction to the theories of Gobinism/ Teutonism, Anglo-Saxonism and Nordicism. My purpose, therefore, is to approach Scandinavian identity in tandem with the contemporary racial theories, the spirit of which permeates the depiction of Scandinavia as a utopian locus. Finally, I will attempt to illustrate the importance of Scandinavia in the nation-building project of the British Empire; given the frequent link that

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postcolonial discourse tends to draw between the metropolis and the colonies, I aspire to show that Britain’s cultural discourse on Scandinavia paved the way for and contributed to the peak of the British Empire. In other words, Scandinavia constituted an ideological hotbed of British nationalism throughout the nineteenth century. The first part of the book delineates the theoretical background on Scandinavian identity in the Victorian era. Given the rising imperial system in nineteenth-century Britain, the concept of the North was associated with the nation-building project of the Britons, that is, the forging of British identity generically termed Britishness. This nascent concept of Britishness comes to the fore through the Act of Union in 17071, and despite the social turmoil and political tensions it triggered, “the Union state brooked no rivals, but neither did it try to eradicate its constituent nationalities” (Robert Colls 35). In fact, British nationhood was linked to a split national identity of the British citizen, most Britons have always been aware of their separate Scottish, English or Welsh identity “and for an increasing number of them this other national identity has come to be regarded as a primary identity, and the British identity only a secondary identity, or even an identity they no longer want” (Gamble and Wright 1). This is particularly true in the case of the English who, being the dominant ethnic group of the British Isles, were particularly reluctant to identify themselves as British, an umbrella term that diminished their prevalent position as the central power and obviously attributed equal status to the Celtic “peripheries”. As pointed out by Paul Langford, But accepting that being British might involve some lessening of what it was to be English, was far more controversial. In periods when the expansion of the English state stimulated a commitment to a wider British identity, including the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it did little to erode a deeper stratum of commitment to the language of Englishness. (13)

In that sense, the English grew weary of the sudden ascension of the Scottish, Irish and Welsh Britons to the political life of the country, and therefore sought to differentiate themselves from the Celtic other by 1

Trade and social relations were considerably affected by such a Union and some Scots treated this Act as an act of treason; Robert Burns addressed his compatriots with the following verses: “O would, ere I had seen the day that Treason thus could sell us, my auld grey head had lien in clay, Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace!” (Hogg 56).

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Introduction

formulating several hypotheses which reinforced the idea of English racial supremacy over the rest of the British citizens. In fact, Kathleen Wilson contends that the notion of Englishness had already emerged by the 1760s and 1770s as a nascent ethnicity that, although certainly defined through government, institutions and language, and sharing important features with European and Celtic cultures, still had within it what we would recognize as racialized assumptions, which ranged from the superior capacity of English people for rational thought to the greater aesthetic beauty of the ‘pink and white complexion’. (13)

In light of this Anglo-Celtic conflict, the British Empire in the nineteenth-century, and especially in the mid-Victorian period, is dominated by racial theories such as the theory of Teutonism, formulated by Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau, and Anglo-Saxonism, which constitutes the ideological conceptualisation of the North by the founders of the Northernist school2 in relation to the saga tradition and Viking culture. This ideological background is explored in close connection to the AntiCeltic spirit that governed Britain, which partly accounts for the constant association of Scandinavian backwardness with the Celtic “effeminised” culture. The principal hypothesis is that the British travel writers whom I have included in my research tend to view Scandinavia from an imperialist perspective. I will attach particular attention to the role of gender so that I can draw a comparison between male and female travel writing of the same subject-matter, mainly focusing on the travellers’ exploration of the gender dynamics in the countries visited as well as their self-depiction as adventure-heroes, gender transgressors, and scientific authorities. For this reason, factors such as age, social background, gender and origin (England, Ireland or Scotland) play a fundamental role in the analysis of the travellers’ personal agenda prior to their journeys. The increasing interest in Scandinavia as an attractive locus of inspiration results from the negative impact of the French Revolution on traditional romantic settings such as Switzerland and Italy: as Barton argues, “in its nostalgic search for an unspoiled haven of peace, simplicity and innocence” (98), Europe finds a new Arcadia in Scandinavia, which functions as a modern utopia for all the European intellectuals who wish to apply the ideals of Romanticism to lands which seem to be exotic and less akin to British civilisation. The view of Scandinavia as the new Romantic 2

Its main representatives were William Morris, Frederick Metcalfe, and Sabine Baring-Gould.

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heaven is mostly explained by the concept of “Northern Utopia” (Barton 15) that emerged during the late-eighteenth century, substituting the longstanding projection of the Nordic countries as a dystopian (savage) world, and presents them as a pastoral world, free from the increasing problems that their imperial neighbour faces at the peak of its industrialisation. During that period, Scandinavia is deemed as the Northern Arcadia by British writers who see it as the northern periphery which reinforces the image of simplicity and virtue, that is, “a dream that recurred constantly in the literature and art of late-eighteenth century” (Barton 149). Nevertheless, despite the gradual construction of the Scandinavian countries as places of untouched beauty and independent inhabitants in travelogues as well as in fiction, these writers are strongly influenced by the embedded ideals and values of the British Empire given their failure to comprehend the peculiarities of Scandinavian nature: they tend to distort the image of the North (Davies 20) and they either idealise or reproach every new cultural trait they regard as alien to their own idiosyncrasy and value system, thus leading to misconceptions about the land that they initially endeavoured to approach with an open mind. British travellers’ encounters with several aspects of Scandinavia serve as a valuable source of information that could encapsulate contradictory arguments on Scandinavian culture; in spite of the fact that the Nordic countries are regarded as unspoiled places by the majority of the British writers of the nineteenth century, at the same time they are heavily criticised for their low morals, disorganisation, poor cultural heritage and the reserved character of their people, thus highlighting through contrast the virtues of an idealised sociopolitical system in Britain. Bearing these different opinions on the North in mind, I investigate the writers’ different perspectives on Nordic culture and society as they are eager to apply their philosophical, racial, aesthetic and moral theories to the travel destination. The majority of these writers are idiosyncratically affected by the imperialist spirit which governed nineteenth-century British society’s effort to describe Scandinavian cultural identity through the lenses of the powerful British Empire. At times this description proves to be erroneous and imprecise, given the historical conditions developing from the late-eighteenth century to the Victorian period: the very term Scandinavia, which is used extensively by British travellers, when they wish to refer to all the Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland), is not acknowledged by the citizens of these countries, because this term signifies the unifying and imperialist tendencies of certain Nordic countries, i.e. Denmark and Sweden, at the expense of others (Norway, Finland and Iceland), which

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Introduction

see it as a political construct seeking to suppress their struggle for independence. Even though the Nordic countries are accused of being extremely static compared to the continuous social changes within the fabric of Victorian society, this view does not actually apply to Scandinavian history. In fact, the early- and mid-nineteenth century, during which most British writers choose to write about Scandinavia, is characterised by serious conflicts among the Nordic countries, given the dissolution of Denmark’s Union with Norway (1814) and the subsequent annexation of the latter to Sweden. Despite their common cultural and linguistic roots, these countries intensely wish to acquire more autonomy during that period and they distance themselves from the traditional spirit of Scandinaviansm which emerged several decades after the scathing impact of the Napoleonic Wars on Nordic relations. Therefore, it is of major importance to examine the perspective from which travel writers tended to view Scandinavia, through a stark juxtaposition with their own cultural values and in relation to criteria such as gender and race. Their contradictory definition of Scandinavia as a heavenly yet uncivilised region is worth investigating, since these writers’ travelogues either result in or differ from their constant exposure to the British imperialist ideology. Moreover, the flamboyant and at times confusing image of Otherness constitutes a discourse which will be examined in the light of E. Said’s theory of the periphery in his work Culture and Imperialism suggesting a binarism of Europe and its others- that is, the dominant civilisation and the marginalised subcultures of the colonised world. Drawing upon a binary opposition between Britain and Scandinavia, which obviously does not fall under the popular postcolonial model since both parts belong to Northern Europe, the project in question will take into serious account the effect of the Empire on the British writers’ consideration of Scandinavian identity in the nineteenth century, when the imperialist ideology influenced practically every aspect of the British culture and economy. Yet I should stress that Said’s theory, however relevant to the British context might be, it cannot fall neatly within it because on several occasions, Victorian travellers either challenge or abandon their imperialist discourse with the aim of identifying with the natives. The second part of the book on the late eighteenth-century norms in travel literature will be contrasted to the rest of the travelogues, produced throughout the nineteenth century. Similarly to the Victorian concept of the North, which coincided with the view of the Nordic countries not as a barbarian zone but rather as a dynamic Old Saxon world, uncontaminated by the vices of civilisation, this chapter aims to give a brief depiction of the utopian perspective from which the selected eighteenth-century

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travellers sought to picture the Nordic countries unlike their contemporaries. Owing to the tremendous transformations taking place throughout the nineteenth-century, which changed the mapping of the North, the concepts of language, nationality and national identity were brought to the fore “and there was no longer room for a broad and overlapping regional concept like the wide North” (Kliemann-Geisinger 75). This is the reason why this chapter focuses on the travelogues of two late eighteenth- century writers: William Coxe’s travelogue Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark (1784) and Mary Wollstonecraft’s epistolary narrative Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796). While Coxe’s account constitutes a text which had significant philosophical and moral implications for the emergence of the subsequent theories on Nordic supremacy, Wollstonecraft’s travelogue aims to foreground differences in perceptions of the North through the use of the eighteenthcentury aesthetic principles of the picturesque and the sublime. The third part portrays Sweden both as a utopian and dystopian locus. On the one hand, Samuel Laing’s Tour in Sweden (1838) revolves around the moral and religious conditions in nineteenth-century Sweden, during the country’s effort to reconstruct its national identity after the traumatic experience of the Napoleonic Wars. It is worth exploring Laing’s text because it involves an interesting juxtaposition between the liberal system adopted by Norway and the rigidity of the Swedish socioeconomic model. Selina Bunbury’s A Summer in Northern Europe (1856) stresses the importance of Gotland as the centre of the Gothic civilisation. She formulates her own ideas in view of the Swedish Nationalist movement, expressed by the Gothic society3 (Götiska Förbundet) “whose members extolled a Nordic past in which their own Gothic ancestors loomed larger than life-size” (Derry 232) contributing to the revival of the interest in the Viking lore. In the fourth part, the focus lies on the Norwegian Romantic Nationalism that emerged as a reaction to the country’s annexation to the Swedish kingdom after the dissolution of the Dano-Norwegian Union. Due to Norway’s crucial role as a Northern Utopia amongst British mountaineers as well as amongst Scandinavian scholars, Frederick Metcalfe’s travelogue The Oxonian in Thelemarken (1858) constitutes an indicative example of the Oxford movement in mid-Victorian Britain, which reinforces the Anglo-Norse hypothesis that was based on historical, racial and linguistic criteria. Therefore, Metcalfe’s text is viewed in 3

Gothic society or Geatish society was a group of nineteenth-century Swedish intellectuals that focused on Scandinavian antiquity, established by the well-known writers Esaias Tegnér and Erik Gustaf Geijer

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Introduction

connection to his other work The Englishman and the Scandinavian: or a Comparison of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Literature in which he emphasises similarities in the literary tradition of both countries. Emily Lowe’s text Unprotected Females in Norway (1856) merges her travel experience with her own views on gender by referring to the attractive qualities of the Norwegian peasantry and the wildness of the Norwegian landscape. Due to the Victorian antiquarians’ conceptualisation of Iceland as a Nordic Hellas, whose saga literature nurtures their effort to construct Britishness through its connection to the medieval literary tradition of the particular island, I will attach significant attention to the function of Iceland as the Ultima Thule. Given the impact of the Northernist hypothesis as a theoretical framework for the consolidation of the British Empire, Sabine Baring-Gould’s Iceland its Scenes and Sagas (1863) is a text of pivotal importance, for it seeks to identify Britishness through the narration of the various sagas during his journey to the saga steads. Baring-Gould’s text stresses the importance of the Northernist unity, firstly propagated by George Stephens, one of the most influential exponents of the Northernist movement in Britain, who translated Icelandic sagas into English and promoted a unity between Britain and the Scandinavian world. Finally, Elizabeth J. Oswald’s travelogue By Fell and Fjord or Scenes and Studies in Iceland (1882) associates gender with the romancing of Iceland as the country of the sagas. The sixth part presents the case of Denmark, occupying an imperialist position amongst Nordic countries until the 1860s, when the country turned into a midget state because of its conflict with Germany. The text which explores the Danish version of Northern Utopia is Horace Marryat’s A Residence in Jutland (1862), which draws a historical link between the Scandinavianist movement after the country’s loss of Schleswig Holstein, and Nikolaj Grundtvig’s4 meticulous effort to restore and promote the ancient Viking past of the country. Indeed, through the revival of its folk culture and its connection to Britain, as part of the same Germanic continuum, Grundtvig attempts to build up a new state, based on the Herderian notion of improvement, a cultural struggle frequently stressed in Marryat’s text. However, in Lady Wilde’s text Driftwood from Scandinavia (1884), written during her short residence in Denmark and Sweden, one can feel the Irish writer’s effort to defend her Celtic heritage by alluding to the Irish folk tales and the Old Norse literature. In fact, her 4

Nikolaj Grundtvig(1783-1872) was a Danish pastor, writer, philosopher and politician as well as the ideological father of folk high schools

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text relies on a reversed pattern of the Nordicist theory; instead of focusing on the virtues of Britishness, the writer describes the superiority of the Celtic race over other nations. The final part examines the function of Finland as an Arcadian society. On the one hand, Charles Boileau Elliott’s Letters from the North of Europe; Or a Journal of Travels in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Prussia and Saxony (1832) demonstrates the position of the country on the margins of Western civilisation, and its function as a terra incognita up to the point when its Kalevalaic tradition comes to prominence in the 1850s in Victorian Britain. On the other hand, Ethel Brilliana (Alec) Tweedie’s travel account Through Finland in Carts (1897) shows the late-Victorian traveller’s representation of Finland as a nascent Westernised nation, forging its identity through its runo poetry and the artistic movement of “Karelianism”, a movement among artists and scholars who paid homage to the Russian Karelia, one of the main sites mentioned in Kalevala.

PART I: NORTHERN UTOPIA AND BRITISH NATIONHOOD

CHAPTER ONE THE CONCEPT OF NORTHERN UTOPIA

Before embarking on the actual analysis of the term Northern Utopia, which appears to be a complex one, it is necessary to refer to the notion of utopia as encountered and delineated in British travel literature. The term “utopia” was initially used by Sir Thomas More in 1516 to denote “a nonexistent and happy or ideal place” (Trahair x). Yet later on the concept acquired a more realistic dimension and More’s term came to describe distant places which retained traits of the past and were untouched by the obliterating effect of civilisation. This distinction between the imaginary and the real is clearly drawn, and there is no confusion as to what is real and what forms part of the writer’s genius. Utopian writing, therefore, pertains to the constant alternation of two different worlds, and the readers are always capable of adjusting to both worlds, by deciding, depending on their own aesthetic criteria, on what needs to be retained and on what must be suppressed throughout the portrayal of the travel destination. An important dimension of Northern utopia is that of Arcadia, since Victorian travel writers often use these terms interchangeably, notwithstanding the fact that the concept of Arcadia was introduced to travel writing much earlier. Regarding this aesthetic concept, Ben Okri maintains that it evolved into a a pastoralist movement towards the close of the eighteenth century and it was in line with Thomas More’s utopian vision, yet differing from the progressive character of the utopia due to its lost, “unattainable” Edenic dimension (279). As shall be seen, this ideal existence which the word Arcadia came to encapsulate was quickly transformed into the cult of the Noble savage as well into the exaltation of Scandinavian peasantry, given the picturesque (and untouched) aspect of the latter. Due to the limited urbanisation of Scandinavian countries, the rural aspect of their peoples was starkly contrasted with the refined, though corrupt, state of the inhabitants of the large European capitals. It is also worth noting that this interplay between the backward and the pastoral worlds which the North came to embody is perfectly compatible with what underlies the notion of utopia, as it was underlined at the beginning of the chapter: the cultural contrast between one’s native country and the travel destination.

The Concept of Northern Utopia

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What is more, Ruth Levitas makes an interesting point, suggesting that the term “utopia”, in spite of its generic definition as “the expression of aspirations for a desired way of being or a future state of society, by an individual or group” (189) cannot be approached as a single concept but should rather be distinguished into many different types, according to the writer’s purpose, that is, eutopia, dystopia, ant-utopia and political utopia. As suggested by Levitas, if anti-utopia is termed what “should be reserved for that large class of works, both fictional and expository, which are directed against Utopia and utopian thought” 192), a eutopia is always the desired or idealistic aspect of the utopian society that the author wishes to establish (3), whereas Fátima Vieira underlines that dystopias could be defined as “negative images of the future [...] if dystopias provoke despair on the part of the readers, it is because their writers want their readers to take them as a serious menace” (16). As mentioned by Nina Chordas, “both ethnography and travel writing were components of early modern utopia; however, the two forms are so closely connected in these texts that they may be viewed as subsets of each other” (30). By picturing themselves as members of a refined culture, nineteenth-century Britons were intrigued by the exotic and the different, that is, with everything that clashed with their everyday experience. As James Buzard puts it, there was a growing appeal “of the foreign, the exotic, all those features in the ‘other’ which differ from the mundane, humdrum everyday experience” (26). Based on this definition, one can grasp the fact that despite the negative attitude of British writers towards people whom they considered to be culturally inferior, they began to endow the Other with positive attributes, given their rising belief in the corrupt state of their own society, and subsequently in the unspoiled manners and mores of the periphery. Thus, some Victorian travel writers such as Lowe, Metcalfe and Baring-Gould scrutinised Scandinavian social purity as well as their special bond with nature in the most favourable terms while concurrently deploring the alienation of their compatriots from their primordial, innocent state in the name of progress. Martin Åberg affirms that “in reproducing a primordial state of nature, Otherness also became a way of representing the lost virtues of modern man as he had once been before the advent of civilisation” (55). Although the texts of many British travellers are interspersed with images of Otherness, this Othering is expressed as nostalgia for the loss of manners and mores that were sacrificed in the course of time. The unspoiled- from the erosive impact of civilisationpeoples become a common theme in British travel literature since the lateeighteenth century. Focusing on this nostalgic “Othering” of foreign

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Part I Chapter One

cultures, Barton purports that there is certain Romantic emphasis on the British travellers’ depiction of other peoples. This is mainly seen in the writers’ description of a nation’s folk tradition as the epitome of its distinctive virtues amongst other countries (81). This sudden obsession of British travel writers with regions and peoples not yet touched by the spirit of civilisation overlapped with Britain’s own effort to revive its folklore and epics in its attempt to reconstruct its past and build a new nation. Imbued with the back-to-nature theme which Rousseau and other intellectuals of the mid- and late eighteenth century such as Sir Walter Scott, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats extensively propagated in their writings, travel writers manifested through their writings, several aspects of the Romantic era such as an increasing concern for “primitive and uncivilized ways of life”, an infatuation with the sublime or the savage grandeur of nature, a significant emphasis on paganism and other cultural elements of the pre-Christian age, the “cult of the Noble Savage” and an interest in the power of the individual. Kathleen Wilson defines this primitive trend which spread in nineteenth-century Europe and which always stimulated European imagination: Primitivism, or the concept that humanity in the first stages of society was a model of virtue, simplicity and excellence that civilization corrupted, had a long history, going back to Homer and Hesiod. Most commonly invoked when ‘civilized’ protagonists confronted ‘less advanced’ peoples, primitivist thinking placed its objects in an antithetical relation to modernity. (70-1)

Inevitably, all these aesthetic criteria were successfully met within the Scandinavian framework, and this is the reason why an overwhelming number of travellers constructed their own Northern Utopia on the basis of the Romantic canon, even as late as the mid-nineteenth century. The travel writers’ emphasis on the process of Othering different nations, which did not present the same racial, cultural or linguistic characteristics, also raised the issue of literary expansionism, that is, the self-projection of travel writers as imperial beholders in the foreign soil. Addressing these imperialist nuances of travel texts in Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said observes that these texts overwhelmingly served the consolidation of the imperial presence both overseas and in Europe, pointing out that “the imperial system is closely aligned with the “power to take over territory”, and the subsequent establishment of a “justificatory regime of self-aggrandising, self-originating authority interposed between the victim of imperialism and its perpetrator” (82). This is particularly true in the Scandinavian setting, in the reproduction of

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which British travellers conspicuously reconstruct images of the Other, basing their discourse on the idea that nations which are different from the Britons are inevitably inferior. Yet this does not necessarily translate into Britain’s effort to colonise Scandinavia, hence Said’s argument does not fully apply to the case of the Nordic countries. What is more, the dichotomy between the civilised South and the barbarian North rested not only on the North’s cultural difference from the South but was rather based on the theory of climate, originating in the Aristotelian premise that the “negative effect of coldness freezes the mind and suppresses intellectual agility” (Zacharasiewicz 33). Hence the dystopian image of Nordic people which was frequently substantiated by eighteenth-century narratives on supernatural elements related to the North. Inevitably, as Klitgaard Povlsen suggests, in the eighteenth century “France and England are the constant references in comparison with Scandinavia, and the two countries appear as the most civilised in the world, while the harsh and cold climate of the North reflects the uncivilised cultures there” (14). Iceland serves as a perfect example of a Nordic country which, having been subjected to the prejudices of all travellers who came into contact with its remarkable geological features (volcanoes, geysers), was repeatedly described as the epitome of the dystopian North. As Sumarliði R. Isleiffson notes, the negative bias of European travellers against Iceland in the eighteenth century could be summed up as follows: “there were poisonous fountains and destructive volcanoes, and Hell or Purgatory might even be found on the island, with devils flying about. Living there were superstitious and rude people, far beyond the reach of civilization” (113). In accordance with the dystopian concept of the “far North”, Kliemann-Geisinger adds that because of their unknown areas and waters the Scandinavian North and the North and East of Russia […] epitomised wilderness and distance and provided space for the image of fabulous and mythical places and people. At the same times these places represented the exotic. (83)

Despite being stigmatised as uncivilised, the Nordic nations did not lose their appeal, and when travelling started becoming a more mainstream activity amongst middle-class British travellers in the late eighteenth century, their sequestered position rendered them more exotic and attractive in the eyes of the British reader. Especially in the case of Iceland, which was perhaps regarded as the most dystopian corner of Europe due to its northernmost geographical position, a constant shift emerges from the utopian to the dystopian projection of the country because, as mentioned by Klitgaard-Povlsen, “dystopia and utopia mix in

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complex ways around 1800 and more subjective reflections find their way into published writing of constructions of as well as experiences from the North” (15). Hence the frequent reference of some British travellers to the Ultima Thule, the ancient Greek hypothesis about a wasteland away from the rest of Europe that connotes something eschatological. With respect to the concept of Ultima Thule, which pertains to the Arctic and subarctic regions of Northern Europe, Bloch1 underlines the importance of this myth which reinforced the dystopian image of Northern Europe. Inevitably, the Scandinavia context relied on a distinctly theological discourse. As I have already suggested, due to its complex nature, the concept of Northern Utopia is hard to define; it pertains to a vast geographical space (all Scandinavian countries, Iceland included) and it varies according to various phases of the Victorian Era. One factor that obviously changed the travel writers’ attitude towards Scandinavia in the nineteenth century is the reason for which most Victorian writers undertook a trip to the far North. The new fashion, coupled with a shift of focus from the Southern to the Nordic antiquity, which was placed “beyond the bounds of the GraecoRoman canon” (Barton 3), gave a new impetus to the study of the Nordic countries. At the same time, the dystopian representation of the North as the most primitive part of Europe gave way to a more “eutopian”, idealistic projection of the northernmost sports of the continent, leading to a new mapping of the North on multiple levels (geopolitical, geographical). It is indispensable, however, to ask why the mapping of the North changed to such an extent at the close of the eighteenth century. The revolutionary movements that manifested themselves in continental Europe, and the subsequent pursuit amongst the members of the intellectual society for places which were not “plagued” by the detrimental effect of war account for the increasing nostalgic glance of the Britons at simpler societies. Fjågesund and Symes underscore the overall political unrest, along with the social status of British travellers, as fundamental reasons 1

In times of antiquity, “Thule” was the name given to an archipelago far to the north of the Scandinavian seas. The Greek explorer Pytheas told his contemporaries about this far-away place, and about the year 330 B.C. he sailed northward from Marseilles in France in search of the source of amber […] After Pytheas’ time, the ancients called Scandinavia “Thule”. In poetry, it became “Ultima Thule”, i.e. “farthest Thule”, a distant northern place, graphically undefined and shrouded in esoteric mystery. As the frontiers of man’s exploration gradually expanded, the legendary Ultima Thule acquired a more northerly location. It moved with the Vikings from the Faroe Islands to Iceland, and, when Iceland was colonized in the ninth century A.D., Greenland became “Thule” in folklore (Gilberg 83).

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for the breach of mid- and late nineteenth century from the eighteenthcentury outlook on the North, stating that “the revolutions and popular unrest of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were causing general and growing concern; secondly, the majority of travel writers were largely members of the moderate, but far from radical, middle and uppermiddle classes” (108). The political stability of the Northern nations was much praised by the Victorians who were accustomed to witnessing social mutations in Victorian Britain. Since late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century travelogues focus largely on the impact of nature on people’s overall disposition, the depiction of the Scandinavians as noble savages gave them significant appeal, combined with the increasing study of Northern antiquity at an academic level. Concerning the application of this strictly Rousseauesque concept to the Nordic context, Jesper Hede suggests that “primitive ways of life and natural environments, and the revival of old forms of poetryinterests supported by Rousseau’s notion of the noble savage and the concept of the sublime- his conceptions were not new but were built on a Nordic tradition” (38). The peasantry of Norway and Iceland, the folk music of the Finns and the existence of Old Norse poetry came to signify basic components of nineteenth-century utopia. Music, therefore, was quickly incorporated into the Romantic discourse and was often translated both as a sign of primitiveness and innocence. The harsh living conditions of the Northerners and the more delicate, refined aspects of the Greco-Roman tradition of the Southerners signal a significant polarity between the primitive and the civilised world. Therefore, human corruption in Southern nations is severely criticised by scholars such as Montesquieu, who saw the South as agreeable and beautiful but also as softening the morals and ethics of its people, while the North with its cold climate might be frightening and sublime but had strengthened the people living there; they had well-build bodies and a strong tendency towards freedom and democracy. (Klitgaard-Povlsen 13)

Drawing upon Montesquieu’s view of the North as a region inhabited by sturdy and masculine peoples in juxtaposition with the effeminate and fallen condition of Southern nations, one could also discern the first steps towards the racialisation of Europe based on the physical attributes of different ethnic groups. It also marks the Britons’ shift of focus from the neoclassical aesthetics towards the natural condition of the human beings, a focus which also gave rise to the polarity between Northern and Southern Europe.

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The gradual focus of British travellers on Arcadian societies that retained a savage image compared with Britain, the latter being considered the epitome of civilisation, can account for the construction of Northern Utopia based on the above presumable characteristics of the Nordic peoples (noble savagery, wish to depart from the neoclassical aesthetic norms of the Greco-Roman culture). Focusing on the dichotomy of North versus South that begins to dominate the discourse of travelogues produced at the end of the eighteenth century, Isleifsson observes that: It is impossible not to mention the changing attitude to the North in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was as if the traditional North-South polarity had suddenly been inverted. The North became positive and the South negative; the North was stable and the South treacherous; the North loved liberty, while servitude dominated in the South. Cold and difficult conditions were challenges which made people strong, while heat made people inactive and lazy. (119)

In accordance with Isleifsson’s view, there were several British travel writers who produced their travelogues in the late-eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries that inverted the North-South polarity in favour of the Scandinavian populations, presenting all the-up to that time- negative qualities of the North as positive because of the British desire to question the “indisputable” cultural authority of the Southern civilisations in its attempt to acquire and strengthen its identity in contrast with the Romance cultures. Some of those travel authors, such as Frederick Metcalfe and Sabine Baring-Gould, were also strong advocates of the cultural unity between Britain and the Scandinavian nations. Finally, the construction of a Northern Utopia rested on the relatively peaceful, stable and detached political conditions of most Nordic nations at the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution. More and more British travellers became interested in places around Europe which had not been affected by the war expeditions in continental Europe. According to Kliemann-Geisinger, “to focus on the more quiet parts of Europe was a short-term solution and an immediate reaction to the extensive political changes that were caused by the Napoleonic wars” (77). Except for the case of Denmark, whose involvement in the Napoleonic Wars turned against Britain’s political interests and therefore led to the mutual hatred between that country and Great Britain, the other Scandinavian countries were often depicted as Arcadian societies which remained unscathed by the continuous political turmoil that characterised other nations.

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Since I have concentrated on the principal manifestations of Northern Utopia within the nineteenth-century British context, I believe it is crucial to refer to Scandinavianism which was intimately linked to the sensitisation of the Nordic nations to their cultural heritage. This cultural movement should be viewed as a more intense endeavour of the Nordic nations to construct their nationhood in a collective manner by drawing on their common Viking background. The unification of the North that was attempted in the nineteenth century is of great importance because the Scandinavian nations sought to revoke their national identity by concentrating on their Old Norse language and history, under the threat of a possible Germanisation. It was during the first half of the nineteenth century that the three kingdoms (Norway, Denmark and Sweden) started focusing on their common language, religion and history (KliemannGeisinger 81). The national awakening of the Scandinavians, often overlapping with a parallel attempt of the Britons to acquire a new cultural identity by identifying with the North both culturally and racially, was not expressed in the same manner in all Nordic countries. In fact, the national awareness of some Nordic nations(Norway, Iceland and Finland), especially those which struggled to regain their political autonomy from their Scandinavian brethren, was often diametrically opposed to the panScandinavian spirit which was disseminated in the nineteenth century. Yet they all seemed to coalesce with the necessity to utilise language, folk culture and history to address the issue of their political sovereignty (Klitgaard-Povlsen 13). Owing to the fact that national literature was immediately linked to the efforts of the European peoples to rely on past heroic narratives in order to construct their national identity, it is hardly surprising that Scandinavianism revolved around the saga tradition, from which it derived valuable information on the Nordic nations’ common (as well as distinct) characteristics. The leading figure of Scandinavianism, Nikolaj Grundtvig should be considered as the key scholar who paved the way for the AngloScandinavian union. His major contribution rests on his emphasis on Beowulf, the rediscovery of which triggered a nationalistic debate and played a crucial role in the development of the Anglo-Saxon identity amongst British scholars. His use of Beowulf to address a cultural union with Britain was of pivotal importance, given the desire of the Britons to be link their culture to the ancient Viking imagery. According to Thomas A. Shippey and Andreas Haarder, there are three arguments made by Grundtvig which boosted the idea of Scandinavianism and encouraged the Britons to picture themselves as of pure Anglo-Saxon stock. In particular, Shippey and Haarder remark that

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Part I Chapter One In his 1817 piece he seems to have three major points to make. One- and in this he remains for a long time unique- is his claim that the poem is a ‘spiritual whole’ but not properly arranged artistically, in a word, Shakespearean […] his second major area of consideration was the poem’s mythic content. He felt a real epic should have universal value and should be related, however shadowily, to the central truth of Christianity [and his third argument] the poem’s historicity. (25)

Travelling to the North was not only seen as a form of exploration but also involved some immersion to the newly discovered northern antiquity. In this respect, Victorian travel writers were eager to picture themselves as anti-tourists, who were well acquainted with the cultural background of the North. Hence their attempt to reinforce their erudition with chapters filled with historical/linguistic information on the country visited.

CHAPTER TWO NINETEENTH-CENTURY RACIAL THEORIES ON THE NORTH

Prior to Europe’s racialisation, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803) indisputably played a crucial role in the national spirit of early nineteenth century because he was the first to formulate the idea of the Volksgeist (people’s spirit) and to argue that the contribution of the Volkssprache (people’s language) was crucial to the building of a nation. As postulated by Bernd Henningsen, “it has long been promulgated and firmly established that he was the father of the idea of national construction based on identity and of the functionalisation of political symbolism and the instrumentalisation of language” (90). In relation to the Herderian link between language and national identity, Henningsen argues that The significance of the ‘Sprachgeist’ (spirit of language) is raised to the level of the ‘Volksgeist’ (spirit of the people), the Volksgeist is manifested in the Sprachgeist and the soul of a ‘Volk’ or people is evidenced in its language. The Others are those who do not understand the soul of one’s own language and cannot fathom its emotional depth. Language becomes the corpus mysticum of the nation. (99)

What Herder suggests is that language can impact decisively on national identity. Thus the mere existence of a language can allow a nation to distinguish itself from the others, owing to its remarkable nationbuilding properties. Aside from language, Herder’s thinking also encapsulates the fact that culture and community are crucial factors in the nation-building process of a country (Barnard 7). He uses the term “community” in a broader sense, thus promoting a further study of language families (mostly Germanic and Romance). In Herder’s texts, one can easily discern the German philosopher’s firm belief in the constructability of a nation through the existence of a mother tongue that can help its people forge a separate identity from neighbouring nations, when he attests that: “only in its language does a nation become a nation,

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only through language is a national feeling of community engendered andconstructible” (794). Given the theory’s actual impact on British national awakening in the nineteenth-century, many Victorians travel writers were intrigued by the linguistic links between English and the Scandinavian languages, and they were anxious to restore the Anglo-Saxon “tongue”, being weary of the effect of Romance languages such as French on their language. Even though Herder’s theory about the Volksgeist focused on the revival of German Nationalism, his emphasis on language as a nationbuilding tool impacted enormously on the British and Scandinavian ideological contexts as well. As Henningsen points out, “the nationbuilding process in the Scandinavian countries in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries took place between and on the basis of the ideas of the Enlightenment and Romanticism” (91-2). Since the theoretical framework of the late-eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century travelogues could not derive from the scientific data of the time any reliable information on the racial formation of nations, Herder’s Volkssprache was extensively used as the only visible evidence for the placement of different nations into the ladder of civilisation. Inevitably, Scandinavia and Britain could not refrain from taking part in the same philosophical discourse on nationhood via a national language. This is why Henningsen later argues that “no element of Herderian speculation had such a profound and sustained effect in Scandinavia as that of the central language for national identity and political and cultural self-definition” (99). This obviously applies to the Scandinavian political context because the nineteenthcentury efforts of the Nordic nations to emphasise their separate cultural identity concentrated more on language and much less on other factors with the aim of placing themselves as distinct ethnic entities on the European map (as shall be shown, this was the case of Finland and Iceland, through their complex language issues). In Britain, one of Herder’s main “disciples” was Thomas Carlyle, whose Herderian concerns are made obvious in many of his published works. Kwame Appiah notes that “we arrive at the racial understanding of literature that flourished from the mid-nineteenth century in the work of the first modern literary historians. Thomas Carlyle […] wrote in 1831: The history of a nation’s poetry is the essence of its history” (284). Besides the “nationalisation” of Europe, it is necessary to focus on the racial theories that were linked both to the nation-building project of the Britons and to the representation of Scandinavia. Despite the fact that British writers and philosophers such as Carlyle and Thomas Arnold had produced several works that negotiated British identity basing their views

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on language and folk tradition, a more meticulous and systematic study of British racial identity was not conducted until the 1850s, an epoch which abounded in ethnographic studies seeking to define Britishness on the basis of a new component of nationhood, the notion of race. The new discoveries on the impact of race on the physical and intellectual capacities of the different peoples gained significant impetus, and in their attempt to differentiate themselves from the colonised people, the British colonisers keenly attached great importance to the concept of race. Because of their desire to meet the needs of the nascent British Empire and to provide the appropriate theoretical framework for its consolidation, Victorian writers such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Frederick Metcalfe adopted several racial theories that extolled the Germanic (both cultural and racial) origin of the British people and sought to merge Britain and the Northern peripheries of Europe into a common Teutonic alliance. However, it was the French anthropologist Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau (1816-1882) whose Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (Essai sur l’Inégalité des Races Humaines), published in 1853-1855, propagated the supremacy of the white race and further boosted the AngloSaxon hypothesis. The question that could be posed is why race was so important in the self-definition of the Britons. In The Racial Basis of Civilization, Frank H. Hankins purports that there is an existential link between race and every people’s claim to nationhood, suggesting that “it thus appears that the demands of the ego to be flattered are more easily understood than guarded against. Such demands are especially insistent when one deals with questions of race or nation. In a very deep sense both are an expansion of the self” (4). With reference to the fundamental criteria that Teutonists were eager to apply to every nation in order to verify its connection to the Germanic stock, Hankins maintains that the theory was based on rather superficial criteria of appearance. Teutonism extensively emphasised the higher qualities of the Teutons. These criteria were the following: firstly, it was “a matter of widely accepted tradition that the pure-blooded Teuton is tall, strongly built, with a large frame, blue or gray-eyed, blond or red-haired, long-headed, and clear complexioned” (Hankins 71). A nation’s deviation from this typically Teutonic appearance implied its exclusion and subsequent marginalisation as racially inferior. Another key idea of the Teutonic theory was the messianic contemplation of the Germanic nations, a recurrent theme that centred on “the glorification of the Teuton as the creator of civilization” (Hankins 77). Hence the repetitive focus of several imperialist nations, such as Britain, on its civilising mission that was often yoked to religion, pre-eminently the dissemination of the Christian faith to

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the colonised world. Thirdly, Teutonism was closely related to the attempt of the racial theorists of the mid-nineteenth century to draw a link between a race’s physical and intellectual attributes. Fourthly, it should be maintained that, unlike other racial theories which endeavoured to bridge the gap between the English and the British Celts, such as Northernism and Nordicism, Teutonism was far more segregating by presenting Britain as purely Saxon without the admixture of its Germanic blood with that of the Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles. This is the main reason why Teutonists tended to employ the term “Saxon” in lieu of preferring the more inclusive term “British”. English authors like John Mitchell Kemble1and Thomas Arnold2 purposefully attempt to connect the ancient Vikings to the military accomplishments of both the Germans and the Britons, evidently embracing a pan-Germanic union amongst Nordic nations. Arnold’s loyalty to the Teutonic agenda is made explicit in his following statement, in which he presents the English racial admixture with the Celts and Romans as negligible whereas he reveres the Saxon blood of his compatriots, pointing to a Union with the German and Nordic “brethren”: Our English race is the German race; for though our Norman fathers had learnt to speak a stranger's language, yet in blood, as we know, they were the Saxons' brethren: both alike belong to the Teutonic or German stock. Now the importance of this stock is plain from this, that its intermixture with the Keltic and Roman races at the fall of the western empire has changed the whole face of Europe. (Arnold 27)

The celebration of the image of the Viking is particularly important in this Saxonist discourse, given the gradual dissemination of such imagery in later essays and travelogues by British writers. Especially the attempt to associate the English with Jutland, the alleged original home of the “Angles”, alludes to a northern unity, which underlies the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis that is fully developed into the British nation’s main nationalist agenda. The Anglo-Saxon hypothesis had principally been formulated by German and Danish Romantics at the dawn of the nineteenth century, when linguistic theories and epic poetry came to prominence for the first 1

John Mitchell Kemble (1807 - 1857) was a British scholar who introduced Grimm’s term “Anglo-Saxon” in his essays in order to support the Teutonic origins of British identity. 2 Dr Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), Matthew Arnold’s father, was a British historian who supported the Broad Church Anglican Movement.

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time. Yet the self-description of the Britons as Anglo-Saxons was incorporated into their political agenda in the 1850s. The Anglo-Saxon or Old Northernist movement did not receive the same attention as other literary movements of the same period. Wawn asserts that The romantic adulation of the ancient north that certainly developed in Victorian Britain never gave birth to a really outstanding English epic poem, play, novel, painting or musical work drawing on the materials which scholarship had made available. The old north remained the eager enthusiasm of the few rather than a major concern of the many. (243)

Despite its elitist character, the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis was linked to the imperial discourse developed during the construction of British (and mainly English) nationalism in the nineteenth century. Insofar as the term Anglo-Saxon is concerned, Young mentions that “the use of the term Anglo-Saxon to describe modern Saxons, that is, English rather than the historical Anglo-Saxon people and their language, came into favour in England in the mid-nineteenth century”(16). The term quickly acquired several meanings to serve the interests of imperial Britain and was used by scholars to express either the racial integrity or the political unity of the Britons. Allen J. Frantzen and John D. Niles mention that The term Anglo-Saxonism is here used to denote the process through which a self-conscious national and racial identity first came into being among the early peoples of the region that we now call England and how, over time, through both scholarly and popular promptings, that identity was transformed into an originary myth available to a wide variety of political and social interests. (1)

Prior to this “Northernist” movement of the 1850s, it is Thomas Percy who might be deemed as the main British contributor to the rediscovery of the Anglo-Saxon culture. Yet he was preceded by the intensive efforts of the English Church to eradicate the Catholic faith amongst the British citizens and establish a common nationhood based on the Protestant virtues of political (and religious freedom). According to Reginald Horsman, Anglo-Saxon England originated in the sixteenth century and was revoked as a means of breaking with Rome by “returning to older, purer, religious practices dating from before the Norman Conquest” (387). As Horsman points out, it was during that period that the Anglo-Saxons began to be viewed as “freedom-loving people, enjoying representative institutions and a flourishing primitive democracy”, an ideal democratic society which was eventually “crushed by the Norman Conquest [frequently treated as a French invasion of Britain], and only gradually

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through Magna Carta and the subsequent struggles were the English people able to regain their long lost freedoms” (388). In other words, Anglo-Saxonism, at least throughout the early stages of its development, was synonymous with the political and religious freedoms, by which Britain was allegedly characterised. The Britons’ fondness of liberty was deliberately juxtaposed with the supposed absolutism imposed on the Catholic European countries. As has been argued, the self-definition of the Britons constituted a thorny problem for the country due to the existence of various ethnicities, with different interests on its soil. The Anglo-Saxon hypothesis, therefore, could be regarded both as the study of the Old Germanic roots of the Britons and the identification of its population with the Nordic nations in cultural and political terms. For Young, the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis is the first paradigm to bestow so much attention on Britain’s cultural bonds with nations situated outside the British Isles. In particular, Young notes that “rather than disintegrate in the face of these Celtic challenges, the idea of English ethnicity was simply reworked and redeployed” (179). Young contends that the new self-definition of the Britons was more preferable to British antiquarians than the mere adoption of the term Saxon for various reasons. Firstly, Anglo-Saxon was conveniently generic. Secondly, the word “Anglo-Saxon” pointed to the nation’s Germanic, mongrel background, foregrounding its English, Germanic and Celtic roots without allowing any further appropriation of its history by the German Saxons. In addition, besides its ambiguous, and often anti-Celtic, meaning, the term Anglo-Saxon came to represent all populations of British descent scattered abroad, highlighting the diasporic dimension of Britishness. As Young points out, “the term, however, was not simply invented as a way or reconciling ethnic differences within England or even within the United Kingdom. It was originally used predominantly in North America and was introduced into English precisely to describe the English abroad, the diasporic population” (181). Through the introduction of the study of Old English to British higher education in 1854, the Scandinavian cultural context acquired a new meaning, and British scholars who had already been well equipped with a satisfactory knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon culture at an academic level, were eager to immerse into the Old Northern antiquity by undertaking voyages to the North in order to have a closer view of the saga setting. Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian literature were approached from a holistic perspective, as part of the same Germanic civilisation. The study of the Northern antiquity by the Victorians shed sufficient light on the national origins of the British ancestral heritage, presenting the Anglo-Saxons as a

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model that contemporary Britons needed to emulate in order to confront the corruptive impact of the industrial revolution on their national character. The Anglo-Saxon hypothesis was based on the premise that the linguistic similarities between different nations implied a blood connection as well, a hypothesis that was further nurtured by relevant discoveries in the field of biology that sought to prove the same. In other words, prior to the use of race as the only factor that accounted for the physical attributes amongst races, language and literature were treated as indisputable proof for a country’s racial connection to another country. Owing to the importance attached to the role of language, one can understand why the Anglo-Saxon theory would emphasise the existence of a common Northern tongue between England and the Nordic countries. The infatuation of Victorian Northernists with Scandinavian languages, and especially with Icelandic, which was a Nordic tongue still spoken and cultivated by the peasantry and the local intellectual societies, can be easily understood. At the same time, the unspoiled character of the Old Norse language in the Scandinavian context that indicated the isolation in which the Scandinavian cultures developed was highly praised by the Victorians, who associated this isolation with the ideal condition of racial purity that was so much celebrated in the racial discourse of the nineteenth century. Taking all this into consideration, it is no wonder that the old Northernist agenda of the mid- and late-nineteenth century was imbued with the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis on a multifold connection between Britain and the Scandinavian context on the levels of language, politics, literature, travelling, religion and race. Inevitably, the travel literature on Scandinavia which was produced during that period sought to justify and renew the Anglo-Scandinavian connection by addressing this array of issues. It is actually these issues that were highly responsible for the construction of the Northern Utopia in Victorian imagination and the subsequent Romancing of the North, a major proof of which is the publication of travel books on Scandinavia as pilgrimages to the saga sites. Unlike Teutonism and Anglo-Saxonism, which were far more segregating and overwhelmingly pertained to the nationalist agenda of specific nations (either German or English), the racial subtheory of Nordicism might be seen as more incorporative, while still retaining a strong racial basis as the original Teutonic theory; it also differs from the previous theories because it was developed by American scholars, yet its impact on European racial awareness was equally considerable. I believe that this theory concerns this research project due to its intimate connection to the Scandinavian context. Due to its elaboration at the close

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of the nineteenth century, Nordicism was intimately attached to eugenics and racial purity, earlier glimpses of which could be seen in Gobineau’s Teutonic paradigm. Some of the basic tenets of the theory were again the demonisation of racial admixture, the existence of Nordic racial aristocracy and the implementation of eugenics to tackle the racial deficiencies of one’s nation. In their Passing of the Great Race, Madison Grant3 and Henry Hairfield Osborn4 formulate the key principles of this theory by providing the reader with significant information about the racial origins of the Nordic (that is, Germanic) nations. Once again, a pure Nordic race must be endowed with specific physical attributes because “the Nordic race in its purity has an absolutely fair skin and is consequently the white man par excellence” (Grant and Osborne 16). Similarly, Grant and Osborne point to the tall stature of the Nordic race, remarking that The Nordic race is nearly everywhere distinguished by great stature. Almost the tallest stature in the world is found among the pure Nordic populations of the Scottish and English borders while the native British of Pre-Nordic brunet blood are for the most part relatively short. (17)

In the Nordicist discourse, what can be noticed is the attempt to racially unite the English with the Celts, a rather pioneering element considering the earliest theories which were ideologically constructed on a strictly anti-Celtic basis. It is also interesting to note that Grant and Osborne dwell on the racial purity of the English without even referring to the least racial admixture of this race with its past conquerors, a fact which proves that the particular theory aimed at establishing the racial purity of all the Nordic nations as an incontestable argument. However, Grant and Osborne eagerly emphasise the negative consequences of a racial intermingling between the superior Nordic race and inferior racial types, a major consequence of which is the complete loss of the unique Nordic physical attributes and the preponderance of the inferior racial characteristics. With regard to the cradle of the Nordic civilisation, it has already been illustrated that unlike Teutonism, Nordicism placed it northwards and in particular to a conveniently remote corner of Europe, in Sweden. In relation to this, Grant and Osborne assert that

3

Madison Grant (1865 – 1937) was a conservative American anthropologist and eugenicist 4 Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857 –1935) was an American paleontologist, eugenicist and founder of the Orthogenesis theory

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the centre of its greatest purity is now in Sweden and there is no doubt that at first the Scandinavian Peninsula and later, also, the immediately adjoining shores of the Baltic were the centres of radiation of the Teutonic or Scandinavian branch of this race. (80)

This might account for the strong emphasis of certain Victorian travelogues5 on Gotland, a Swedish island whose name literally meant “the land of the Goths”. It could be explained by the fact that Germany was regarded as too racially mixed in its continental geographical position as opposed to the Scandinavian North, which was “ideally” isolated and therefore limited the likelihood of racial mixing. Because of its excessive concentration on the role of heredity in the determination of individual and national development, Nordicism was intimately associated with the formulation (and application) of the eugenic theory, which aimed to clearly distinguish nations and refine the existing ones. Susan Curell and Christina Cogdell define eugenics as “the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population” (203), alluding to the implementation of eugenic practices which formed the basis for the creation of homogeneous cultural origins and cultural traits amongst multicultural societies, such as the colonial world. Finally, aside from the racial, cultural, and political association of the Britons with the Old Norse world, it is worth highlighting the close relation of history to nature through Darwinism, since “history as a concept was enfolded with race; racial evolution and historical destiny were envisaged as ineluctable forces that marched together in the name of Progress toward the triumph of ‘civilization’” (Deane 355). As a result, history, technology and race, three concepts which played a paramount role in Victorian society, were seen in connection to the notion of evolution, a fact which partly justifies British travellers view of their own society as a dynamic system and Scandinavian societies as rather static, since the remoteness of these Northern regions did not allow so conspicuous changes in their historical, technological and racial conditions. Notwithstanding the philological efforts of some British scholars to incorporate all Britons into the process of constructing the notion of Britishness, the split national identity of many British citizens did not cease to impact on their self-projection. Moreover, other English philologists sought to define Britishness as opposed to the Celtic groups that inhabited 5

For example, see Selina Bunbury’s A Summer in Northern Europe, Including Sketches in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Aland Islands, Gothland, and Horace Marryat’s One Year in Sweden including a Visit to the Isle of Götland

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the island. One should also point out the Anti-Celtic spirit penetrating the writings of Thomas Arnold, one of the leading scholars of the Northernist school in Victorian Britain. Arnold supports an “Anglo-Saxon” paradigm that is highly exclusive by dissociating the Celtic groups from the national self-depiction of the English as modern Saxons. For Arnold, one of the principal tenets of the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis, however paradoxical it may sound to a modern reader, was the dichotomy between the English and the Celtic groups of Britain. Arnold’s definition of Britishness excludes the Celtic element, as the Irish Celts are regarded as a priori enemies of the country’s political interests. Consequently, notwithstanding their political (and territorial) union, Ireland and England can never form part of the same nation-building process because the racial antagonism between them prevents them from forging a common identity. By the same token, Arnold criticises the role of the Celts and the Romans in the formation of British national identity. One can discern his reluctance to identify England with the two peoples, a fact that reflects the Victorian antipathy for every historical detail which questioned the English attempt to project themselves as direct descendants of the Teutons: We, this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunning the earth from one end of it to the other, — we were born when the white horse of the Saxons had established his dominion from the Tweed to the Tamar. So far we can trace our blood, our language, the name and actual divisions of our country, the beginnings of some of our institutions. So far our national identity extends, so far history is modem, for it treats of a life which was then and is not yet extinguished. (Arnold 24) 6

What strikes the reader is Arnold’s attempt to question the Celtic background of the English culture while at the same time he is willing to embrace the pro-Teutonic theory on the Germanic origins of English race. His hostility against Celtic participation in the formation of modern England permeates his discourse to such an extent, that one could deduce that the Anglo-Saxon theory was originally formulated to nourish the idea of England as the only centre of British culture and the perpetuation of the Celts as peripheral groups whose presence in British history should be omitted and their cultural elements eradicated. Besides their frequent projection as marginal or entirely alienated from their English “masters”, the Celts are also accused of being racially 6

The use of the term “Britons” clearly refers to the Pre-Roman Celtic populations that inhabited the British Isles.

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inferior to the Anglo-Saxons, an inferiority which is overwhelmingly perpetuated in texts on the inequality of races. To make matters worse, with the advent of the “pseudo-sciences” of phrenology and craniology, English theorists drew on biological findings to properly justify their claim that the English were in no way racially linked to the Celts. Young explains that the new biological sciences exacerbated the Anglo-Celtic polarity by propagating a diametrically different origin of the Celtic race: as with language and race, so too with the Celts the philosophy propagated a myth which they subsequently came to deny. In the nineteenth century some people argued that racially Celts were not even Europeans, that they were racially affiliated to Africans, and therefore were illegitimate inhabitants even of Ireland. (104)

English Anti-Celtic discourse sought to legitimise the English presence in and territorial appropriation of the British Isles. By projecting the Irish as racial aliens, the English obviously introduced the idea of Ireland’s repopulation in a period that the Irish separatist tendencies reached their apex7. The forcible advocacy of the Anglo-Saxon (Teutonic) hypothesis and its gradual subversion by the continuous Irish revolts in the 1840s also led to theories that could supposedly tackle the Irish issue once and for all through extirpation, independence or assimilation of the Celtic population in Ireland (106). Although the term Celticism does not apply to a specific literary or racial movement that gained the same impetus as the cultural paradigms of Anglo-Saxonism, Nordicism and Teutonism, it could be defined as the set of texts produced as a response to the Anti-Celtic theories that gained ground during the 1850s. Even the use of the term “Celt” is rather problematic; the Celtic groups of Britain should not be considered as one ethnic group (Welsh, Scots and Irish still formed separate ethnic groups despite their common ‘Celtic’ background). Nevertheless, at the close of the nineteenth century, with the rise of the Nordicist movement, it appears that the Celtic-Saxon polarity was not as influential as the anti-Celtic racial theories (Anglo-Saxonism, Teutonism) that were manifest in the mid-nineteenth century. The Scots, however, had developed their own nationalist theories such as late eighteenth-century Pictomania which, according to David McCrone, centred on the Picts as the ancient Scottish tribe from which the modern Scots derived (157), an allegation that distanced Scottish 7

In the 1840s the Young Ireland movement made its apparition and challenged English supremacy over Ireland.

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nationalism from the Teutonic view of Britain. This nationalist awakening was triggered after the publication of James MacPherson’s The Poems of Ossian (1760), 8 a sample of epic poetry that placed emphasis on the superiority of Scottish ethnicity and culture and questioned the English cultural supremacy to its core. Similarly, in the mid-nineteenth century the Irish nationalists constructed, to a great extent, Irish national identity by rediscovering and reviving Celtic mythology. Examining Irish Celticism, Seamus Deane purports that the case of Ireland shows how European nationalism was forged in the course of the nineteenth century as a direct response to the parallel development of English identity, “because its national independence movement was, from the beginning, closely involved with the production and recovery of a national literature and the question of a revival of the national language” (362). In that respect, Irish Celticism manifested itself retrospectively, as was the case with nationalism in other countries, given the emphasis on the country’s pre-Christian cultural heritage. According to Deane, the Irish national movement “reinvented an idea of Ireland as an antique nation that had known in pre-Christian and in early Christian times a unity that English colonialism had shattered and had since then known only a disunity that the same colonialism had fostered”(364) through the introduction of religion and the English language, which resulted in the division of the Irish population into Protestants and Catholics, and in the loss of the country’s mother tongue, Irish Gaelic. Through its focus on its folklore and mythology, the Irish national movement gained significant ground amongst the Irish scholars of later generations. At the same time, Irishness came to be regarded as a notion of primordial importance, manifesting itself as a counterforce to Anglo-Saxonism’s sweeping impact. Colley also points to the growing “Scottophobia” upon which the notion of Britishness was based. Due to the increasingly active role of the Scots in the political scene of Britain, the English often grew weary of the Scottish presence and viewed quite suspiciously the Scottish efforts to defy English overrepresentation in British politics (117). In fact, despite the relatively harmonious Anglo-Scottish relations, the cultural projection of Scotland as an exotic, and considerably “primitive,” fringe of insular Britain by several English travel authors9 indicates the problematic position of the Scots both as ardent British citizens and Celtic savages. Emphasising this ambiguous role of Scotland, Leith Davis, Ian Duncan 8

Ossian was the purported ancient narrator of a cycle of poems, the writings of whom James MacPherson claimed to have found and translated into Scottish Gaelic. 9 For example, see Anthony Trollope’s How the Mastiffs when to Iceland (1778).

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and Janet Sorensen claim that “Scotland occupies an anomalous position in the topology of postcolonialism-shifting between the coordinates of colonized and colonizer” (2). In other words, English national discourse often exoticised or demonised the Scottish periphery in order to exalt the virtues of the dominant English ethnic group; the role of Scotland was far more complex than the position of England, given its active involvement in the imperialist apparatus and its simultaneous view as a Celtic Other. Contrary to the “Scottophobic” spirit of the English after the Union with Scotland in 1707, it is worth stressing that the notion of Britishness, and the unification of the Britons as a solid, multiethnic nation, was largely a Scottish invention. The Unionist tendencies of the Scottish nation dated back to the reign of King James VI, as he was the first to unite the Scottish and English crowns in 1603, when he became James I of England. According to Young, Sir Walter Scott should also be recognised as a precursor to the old northernist movement that forged English (and British) identity while, at the same time, he succeeded in bringing together the Celtic and the Saxon elements of British culture in historical narratives such as Rob Roy10 and Ivanhoe11. In fact Scott is the first to introduce the image of the “wild Highlander”, a device which bridged the gap between the English and the Scots, by idealising the image of the hardcore Scottish Celt juxtaposed with the less “alien” Lowland Scots. The view of the wild Highlander certainly alluded to the concept of the noble savage. Moreover, as Pittock points out, the primitivist approach to the Celtic culture of the Highlands “had always had an imperial subtext: that the bravery of the ‘wild Highlander’, once undisciplined in its noble savagery, could now be formed and tamed into a formidable fighting machine in the cause of Empire” (Young 43). In other words, the wild Highlanders certainly reminded the English reader of the Celtic character of Scotland, while, at the same time, they attributed to rural Scotland an appealing and nostalgic image that was perfectly compatible with the masculine, “bellicose” ideals of the nascent British Empire. Inevitably, one could draw a link between 10 In this text, Scott writes that “it appears to me in his case, and in that of some other Highlanders whom I have known, that, when familiar with and facetious, they used the Lowland Scottish dialect, - when serious and impassioned, their thoughts arranged themselves in the idiom of their native language; and in the latter case, as they uttered the corresponding ideas in English, the expressions sounded wild, elevated and poetical” (Scott 412). 11 As the writer notes: “Four generations had not sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, or to unite, by common language and mutual interests, two hostile races” (Scott 54).

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this idealistic contemplation of the wild Highlander and the subsequent veneration of the Viking warrior in mid-Victorian literature.

CHAPTER THREE DEBATES ON GENDER IN SCANDINAVIA AND BRITAIN

Notwithstanding Scandinavia’s connection with the racial paradigms which underlay British nationhood, the North was also deemed as the appropriate locus for the renegotiation of gender issues. This is the reason why I will also draw considerable attention to the impact of gender on the view of the North amongst British travel writers. The influence of gender on the discourse of the travellers that I have included in the book is directly related to women’s position in the light of the social conditions in Victorian Britain. From my perspective, the issue of gender should be seriously taken into account in travel literature on Scandinavia, given its actual social, and obviously cultural, ramifications. One should never forget that the discourse of British travellers, even if they did not necessarily touch on gender as a crucial part of their own travel agenda, was always nuanced with gender practices, male or female. Especially in the case of Victorian women, whose position was so much restricted by the social norms imposed on their sex, the gender issue could not but influence their role as travellers away from “home”. As Myra Jehlen aptly explains, in cultural, literary or historical analyses, it is indispensable to consider the impact of gender on writers’ discourse because “gender is an additional lens, or a way of lifting the curtain to an unseen recess of the self and of society. Simply put, the perspective of gender enhances the critical senses” (265). In other words, some basic considerations on gender would shed light both on the social and cultural conditions that shape the male or female travellers’ viewpoint on the countries visited. Given the “masculine” aspect of Anglo-Saxon Britain and the significant emphasis on the Viking world of war craft and heroism, women were not seen as an active part of this new national self-envisioning of the Britons who were supposed to be rightful descendants of the mighty Vikings. In that respect, femininity had no place in this nascent proTeutonic discourse. However, this was mainly due to the fact that the masculinity of the Britons was attributed to their Saxon blood, and

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therefore race and gender were frequently associated. As Young suggests, “Saxonism rarely applied to girls. For there was always an implicit gender division in operation: to be Saxon was to be masculine. The feminine was Celtic” (Young 20-1). Consequently, the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis on the Saxon origins of the British culture did nothing but perpetuate the gender norms of the patriarchal society. This is not to say that Victorian women’s position did not undergo significant changes through the course of time, especially in the case of travel literature. On the contrary, the Scandinavian context gave a new impetus to women’s cause and enabled them to reconsider their role by drawing significant comparisons between the gender conditions in Britain and the Nordic countries. Through travelling, it appears that women could question male authority by refusing to succumb to the male cliché according to which the female element cannot survive outside the domestic sphere without male tutelage. Male travellers did not hesitate to stress women’s vulnerability in the foreign soil, ascribing to their journeys a heroic character, always eager to keep track of the perils that surrounded their travels. The necessity to maintain this frailty of women abroad through chaperonage should be regarded as a key theme in the ideological construction of a female discourse which sought to subvert the passive role associated with women travellers. In particular, as affirmed by Mills, middle-class women ought to be “chaperoned, both to protect them from what was considered rampant male sexuality and because of the importance of the notion of female purity for the construction of male identity” (95). Based on Mills’ point, it can be comprehended that male travellers sought to base their own discourse on gender by highlighting the incompatibility between travelling and women for two reasons: for one thing, the characterisation of women as weak perpetuated the stereotypical depiction of the female sex as entirely bereft of action. For another thing, female weakness was conveniently used by male travellers so as to safeguard their own position in the field of travel literature by keeping women at home, a fact which could only be succeeded through the dichotomy between masculinity and femininity. A third point on which Mills touches is the attempt to connect women’s social advancement to marriage, an idea that again reinforced women’s confinement to their domestic existence. It is far from surprising that some women travel writers dismiss this idea of marital happiness in their texts. Furthermore, apart from their characterisation as subordinate by nature, women in travel narratives produced by men were frequently categorised by male writers, according to their physical merits and age: Fjågesund and Symes remark that male travellers were led to generalisations when describing the

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polarity between young and old women, as literary representations classified female figures as angels or “hags” (214). The latter characteristic was usually ascribed to women who did not arouse the erotic desire of the male beholder, and was stereotypically associated with sorcery. Yet the former, which was mainly glorified by patriarchy as women’s ideal position in society, pointed to the domesticity of Victorian women. Jeanne Peterson observes that women’s depiction as “angels” encapsulates the issues of politics and class linked to the role of women. As Peterson mentions, the greatest test of the angel in the house as a model of Victorian uppermiddle-class womanhood must be that of personality and character, for the angel was first and foremost the religious woman, the peacemaker, the comforter, and the submissive woman- submissive to father, perhaps to brothers, certainly to husband. (701)

Considering the above definition, the model of the angel in the house addresses the issue of class because it mainly applied to Victorian women of the upper class; needless to say working class women could never be seen as angels in the house because their professionalisation outside the home had started considerably earlier. In that vein, domesticity, and therefore its appealing projection, was a property, as well as a duty, of middle-class women. By defying this gender convention, women travellers did not only challenge the gender constraints inflicted upon their sex; their refusal to comply with their function as such angels also had political implications which questioned the clear-cut distinctions between different classes. Given the assumption that middle-and upper class women should never be compelled to cross the border between the domestic and the professional, their education was to be based solely on their preparation as faithful wives and housewives, because it was “designed to make them "marriageable," a matter of "man-trapping proficiency. The angel's education prepared her for home life, and she had no need for abstract subjects or deep learning” (Peterson 689). In that sense, if the angel was the woman who perfectly adapted to the passive and domestic role that the patriarchal society of Victorian Britain tended to ascribe to her, women who were not in line with the prescribed public morality, by assuming roles other than the angel’s, were described as marginal and often “fallen”. Considering the inextricable connection between womanhood and home, any other attitude adopted by women was met with hostility and was severly criticised. According to Lynda Nead, the excessive focus of Victorian society on female decorum stems from the fact that the Victorian moral system was idealised and from the belief

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in Victorian woman’s “central role in the formation of public morality; she was responsible for the purity of the home, and private morality was the source and index of public morality” (92). Therefore, one could easily deduce from the above argument that women travel authors, who opted to stay away from home and perform tasks considered as masculine, were likely to be labelled as immoral. As a matter of fact, according to Victorian patriarchy, their condition was quite similar, in many respects, to that of a fallen woman. As to the similarities between the roles of the woman traveller and the fallen woman, Nead explains that “to begin with, the notion of ‘fall’ implied that she had been respectable but had dropped out of respectable society. The term was therefore class-specific; unlike the working-class prostitute, the fallen-woman came from the respectable classes” (95). Taking this definition of the fallen woman into consideration, one could also understand how ostensible this fallen state was in the eyes of the Victorians. According to Nead, “the category of prostitute was not fixed or internally coherent; it was accommodating and flexible and could define any woman who transgressed the bourgeois code of morality” (94-5). This is the reason why women travel writers, however non-conforming their attitude might be, were always aware of such a risk of being considered fallen. As a result, the majority of the women authors who travelled unchaperoned always sought to safeguard their chaste image and dwell extensively on female decorum in order to avoid further criticism. Quite often women travellers adopted a sympathetic outlook on the natives which was also related to their own suppressed role in Victorian society, that is, they identified more easily and willingly with marginal groups as they also fashioned themselves as outcasts of Victorian society as well as a transgressors. As Carl Thomson explains, women travellers, in their multifaceted role as women, travellers and authors, were more likely to be viewed as deviant by their male fellow travellers because if the female traveler contravenes the patriarchal ideology of separate spheres by quitting her home and venturing into the world, the female writer, at least, the woman who publishes a travel account, contravenes that ideology twice over. Not only does she travel, she then positions herself a second time in the public sphere, as an author. (180)

Women travellers assumed too many roles at the same time, a fact which rendered them even more eager to explore issues of gender while venturing into unknown territories such as the North. Yet the monolithic view of women as a rather dormant part of Victorian society was not always the case. Bearing in mind this gradual

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transformation of women into self-reliant citizens of the Empire that occurs during the nineteenth century, I will elaborate on the actual conditions which contributed to the emancipation of Victorian women. Colley refers to women’s increasingly active participation in the public affairs of their country and states that British women are more and more encouraged to abandon their domestic concerns because the nineteenthcentury idea of Britishness based on the colonial expansion of the country treated women as pillars of the new society as mothers of future “conquerors” (257). Therefore, on the one hand, women’s role in the cultivation of their sons’ patriotic feelings is associated with a less passive position of women in British society. On the other hand, as explained by Colley, “this was the period in which women first had to come to terms with the demands and meanings of Britishness” (Colley 281). With respect to the Scandinavian context, a number of features characterise women travellers’ attitude to the Nordic countries and the position of native women. While in late eighteenth-century texts, the few women who ventured into a journey in Scandinavia touched on the issue of domestic slavery, by focusing on the extensive domesticity observed in Scandinavian women, the situation significantly differs at the dawn of the nineteenth century. If in her text Mary Wollstonecraft referred to Scandinavian women as domestic slaves, stating that they are nothing else than “simply notable housewives; without accomplishments, or any of the charms that adorn more advanced social life” (57-8), mid- and lateVictorian women travellers could not but marvel at the significant progress made by Scandinavian women. It should be remembered that Finland and Norway adopted woman suffrage in 1906 and 1907, respectively, whereas Iceland as a Danish territory adopted the same policy in 1915. For Victorian women, the increasing emancipation of Scandinavian women was regarded as a desirable goal to attain even at the close of the nineteenth century. Encouraged by the accomplishments of their Scandinavian “sisters”, British women yearned to address the issue of female identity. In addition, unlike male travellers in Scandinavia who appeared to distance themselves from the indigenous people, women travel authors often befriended Scandinavian members of the same sex1 in order to ascribe to the feminist cause a universal dimension. As Foster and Mills point out, “this is a common strategy amongst female travel writers, as many of them try to establish a friendship with members of their own sex 1 For example, Selina Bunbury with the Swedish author Fredrika Bremer, and Ethel Brilliana Tweedie with the Finnish playwright Minna Canth.

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in the country visited throughout their attempt to ‘break down or re-define the differences between self and other’” (22). By identifying with Scandinavian women’s social aspirations, Victorian women succeeded in attacking the monolithic manners and mores in Britain, while they presented their own vindications to the rights of their sex as a panEuropean phenomenon. What is more, in the mid-Victorian period, the meticulous study of saga literature prompted several Victorian women writers2 to address the issue of gender by constructing their discourse on images of womanhood taken from Old Norse literature. Despite the fact that Viking imagery epitomised the Anglo-Saxon masculinity and martial valor, Victorian women located a female dimension in the sagas that proved the active role of women during the Viking times. Consequently, they could derive important information which could support the feminist cause. For instance, several aspects of companionship, loyalty and dynamism could be found in the Old Norse texts. As Frederick Metcalfe notes, In these sagas we have also pictures of Northern women, such as they were in those days, as well as of the sterner sex. They are human nature all over. Deeply imbued with the influences of those rough times and the colour of their company; big-framed and strong in body as in mind, and equal to any emergency. Independent, open, frank, and noble, brave alike in heart and in character, appearance, and manner- for that is the meaning of that expressive word ‘skörungr’ so often applied to them- tender, and true, and loyal to their husbands and their duties when fitly mated. (327)

By visiting the wild landscapes of the Scandinavian Peninsula, mainly in Norway, Victorian women challenged the main patriarchal view of womanhood as incompatible with the dangers that form an integral part of a journey in Scandinavia, seizing the opportunity to disprove all male allegations about female weakness abroad. If, according to Foster and Mills, “simply venturing into uninhabited territories is considered dangerous for females but mountains and deserts are two environments which are considered alien to females” (258), women travellers yearned to engage in all activities previously undertaken by men in order to present themselves as self-reliant beings. Hence their eagerness to depict their presence amidst mountains, volcanoes or dangerous paths with which conventional images of femininity are staunchly contrasted, that is, women’s domestic prosperity and overall attachment to their husband. 2 See for example Elizabeth Jane Oswald’s By Fell and Fjord; Or, Scenes and Studies in Iceland published in 1882.

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Anxious to question the stock depiction of women as beings bereft of identity, women travellers drew an analogy between nineteenth-century Scandinavian women and the feminine element in the sagas. As travelling became more and more mainstream, women’s voyages to other lands also became less unnatural, a fact which also impacts on their overall presentation by male travellers or the self-projection by women travellers. In that epoch, an increasing number of women travellers defied the recurrent allegation in male discourse that “women should be restricted to the private sphere because of the perceived dangers in travelling” (Foster and Mills 179). Therefore, more and more women travellers wished to present themselves as adventuresses abroad, taking on the role of the “adventure heroine” in their writings, a role which, until the early nineteenth century at least, was typically male. Indeed, Foster and Mills point out that more and more women travellers desired to assume the role of the “adventure hero”, the commonest concept in male travelogues that seek to transform a journey into a real mission, beset with numerous perils (255). As can be easily supposed, however, women travel writers could not assume this dynamic narrative position without trespassing the male sphere. In particular, Foster and Mills assert that middle-class women writers, who dared to challenge the dominant patriarchal view on female frailty, “would seem to be undermining their gender identity if they described themselves using stereotypes of masculinity” (256). This is especially true in the case of Scandinavia; given male travel writers’ tendency to present a journey to the North as a process beset with perils, which posed a challenge to their masculinity, women travellers subverted male discourse to its core through their very presence in the North.

PART II: LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TRAVEL LITERATURE AND THE NORTH

CHAPTER ONE WILLIAM COXE: TRAVELS INTO POLAND, RUSSIA, SWEDEN AND DENMARK

William Coxe (1747-1828) was a British historian and physician to the Royal Household as well as Archdeacon of Wiltshire. Educated at Eton College, he became a Fellow of King’s College in 1768. Coxe travelled around Europe as tutor and fellow traveller of several noblemen such as Lord Herbert1 and Samuel Whitbread,2 producing various travelogues such as Sketches of the Natural, Political and Civil State of Switzerland (1779), Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America (1780), Account of Prisons and Hospitals in Russia, Sweden and Denmark (1781), Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark (1784), Travels in Switzerland (1789) and Historical Tour in Monmouthshire (1801). Yet Coxe is mainly remembered for his biographical works, offering significant insights into eighteenth-century Britain through works such as Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole (1798), Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole (1802), Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough (1818-9), Private and Original Correspondence of Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury (1821), History of the House of Austria (1807) and Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain (1813). Given Coxe’s obvious historical approach to his travel narratives, I will be elaborating on his travelogue Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark which constitutes one of his lengthiest and most influential works consisting of several volumes that describe the Scandinavian countries’ historical background in detail. Haldor A. Barton claims that it was this British traveller’s work that “set a benchmark for travel literature on the North, which later travelers considered the authority against which 1

Lord Herbert, 11th Earl of Pembroke (1759-1827), was a politician and army officer. 2 Samuel Whitbread (1720-1796) was an English brewer and Member of Parliament.

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to test their own observations” (15). Besides his pioneering status in travel literature written about Scandinavia, Coxe should be regarded as a pivotal figure of eighteenth-century travel literature because he is free from preconceptions about the North formulated by later British travellers who attempted to challenge his authority. As a typical late eighteenth-century writer, Coxe contemplates Scandinavia from a strictly scientific perspective. These scientific pursuits occupy a prevalent position in his depiction of the political characteristics of the Nordic countries. In addition to his interest in the technological evolution of the Scandinavian nations, the author’s upper- class status and contact with the British gentry certainly impact on his presentation of the political circumstances in Denmark and Sweden; as a result, his travelogue includes a great deal of factual information on Denmark and Sweden’s financial state and political history but does not address sufficiently other issues related to the countries visited, such as the role of the peasantry or gender relations. As Barton argues, “Coxe’s work abounds in factual information but contains relatively few personal anecdotes or reflections” (8). This is particularly true in the author’s travelogue as one cannot discern any reference to his intercourse with the local people; surrounded by members of the Danish nobility, the author does not become well acquainted with the social circumstances that underlie the eighteenthcentury developments in Scandinavian history. Coxe’s attitude might be explained by the common tendency of eighteenth-century travellers who assumed the role of the adventure hero or simply opted for an impersonal narrative in which the travel destination is presented in a rather static manner, exemplifying Mary-Louise Pratt’s distinction between the manners and customs narrative figure and the sentimental narrative style (75-6). According to Pratt, male travellers tend to choose the former in the depiction of the episodes in order to safeguard their literary authority and distinguish themselves from women travellers, who show an inclination towards the “individual” and the dramatisation of their fragility when faced with the peripheral world. Based on this distinction drawn by Pratt, Sara Mills contends that in “the manners and customs” narrative style, “people only occur in the texts as representative figures, or as traces. Numerous travellers write about the traces of earlier civilisations whilst not attempting to describe their interactions with the present occupants of the country” (75). Eager to address the historical background of the Scandinavian countries, the writer’s scope is limited to the memoirs of Gustavus Vasa and other influential personalities that impacted on the eighteenth-century mapping of the North. There is an extensive focus on the geopolitical relations that

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were formed at that time; the form of government of earlier centuries is extensively analysed at the expense of the contemporary political conditions in Denmark and Sweden. Coxe’s text is interspersed with valuable information that is quite indicative of British travellers’ tendency to envision the North as a pacific zone, completely removed from the scathing effects of the French Revolution and the other nationalist movements that sprung during the last part of the eighteenth century. The absence of sociopolitical reflection on the author’s part does not depart from the general tendency of many male travellers to treat their travel destination in a commodifying manner; according to Barton, what characterised eighteenth-century travellers in juxtaposition with the nineteenth-century travel writers, who predominantly belonged to the middle-class, was “wealth and leisure, commercial and imperial connections” (13). This certainly applies to Coxe’s case, who is chiefly interested in reproducing scenes of the Danish and Swedish court and is less keen on projecting the social reality of the times. Notwithstanding Coxe’s lengthy trip to the North, and his extensive focus on all the countries involved in his journey, the writer extensively describes Denmark as the mightiest Nordic kingdom of the late eighteenth century. His exhaustive description of the country’s past historical accomplishments reveals his thorough study of the country’s historical background; he also highlights the country’s status as a powerful empire, considering its incorporation of most Northern territories of the time (Norway, Iceland and Schleswig Holstein). Having produced his narrative prior to the Napoleonic Wars, during which the Anglo-Danish clash ruined the two countries’ political relations, Coxe speaks as impartially as possible of the country in question, marvelling at the welfare state that this peripheral kingdom has managed to construct. His positive view of Denmark can be witnessed in the projection of the country as an advanced European state sharing strong cultural bonds with Britain through history and politics. Also, Coxe’s social and narrative position prevents him from interacting with the peoples that he encounters in his voyages. Travelling as a tutor of young aristocrats, he only comes into contact with members of the Danish nobility, such as the Foreign Minister Count Bernsdorf3, an influential politician who is depicted in Wollstonecraft’s travelogue as well, though as a manipulative man and decisive influence on Crown Prince Frederik. Yet Coxe does not go as far as to criticise that man’s role 3

Andreas Peter Bernstorff (1735-1797) was a politician and ardent advocate of Danish absolutism

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in Danish politics and he only refers to him as a pleasant acquaintance: “among others we had the honour of dining several times with the prime minister Count Bernsdorf, at his villa, about four miles from Copenhagen” (133). In order to comprehend Coxe’s construction of Northern Utopia, it would be indispensable to reflect on the eighteenth-century travel tradition. According to Klitgaard Povlsen, during the period of the Grand Tour, travel writing came to signify “a growing desire for empirical knowledge, histories of art, science, geology” (11) whereas “up until the eighteenth century it can be difficult to distinguish between literary travelogues and scientific ones” (12). It appears that Coxe equally pursues scientific data while travelling around the Nordic countries as a Grand Tourist. Moreover, he is considerably concerned with the racial identification of his compatriots with the Scandinavian nations that he encounters in his travels, a tendency which is quite pioneering and belongs to the preoccupations of travel writing in the next century. The author successfully records this gradual shift from the view of the North as a frozen whole to the cradle of Western (Germanic) cultures, even though the barbarous aspect of Scandinavia persisted until the very end of the nineteenth century, separating the Britons from the “savage” descendants of the Vikings. In their attempt to reconstruct British identity, many eighteenth-century travellers sought to retrace the Germanic past of Britain, viewing the North “as the biggest nature reserve and archaeological museum in Europe” (Klitgaard Povlsen 13) reacting to the classical heritage of the Southern countries that treated everything not akin to the Greco-Roman culture as essentially barbaric. In addition, at the threshold of the nineteenth century, language was immediately associated with national (and racial) identification. As illustrated by Kirsten Gomard, the aim of late eighteenth-century scholars “was to discover the truth about the origin and position of the Nordic languages and to create a terminology that would communicate this truth appropriately” (195). Strongly influenced by this continuous debate on language as a nation-building property, Coxe draws extensively on the above nationalistic background so as to produce his own version of Northern Arcadia. Although his narrative is chiefly of factual-empirical character, the writer elaborates on the linguistic mosaic in the Scandinavian context with the aim of addressing the issue of British nationhood. Unlike other British travel writers of later decades, who sought to stress British cultural superiority over Germany, and establish a Northern Unity between Britain and the Nordic countries through the exclusion of

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Germany, Coxe could be regarded as a pro-Teutonist writer, emphasising the German origins of the Scandinavian North as well as of Britain on several occasions in his travelogue. For instance, his attitude towards the most widely spoken languages of the North (Danish and Swedish) echoes views of German linguists that used the term German “both as the inclusive name for the whole language group and also quite narrowly about the German language” (Gomard 210). In a passage from his narrative, Coxe argues that “the Swedish and Danish languages are both dialects of the Teutonic or German, and are both spoken in a singing or chanting tone” (7). In addition, when referring to Norwegians, the writer tends to racially identify them with the Danes, because they speak the same language, and therefore language is inevitably associated with ethnicity: “the Norwegians being the same race with the Danes, and so long connected with them in religion and government, speak the same language, with a necessary mixture of provincial expressions” (8). The view of language as the main nation-building tool of a country is more than visible in this sentence, in which Swedish and Danish are reduced as mere dialects of the German language. Coxe makes another statement, which connects Germany to Iceland, the latter gradually becoming a Nordic Hellas for the Germanic nations at the end of the eighteenth century. For the British author, the Icelander’s language “was the Old Gothic or Teutonic, the vernacular tongue of the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians, before it branched into the several dialects since spoken by the natives of those three kingdoms” (190). According to this argument, the Icelandic culture stems from the German mother culture, a fact which shows how perplexing the linguistic (and national) demarcation of the Nordic countries appears to be in the eyes of the educated Briton in the eighteenth century. Coxe’s statement involves two striking features, the association of the Icelandic saga literature with Teutonic Germany and the use of the terms Gothic and Teutonic interchangeably. His speech is indicative of the Teutonic premise that the old Viking culture, both in its written and oral aspects, resulted from the fragmentation of the German Saxon culture into several subgroups. Coxe’s outlook on language might be attributed to the eighteenth-century hypothesis that “all languages of the world had developed from a very small group of roots” and “linguistic change and development” caused by “climatic, geographic, ethnographic and cultural factors” (Gomard 199-200), a typically Herderian approach to language. At the same time, the indiscriminating use of the terms Gothic and Teutonic indicates how vague the cultural boundaries are between the different Nordic cultures according to Coxe. The writer apparently supports

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the German conceptualisation of the North because the two terms had already been employed by other scholars (as the above mentioned Adelung and Rask) to justify or disprove the German nationalist allegations on the German origins of the Old Norse world. The distinction drawn between the Saxonist/ Teutonist cultural model propagated by German philosophers and the Gothic denomination of the same cultural context is made explicit in the following extract, in which Rasmus Rask4 clearly defines the term Gothic: [Gothic] seems particularly well suited for denoting the whole large language stem that includes the German (the Germanic) and Nordic (Scandinavian) languages which the Germans (Adelung in particular) not too correctly or modestly have begun to call Germanic. But we have never heard about Germanics in the North, and even the ancient Romans who used the name explicitly limited it to the Germans, or even a single tribe among them. Goths, however, are the only important people of whom reliable traces are found both in the Nordic countries and the south. (viiviii)

Aside from the perplexing use of the inclusive term Teutonic to address the cultures of Scandinavia as subgroups of the German civilisation, Coxe’s travelogue is characterised by another pioneering feature in late eighteenth century, that is, the introduction of Iceland as an Arcadian society to the British reader, despite its sequestered position in the European continent. Coxe’s attitude differentiates itself from previous writings, such as Pierre Martin de La Martinière’s A Voyage to the North of Europe (1670) and Francisco de Miranda’s Viajes por Grecia, Turquía y Rusia (1786), which sought to centre on the island as a locus of sorcery and supernatural events; during his journey, the writer touches upon Danish literature, and while elaborating on the literary accomplishments of the Danish people, he seizes the opportunity to accentuate the contribution of the Icelanders, who were reduced to a state of vassalage at the time of Coxe’s journey to Denmark, to the development of European literature. Sumarliði Isleifsson refers to the negative image of the North, and especially Iceland, until the mid-1800s, asserting that

4

Rasmus Christian Rask (1787-1832) was a Danish linguist and philologist whose influential work Introduction to the Grammar of the Icelandic and other Ancient Northern Languages triggered the Northernist movement in Britain and other Germanic countries, and introduced the Victorians to the study of Anglo-Saxon philology.

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Part II Chapter One until the eighteenth and even later, Classical views, following the climatology of Aristotle, still had a significant influence on European ideas of the world, According to the Classical view, the climate in the far South and North was so extreme that these areas were more or less uninhabitable; civilized life was impossible […] In Central and Southern Europe, this negative image of the North prevailed throughout the Middle Ages and until the eighteenth century. (112-13)

In juxtaposition with this dystopian view of the country, which was supposed to be inhabited by savages that challenged the refined image of the Southern peoples, Coxe sets the focus on the medieval literary production of the small island, the skaldic poetry and the sagas. The writer shows an early Vikingist interest in the role of Iceland as an important European cultural centre, arguing that: Yet it is to these Icelanders, that we are indebted for almost all historical monuments now remaining. From them sprung the Scalds, those antient bards who have transmitted, in their historical poems, the principal events which happened in these remote quarters of the world, from the arrival of Odin to the introduction of Christianity; a period of barbarism and ignorance, which, without their labours, had been totally unknown to posterity”. (190-1)

Notwithstanding the characterisation of the saga years as a “period of barbarism and ignorance” that the Icelandic “troubadours” managed to pass on to future generations, which were more enlightened by the Christian faith, one can easily discern Coxe’s recognition of the significant role of the sagas in the medieval times which transformed the island into the matrix for Nordic civilisation. Given his fascination with the Old Viking world and the linguistic kinship between the Germanic nations, Coxe also articulates another argument which is conducive to further acknowledgement of Iceland as a utopian, and culturally advanced, locus: among the performances lately printed on these topics, those in the Icelandic tongue deserve particular notice; as they tend to throw considerable light upon the antiquities, history, and mythology of the northern nations; Iceland being in the remote ages, while Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, were in a state of perpetual warfare, the sole refuge and repository of Northern literature. (189)

Even though in earlier passages the writer dwells on the inclusive image of Northern Europe as a Teutonic (German) continuum, with this statement he gradually departs from his previous thesis, shifting the cradle of the Old Norse (and Anglo-Saxon) civilisation to the northernmost

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corner of Europe, by placing emphasis on the Icelandic tongue as a considerable historical element that offers important insights into the North as opposed to the Classical tradition of the South. Furthermore, while marvelling at the remarkable literary production of the small nation, Coxe begins to question the firmly held belief of his predecessors that the geographical position as well as the climatic conditions of a country impact on the national character of its people, stating that: It would be an interesting speculation in the theory of mankind, if it could be accounted for, how it came to pass that a people disjoined from the rest of the world, few in number, depressed by poverty, and situated in so unfavourable a climate, should be capable, in those dark ages, of manifesting such a taste for literature. (193-4)

This radical statement addressed to the reader is of pivotal importance because Coxe dismisses previous depictions of the Northern nations as purely dystopian on account of their placement on the European map. By questioning the theory of climate which insisted on the “negative effect of coldness which freezes the mind and suppresses intellectual agility” (Zacharasiewicz 33), the writer also calls into question the traditional description of the Nordic people as noble savages, since in the “dark” medieval times, Icelanders had developed an exquisite taste in literature, although “disjoined from the rest of the world”. In that respect, Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage could not apply to the enlightened aspect of the Icelanders, a fact which is particularly important, if one considers that, in travel literature, the peripheral position of a place largely determined its view both by the traveller and the reader. Interestingly enough, Coxe identifies this remoteness of the island as one of the reasons for the country´s remarkable literary flourishment. Instead of highlighting the adverse weather conditions that could hinder the islanders’ intellectual aspirations, Coxe, presents the unfavourable climate of the island as the main reason for the formation of a new literary utopia: To these causes may perhaps be joined the political tranquility of Iceland, which remaining unshaken amid the civil commotions that convulsed the neighbouring nations, its inhabitants had sufficient leisure for literary occupations; and some may also be induced to add, the nature of their climate, which obliged them to seek for some relief against the tediousness of the long nights and continued darkness.” (194-5)

All in all, Coxe’s text Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark might be regarded as a pioneering work that instigated British

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travel literature on Scandinavia. Without any doubt, he goes beyond the stereotypical representation of the North until his time. The theory of climate and the idea of the noble savage which prevailed in the philosophical debate on Scandinavia are largely questioned by the writer, who introduces new elements to the presentation of Scandinavia, such as the Teutonic origins of Britain, the importance of its Anglo-Saxon background, the role of Iceland as a literary utopia and the potential Anglo-Scandinavian unity. What is more, his important observations introduce the British readers to a more systematic study of the sagas, a fact which precipitated the cultivation of the Northernist spirit during the midVictorian era. Nevertheless, he neglects to provide the reader with information on the contemporary aspect of the natives, as he focuses solely on factual information.

CHAPTER TWO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: LETTERS WRITTEN DURING A SHORT RESIDENCE IN SWEDEN, NORWAY AND DENMARK

Mary Wollstonecraft (1757-1797), a late eighteenth-century writer and philosopher, who is best remembered for her influential work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects (1792) in which she expresses her early feminist concerns. She should be included amongst the most pioneering women travel writers, being the first to undertake a trip to the North of Europe. Her embarking on a Scandinavian Tour, when the majority of male travel writers were still influenced by the spirit of Grand Tourism and opted for Italy or Switzerland as desirable travel destinations, should be deemed as an extremely important undertaking, which led to the production of her well received travel narrative Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark one year before her death (1796). One reason for which I have opted for this travelogue is its function as a common point of reference among both male and female travellers. Another reason is that Wollstonecraft became a trend-setting figure for most women writers of the next century. Her writing marked the start of nineteenth-century travel writing by formulating ideas that challenged many male premises connected to the abilities of the female sex. Aside from her dual capacity as a woman writer and a traveller in one of the remotest corners of the European continent, the reason for her voyage to the Nordic countries adds to the originality of her travelogue; though a woman, Wollstonecraft is on a business errand, sent by her American lover Gilbert Imlay, 1 a fact which proves her subversion of a great deal of eighteenth-century (as well as nineteenthcentury) conventions that sought to depict women as incapable of undertaking a trip unaccompanied by a male chaperone because of the vulnerability endemic to their sex. Defying the principle of domesticity 1

Gilbert Imlay (1754-1828) was an American businessman and diplomat.

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attached to the everyday experience of late eighteenth-century British women, Wollstonecraft successfully functions as a traveller, writer, businesswoman as well as an explorer without losing her femininity by drawing a link between her tumultuous relationship with Imlay and the changing scenes during her travels. After all, as Beth Dolan Kautz puts it, her journey “is not only a business trip, but also an attempt to heal her emotional pain and melancholia while traveling through picturesque and sublime landscapes” (35). In addition, her travelogue to Scandinavia is noted for a detailed account of every travel experience, including observations of the author that draw a clear-cut distinction between the various Scandinavian nations in a period during which Scandinavia was commonly treated as a unified, barbarous zone in opposition to the embedded values of Greco-Roman cultural tradition. Wollstonecraft makes many comments on Scandinavian nature, its impact on the peoples’ national character, Scandinavian societal forms and the role of women in Nordic societies. Despite her significant contribution to the genre of travel literature as well as to feminist discourse, her work has been overshadowed by the information on her private life in Memoirs of the Author of ‘The Rights of Woman’ (1798) that was later published by her husband William Godwin. According to Joanne Shattock, the poor reception of Wollstonecraft’s work in the Victorian era strikes us as paradoxical; for“Mary Wollstonecraft is widely accepted as the founding figure in Anglo-American feminism, but she was rarely even mentioned, let alone venerated, for most of the nineteenth century, the period in which active feminism took root” (13). Owing to her private life, Wollstonecraft’s importance as a travel author has been constantly subjected to a significant amount of criticism. Nevertheless, her function as a woman travel author at the close of the eighteenth century undoubtedly set the pace for other women to follow; especially when it comes to her travelogue in Scandinavia, Wollstonecraft inaugurated a new era of travelling, in which issues such as gender, primitiveness, Otherness, and noble savagery were brought together and were extensively aestheticised. This can be noticed in several passages in her travelogue, in which the writer touches upon those issues at length. For example, Wollstonecraft notes that: There was a solemn silence in this scene which made itself be felt. The sunbeams that played on the ocean, scarcely ruffled by the lightest breeze, contrasted with the huge dark rocks, that looked like the rude materials of creation forming the barrier of unwrought space, forcibly struck me, but I should not have been sorry if the cottage had not appeared equally tranquil.

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Approaching a retreat where strangers, especially women, so seldom appeared. (5)

What is more, her Letters should be read in the light of her anterior philosophical essay, her Vindication of the Rights of Women in which she explores gender equality and female subordination. In particular, when attacking female domesticity and women’s dependence on their spouses, the travel author attempts to renegotiate her female identity through her very presence in a foreign land; yet, at the same time, there are several occasions on which Wollstonecraft implies an emotional subordination to Imlay, and therefore she slides from one position to another, impregnating her letters with a significant amount of controversy. According to Catherine Sandbach-Dahlström and Anka Ryall, “the Letters provides a powerful account of a journey to what was at the time an exotic outpost of European civilization. But it can also be read as an elegiac meditation on disillusion and lost love” (1). In that way, Wollstonecraft’s epistolary work could be seen both as a woman’s refusal to succumb to the domestic aspect of femininity and as a text which reproduces women’s spiritual attachment to their husbands/lovers; this ambiguity reveals to the reader the complex definition of womanhood. There should also be drawn a distinction between two subtopics associated with the issue of womanhood, the first addressing the author’s relation to Imlay and the second touching upon the images of femininity witnessed by the writer in her study of the social conditions in Denmark, Sweden and Norway in the given period as well as through her juxtaposition with her woman companion, her French maid Marguerite. On the one hand, Wollstonecraft attempts to portray her relationship with Imlay as well as her emotional state in her epistolary work. The description of this relationship is largely based on the actual letters that she wrote during her four month journey to the Scandinavian countries. In order to analyse the real nature of Wollstonecraft’s connection with Imlay, it would be worth looking at the writer’s own views in relation to her most famous work A Vindication of the Rights of Women, in which she defines the appropriate role that women must undertake while being in a relationship with a man: “I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man” (Wollstonecraft 184)”. Wollstonecraft’s refusal to succumb to the prescribed engendered patterns of the patriarchal world, within her contemporary culture and society, might be regarded as an early struggle of a woman for equalisation with her male counterparts. Both theoretically

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and personally, the writer considers the ideal male partner as her fellow, a fact which is also seen in several instances in her letters to Imlay. First of all, it might be claimed that in her letters to Imlay, Wollstonecraft tries to establish a friendly relationship by addressing him in a very intimate manner as though he were the soul mate to whom she could cling whenever she experiences emotions of loneliness. In Letter XI she confesses that “if I had not determined to write I should have found my confinement here, even for three or four days, tedious” (55). In this case, Wollstonecraft considers her epistolary form of communication with Imlay as the only means of dealing with the difficult business task which she has undertaken and the conditions which she meets while being on a journey to the unknown Scandinavian countries. This view of her partner as the friend who supports her emotionally during her business trip is constantly revoked by the writer through the use of words such as “my friend” and “my dear fellow”. At the same time, the epistolary form of writing reached its apex after the publication of Rousseau’s autobiographical work Confessions2, in which the writer recorded the early stages that he forged his personality. In alignment with this fashion, Wollstonecraft speaks of the most intimate issues of her life, revolving around the notions of motherhood, love and betrayal, always in connection to Imlay’s presence. Besides her critique on female domesticity, Wollstonecraft draws the reader’s attention to another idea, that of the solitary traveller, which constitutes a recurrent pattern in travel literature produced at the close of the eighteenth century and well until the end of the Age of Romanticism. This recurrent concept, intimately related to the travel process in the period in question, sought to depict the traveller as an individual who was constanly in search of the most sequestered spots of Europe so as to experience the emotions of the sublime and the picturesque. This is often witnessed in Wollstonecraft’s discourse, which is beset with several reflections of the sublime that illuminate the author’s delicate sentimental state, as suggested in the following passage: Nature is the nurse of sentiment, the true source of taste; yet what misery, as well as rapture, is produced by a quick perception of the beautiful and sublime when it is exercised in observing animated nature, when every beauteous feeling and emotion excites responsive sympathy, and the harmonised soul sinks into melancholy or rises to ecstasy, just as the chords are touched, like the Æolian harp agitated by the changing wind. (27)

2

Les Confessions

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According to the writer, nature sympathises with and participates in the sentiments of melancholy that she experiences. In addition, the sublime landscapes of the Scandinavian countryside excite a feeling which ranges from ecstasy to the absolute horror, a response to nature’s wanders that provides, as Dolan Kautz puts it, “a metaphor for powerful emotion and melancholic rumination”, whereas the writer also retains her rational attitude by proving the reader with picturesque vistas that “help to regulate her sensibility and to restore order to her mind” (36). A combination of the picturesque with the sublime reflects the influence that Wollstonecraft had received by her two philosophical opponents, Burke and Rousseau. As Fjågesund and Symes point out one of the clichés of travelling during the Romantic era was the traveller’s obsession with “personal solitude and loneliness […] the Romantic hero is frequently an exiled, solitary wanderer, pictured in a vast and threatening landscape” (307). The writer also alludes to this concept in an episode from her travelogue in which she expresses the need to be left alone: I am, my friend, more and more convinced that a metropolis, or an abode absolutely solitary, is the best calculated for the improvement of the heart, as well as the understanding; whether we desire to become acquainted with man, nature, or ourselves. Mixing with mankind, we are obliged to examine our prejudices, and often imperceptibly lose, as we analyse them. And in the country, growing intimate with nature, a thousand little circumstances, unseen by vulgar eyes, give birth to sentiments dear to the imagination. (15)

The idea of solitary travelling is linked to that of the adventure hero, because both roles form an integral part of the voyage, and imply the construction of masculinity. The writer’s refusal to be enclosed within the domestic sphere, even if it is located in a friend’s house, challenges again the stereotypes ascribed to her sex, that is, sedentary life and lack of decision-making. Luree Miller underscores the relationship between solitariness and masculinity, arguing that “underlying all the great sagas of exploration was an understanding that the impulse to roam and explore was masculine” (13). Wollstonecraft’s refusal to be enclosed within the domestic sphere, even if it is located in a friend’s house, challenges again the stereotypes ascribed to her sex, that is, sedentary life and lack of decision-making. It is evident that Wollstonecraft assumes the role of the adventure heroine right from the start of her travelogue, despite her frequent selfdepiction as a tormented being, because she is not only unescorted by a male traveller but also ventures into unknown spaces. On the other hand,

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she defies the well established rule that “women should be restricted to the private sphere because of the perceived dangers in travelling” (179) contemplating space as a locus of social relations. Wollstonecraft’s differentiation from her French maid indicates her desire to subvert stereotypical pattern in writing and describe women travellers’ different ways of interpreting the same events, a fact which points to the writer’s belief that women should not be treated as a homogeneous group but rather be seen as subjects with distinct personalities. Wollstonecraft makes it even more explicit on another occasion, when Marguerite seems to be amazed by the writer’s easiness to establish communication and make the necessary arrangements with an unknown Swedish sailor, an attitude that is interpreted as subversion of the conventional roles between men and women within British society that do not favour gender intimacy of that kind: To save the sailors any further toil, I had my baggage instantly removed into his boat; for, as he could speak English, a previous parley was not necessary, though Marguerite’s respect for me could hardly keep her from expressing the fear, strongly marked on her countenance, which my putting ourselves into the power of a strange man excited (7).

What strikes Marguerite’s attention is the writer’s ability to interact with people of the opposite sex in the most isolated locations, a tendency which proves that Wollstonecraft is in a position to function as an independent traveller, ready to go through several situations that could challenge her femininity. Instead of describing the hardships to which she is subjected during her voyage to Sweden, and therefore stress the feelings of insecurity that she experiences as a woman “in the middle of nowhere”, once again Wollstonecraft seems to be more interested in the impact that her nonconforming attitude has on her French maid, who is obviously regarded by the author as the epitome of eighteenth-century conventions. Apart from her emphasis on her masculine, “unladylike” attitude in cases of an emergency, as the one described in the above passage, the writer also alludes to another major issue, closely related to the nature of women’s capacity as travellers: sexual attack. As argued by Foster and Mills, sexual attack is often something which is most marked in women’s travel writing paradoxically because of its absence. There is often a sense that the fault would lie with the woman herself […] and would perhaps draw attention to the problematic nature of her travelling unaccompanied within the public sphere (173-4).

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In her travelogue, however, Wollstonecraft does not only mention this seeming danger but is also eager to challenge this major constraint in women’s travelling by juxtaposing her active role as an independent traveller with the passivity of Marguerite; the defiance of the norms of feminine conduct enables Wollstonecraft to continue her trip across Scandinavia whereas her potential compliance with the passivity imposed on her sex could be detrimental both to the overall survival of the party and the travel purpose, a fact which points to the unfounded arguments of patriarchal society about women’s inability to assume other roles besides those of mothers and housewives. One of the focal points of Wollstonecraft’s travelogue is her voyage to the Norwegian fjords. Despite the fact that Norway still formed part of the Danish kingdom and the Norwegians were hardly regarded as a distinct nation, the writer focuses on the peculiarities of the Norwegian nation, basing her remarks on the inherent connection between climate and nature. The author attaches great importance to this voyage because the savageness of Norwegian nature and the primitive aspect of the Norwegian peasantry add to her contemplation of Scandinavia as an unpolished territory, free from the oppressive forms of civilised Europe. According to Fjågesund and Symes, Wollstonecraft tends to regard “Norway as a society that still had a long way to go in terms of cultural progress” (39). Yet it was this uncivilised aspect that attracted the writer to further explore the country, given Norway’s remote position both culturally and socially from the writer’s home country. The author confesses this appealing savage character of Norwegian culture while addressing Imley: You have probably made similar reflections in America, where the face of the country, I suppose resembles the wilds of Norway. I am delighted with the romantic views I daily contemplate, animated by the purest air; and I am interested by the simplicity of manners which reigns around me. Still nothing so soon wearies out the feelings as unmarked simplicity (40.)

In this extract one can witness the writer’s preromantic disposition, since Wollstonecraft appears to be in constant search of solitary settings for her narrative, and she also admits to her keen interest for the simplicity of the peasantry, still untouched by the vices of civilisation, which have obliterated the moral integrity of the citizens of advanced cultures, such as the British. As Harold A. Barton aptly points out, late eighteenth-century British travellers grew weary of the cosmopolitanism of the Age of Enlightenment, attributes of which were “cities, literature and the arts, science, scholarship and learning, royal courts, government and its finctions, and the manners and mores of polite society” (23), and they

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commenced to seek for travel destinations around Europe that were hardly unburdened with vestiges of the Greco-Roman tradition. The same travellers, however, who searched for virgin territories, often contradicted themselves by wishing to return to the civilised world, stressing their overexposure to the Nordic wildernesses. This also applies to Wollstonecraft, who alludes to her homesickness as soon as she experiences the sublimity of the Norwegian landscapes: I am therefore half convinced that I could not live very comfortably exiled from the countries where mankind are so much further advanced in knowledge, imperfect as it is, and unsatisfactory to the thinking mind. Even now I begin to long to hear what you are doing in England and France. My thoughts fly from this wilderness to the polished circles of the world, till recollecting its vices and follies, I bury myself in the woods, but find it necessary to emerge again, that I may not lose sight of the wisdom and virtue which exalts my nature (40).

Her eagerness to reunite with the civilised circles of Europe certainly draws a distinction between the barbarous North and the civilised South, the recurrent theme in eighteenth –century travel literature, in an effort to differentiate herself from the primitive “Other”, the Norwegians. In addition, the contemplation of her travel to Scandinavia as a form of exile reveals the writer’s contradictory spirit. Barton makes an interesting point that, like the majority of her fellow travellers, Wollstonecraft’s reaction to the Norwegian landscapes slides from the strictly rational doctrine of the Enlightenment to “the emotional values of preromanticism […] while both currents coexisted throughout the period, the romantic worldview became even stronger”, as expressed in the travel literature on the North” (14). Wollstonecraft’s attitude attests this contradiction, not fully incorporating either of these aesthetic tendencies into her discourse. Another utopian concept of Norwegian society is the social freedom that its members enjoy, despite the harsh conditions in which they are forced to live. With regard to the status of the Norwegians as free citizens, Wollstonecraft mentions that “you will be surprised to hear me talk of liberty; yet the Norwegians appear to me to be the most free community I have ever observed” (28). Despite their reduction into a state of vassalage during the Dano-Norwegian Union, the Norwegians are characterised as citizens of free society because of their close communion with nature and their unpretentious manners and mores, reflecting qualities that ceased to exist in more advanced societies. On one occasion, Wollstonecraft admits to the fact that, apart from her desire to experience the subliminal and picturesque aspects of Norwegian nature, she is equally anxious to meet

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people who, according to the author, are characterised by a remarkable degree of simplicity that can be hardly traced in continental Europe: You will ask, perhaps, why I wished to go farther northward. Why? not only because the country, from all I can gather, is most romantic, abounding in forests and lakes, and the air pure, but I have heard much of the intelligence of the inhabitants, substantial farmers, who have none of that cunning to contaminate their simplicity, which displeased me so much in the conduct of the people on the sea coast (56).

The above passage perfectly serves as a definition of the idea of the noble savage, the concept initially introduced by Rousseau, in his philosophical discourse on the natural state of human beings who live away from the city centres. As argued by Fjågesund and Ruth Symes, “simplicity and primitiveness, then, were elevated into a quality to be admired rather than despised, and in Norway nineteenth-century travellers found evidence of close and vital connections with this historical heritage” (153). Uncontaminated by the corruptive effect of civilisation on their national character and ideally removed from the main developments of European politics, Norwegians are depicted by the writer as noble savages, who are ideally compatible with the virgin aspect of Norwegian nature based on the premise that noble savages “apparently stereotypical of ‘romantic naturalism’ […] base their claims of nobility on explicit or implied connections to natural behavior and attitudes” (Ellingson 334). This does not necessarily imply that the author is not influenced by the science-oriented spirit of Enlightenment which concentrates on technological evolution and progress in the fields of art and literature. Wollstonecraft quickly observes that, although the spirit of Enlightenment does not seem to have reached Norway, “the Norwegians appear to me a sensible, shrewd people, with little scientific knowledge, and still less taste for literature; but they are arriving at the epoch which precedes the introduction of the arts and sciences” (29). This statement proves the writer’s ambivalent stance towards the impact of science on the national character of nations, as well as her wrestling with both the eighteenthcentury spirit of reason and her Rousseauesque preromantic tendencies. Yet it is worth casting a comparative glance at Coxe’s Travels and Wollstonecraft’s Letters, as they were both written, more or less, under similar sociopolitical circumstances, and they both addressed Scandinavia on various levels. According to Sandbach-Dahlström and Ryall, one could draw an analogy between the two texts in terms of intertextuality and structure because

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Part II Chapter Two Coxe […] is the likely source of much of the general historical and socioeconomic information Wollstonecraft provides. Moreover, their narratives cover roughly the same-very limited- areas of the southern parts of the three Nordic countries, and both follow the custom of introducing each country in survey chapters that summarise its history, political system, principal industries and so on. (10)

However, based on Pratt’s distinction between the sentimental and the manners and customers narrative positions, I would contend that Wollstonecraft posits herself as a sentimental traveller whereas Coxe, anxious to provide the reader with accurate data on the sociopolitical conditions pertaining to Scandinavia, obviously opts for the other role. To my understanding, this choice of narrative style denotes a gender position as well, as Coxe wishes to make explicit his male authority in the enumeration of factual data, whereas Wollstonecraft consciously departs from that patronising position. As Sandbach-Dahlström and Ryall indicate, “Wollstonecraft’s text attempts in a variety of ways to subvert Coxe’s authority, and signs of her resistance can be found more or less whenever their itineraries coincide” (10-11). Thus, for example Wollstonecraft notes that “compared with the sublime prospects I had seen to the westward; and as for the hills, ‘capped with eternal snow,’ Mr.Coxe's description led me to look for them, but they had flown, for I looked vainly around for this noble background” (51). It is, therefore, one of the first instances in British travel literature in which the issue of gender comes to define a travel destination and serves as a point of contrast between narratives written on the same topic. In other words, if one draws a comparison between Wollstonecraft and Coxe, it is evident that gender is not only a significant component of the travel author’s persona but overwhelmingly underlies the whole travel process as well as the travel destination. Coxe remains loyal to the role of the omniscient travel narrator. Owing to the rather limited familiarisation of British travel writers with the Nordic context, Coxe’s impressions derive from the recording of past events in the history of Denmark and Sweden; at the same time, Coxe tends to depict the Nordic countries in accordance with the influential theory of Teutonism that, as has already been mentioned, gained considerable ground in the second part of the eighteenth century and mainly sought to unite Northern Europeans under the umbrella term of Teutons. What is striking is the writer’s formulation of this idea of Teutonic unity between Britain and the Nordic countries on several occasions indicating vestiges of Teutonism in his speculation of the origins of British culture. As a matter of fact, the greatest part of Coxe’s travelogue centres on the alleged relation between Britain and the North at

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a cultural and linguistic level, thus reflecting the British author’s concern about the delineation of British nationhood in compliance with the Teutonic hypothesis. On the contrary, Wollstonecraft does not show any interest in the racialisation of the North. In short, Wollstonecraft’s Letters should be deemed as the starting point for many nineteenth-century travellers who were intrigued by the marvels of Scandinavian nature or the attractive backwardness of the Nordic populations. The travel narrative in question typifies the travel literature of the next century. Owing to the fact that Wollstonecraft produced he work at the close of the eighteenth-century, she successfully combines the principal aesthetic and travel ideas of the two centuries, marking the transition from the rational, science-oriented travelogues of the eighteenth-century tradition to the Romantic and ethnographically concerned nineteenth travel narratives.

PART III: SWEDISH UTOPIA

CHAPTER ONE SAMUEL LAING: TOUR IN SWEDEN IN 1838: COMPRISING OBSERVATIONS ON THE MORAL, POLITICAL, AND ECONOMICAL STATE OR THE SWEDISH NATION

Samuel Laing (1780-1868) is one of the most influential figures of early Victorian travel literature with respect to Scandinavia. He was born to a landowning Scottish family and spent the greatest part of his life in the Orkney Islands. Laing studied law and took part in the Napoleonic Wars as a British officer. Later in his life he was involved in the political life of his region, being elected Mayor of Kirkwall. He also owned a herring industry and had served as a manager of a mining company. He wrote several travelogues about Scandinavia and Germany such as Journal of a Residence in Norway during the Years 1834, 1835, and 1836 (in 1836), A Tour in Sweden in 1838 Comprising Observations on the Moral, Political and Economical State of the Swedish Nation (in 1838), On the moral state and political union of Sweden and Norway (1840), and Notes of a Traveller (a travelogue about Germany, published in 1842). However, Laing is mostly remembered for his important English translation of Snorri Sturluson’s saga Heimskringla 1 in his Chronicle of the Kings of Norway (1844). His translation of an Icelandic work into the English language should be regarded as a major step towards the conceptualisation of the North by the Victorians, since they acquired access for the first time to the medieval Icelandic tradition. Laing’s contribution to the formation of the northernist movement in Victorian Britain is obvious; as Andrew Wawn points out, Samuel Laing was a 1

A collection of sagas about Norwegian kings written in Old Norse by the famous Icelandic writer Snorri Sturluson, which became one of the main national symbols of Norway throughout its Romantic Nationalist movement in the nineteenth century.

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highly influential figure of Northernism in Britain, “giving a novelistic substance to the romance of the Viking-age legacy […] and the Vikings their first thoroughgoing politicization in Britain” (88). In that way, he served as the main English voice of the sagas, being regarded as the principal translator of saga poetry for many decades as well as an indisputable authority on the sagas for mid and late-Victorian travellers. Written during the author’s visit of the country after having spent two years in Norway, Laing’s travel narrative A Tour in Sweden is is influenced to a considerable extent by the trends of eighteenth-century travel literature; like other eighteenth-century travellers, such as Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus2 and Samuel Johnson who used their travels in order to apply their socio-economic theories to the place visited, Laing formulates his liberal political theses based on the sociopolitical institutions of Sweden. Barton’s argument that there was a shift of purpose in late eighteenth-century travel literature, from the strictly utilitarian texts to “most notably lyric verse, the novel, the essay, the didactic drama and the travel account” (2) is partly observed in Laing’s text, which is structured by the author as a political essay, hence the second part of his travelogue entitled Comprising Observations on the Moral, Political and Economical State of the Swedish Nation, which reveals the writer’s attempt to throw light on aspects of Swedish culture other than strictly cultural or scientific. Whether this is actually the writer’s focal point is subject to further questioning, if one considers that the author ends up focusing on language and religion as the pillars of Swedish national identity, thus departing from his initial purpose. It is clear that Laing transforms his account into a social critique of his travel destination in his subsequent publication of the essay On the moral state and political union of Sweden and Norway, in which his ideas about Scandinavian politics are more thoroughly expressed, drawing a comparison between the liberal Norwegian system and the rigidity of the Swedish financial model. As Nigel Leask notes, the author’s narrative abides by the eighteenth-century travel literature tradition, according to which “eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century travellers were bound by empirical protocols which demanded rigorous practices of description and notation” (15). In that respect, Laing and his contemporaries were compelled to structure their discourse on a philosophical basis so that their writing could achieve greater validity. The empirical annotations of travel writers on the moral state of the country visited is associated, according to 2

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was a political economist whose socioeconomic work An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) exercised significant influence on the conscience of British society.

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Leask, with a “political appropriation” (16) of Sweden. This tendency can also be noticed in the Scottish author’s text, since a recurrent pattern in his travelogue is his description of the low morals in Sweden and the failure of the absolutist Swedish king to prevent this development, as contended by Laing in the following, rather indicative passage: “Sweden has been a hot bed of intrigues since the assassination of Gustavus III in 1792; and the success which has attended the most unprincipled, has destroyed the moral sense of the nation in political affairs” (102). Given the sociopolitical nature of Laing’s discourse in the travelogue, it is essential to analyse the actual historical conditions in Sweden in the early nineteenth century. It is worth stressing that Laing, being an early Victorian writer, is preoccupied with the long-term impact of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars on the mapping of Europe. Clearly, this preoccupation emanates from his role as a British officer against the Napoleonic forces, having witnessed the tragic division of Europe into two alliances, the pro-French (to which Denmark also belonged) and to the pro-English, an important ally of which was Sweden (and Norway, wishing to break away from the Danish authoritarian union). In the prefatory part of his travel account, the author stresses the effect of these past war experiences on the amalgamation of nineteenth-century Europe: Yet the calm which we have been enjoying for nearly a quarter of a century, after that storm of the French revolution which shook the world, is perhaps the most important period that has occurred in the history of the human race. New powers, it may be said, have been granted to man during this period a new intellectual power, by the general diffusion of knowledge through the press new physical power, by the general application of steam to machinery and movement. (i)

It should also be reminded that Laing’s stay in Sweden coincides with a rather tumultuous period for the Swedish state, which needed to renegotiate its national identity after its territorial shrinking at the dawn of the nineteenth century. There were several events that affected the national feeling of the Swedes prior to Laing’s arrival in Sweden. The loss of Finland by the Russian Army must be seen as a particularly scathing experience; as Franklin D. Scott points out, “it was inevitable that Finland should fall sooner or later to the might of expanding Russia […] fallen to the nadir of its fortune and spirit” (295-302) in 1809. Laing seems to acknowledge the significance of this loss for the national awareness of the Swedes by asserting that “the loss of Finland is the most prominent. It is considered by all Swedes as the deepest wound ever inflicted on their country” (385). Clearly, this loss is interpreted by Laing as one of the

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principal reasons for which the country’s national identity has fallen into a serious state of degeneracy because Sweden is transformed from a ruling empire into a peripheral country hiding under the shadow of the Russian empire. In addition to the anti-Russian sentiment, which gradually manifested itself after the loss of the old Swedish province of Finland, another event shattered the relations of the Swedish kingdom with the other Nordic countries. As noted by Byron J. Nordström, after 434 years of Danish domination and “instead of becoming independent, Norway was ceded by Frederick VI to the king of Sweden” by the Treaty of Kiel (180) despite the strenuous efforts of Norwegian nationalists to lead their country to independence and “despite British sympathy for the Norwegian cause” (183). At the same time, Scott refers to “the odd entry into Swedish history” (293) of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, a French marshal, who ruled the country since 1809. The last two historical circumstances marked the position of Sweden as an absolutist Baltic Empire, suppressing the Norwegian claim to self-rule, and as a proof for French expansion towards the North. Both the country’s imperial background and Francophile politics rendered Victorian writers quite reticent to describe the country as a Northern Utopia. Taking all these facts into account, one can notice the importance that Laing bestows on the constitution of Sweden as a modern nation. Concerning the loss of Finland, he states that: The present position of Sweden among the European powers is extraordinary. By the loss of her foreign provinces of Finland and Pomerania, she is severed from the mainland of Europe, and its political affairs: and by the singular chance which has seated upon her throne a new line of monarchs, not connected by family alliances with any other royal dynasty, she stands politically isolated even more than physically. (3)

Owing to the country’s sudden transformation from a ruling Nordic Empire into a simple observer of the European geopolitical game, Laing presents Sweden as an isolated country, completely stripped of any contribution to European history. According to Laing, the loss of Finland by the Russian Empire signals the gradual disintegration of the Swedish state into a passive country, susceptible to the attacks of the emergent imperialist powers. Given the country’s reduced role in the North in view of Russian expansionist politics, Laing stresses the weak position of the Swedish state in the nineteenth century:

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Part III Chapter One Sweden in her present situation, trembling within the claws of Russia, and with her ancient and powerful ally the French nation, alienated by her desertion of moral and political principal in the hour of need, is no exception to the homely maxim, that ‘honesty is the best policy’ even among kings. (400)

Considering the frequent emphasis on the weakness of Sweden, one can understand that Laing’s tendency is to project the country’s debility rather than depict its contemporary accomplishments in the field of education and science. Nordström contends that the central themes of the period included conscious efforts by several European powers to maintain Swedish political weakness through diplomacy […] continued British and French interest in the Baltic and their pursuit of policies designed to prevent any single power from establishing hegemony in the region. (114)

Given the former power status of Sweden as a northern hegemony, and considering its predominance in the North after the reduction of Denmark into a midget nation by the Treaty of Kiel, Laing wishes to dismiss the powerful image of the country, referring to a potential forceful annexation of Sweden to the nascent Russian Empire. The passivity shown by the Swedish nation in moments of need, such as the territorial loss of Finland, is also associated with its cultural alliance with France. Sweden’s peculiar state as a Nordic country with a French king is certainly not met with great enthusiasm on the Britons’ part, hence Laing’s ironic comment on the Franco-Swedish alliance, which has led to the “desertion of moral and political principal” within the Swedish political system. On the one hand, the writer’s involvement in the Napoleonic Wars accounts for his antiFrench feeling and his concern about French expansion towards the North. On the other hand, Laing attributes the low morals in Swedish society and the lack of strength of Swedish politics to this Franco-Swedish connection. Colley underscores the strong belief of the Britons in the decadent effect of French Catholicism, since the main claim of the Britons after the Napoleonic Wars is that “to be Catholic was to be economically inept: wasteful, indolent and oppressive” (35). “Contaminated” by the French influence, the Swedes, according to Laing, are prone to political indolence, and the dynastic aspect of the Swedish kingdom is associated with the governance of the French royal family in Sweden. In the light of this AntiFrench ideology, Laing subsequently formulates his ideas about the degenerate state of Swedish morals.

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In the travelogue Tour in Sweden, Laing repeatedly draws a comparison between the liberal political system of Norway and the despotic government in Sweden. His comparative perspective emanates from his former residence in Norway for two years, an amount of time that allowed him to form his own judgment concerning the differences of the two countries at several levels (social, political and cultural). What can be discerned in his account is an effort to project Norwegian society as the ideal, utopian societal form in contrast to Sweden, which is widely depicted as a Nordic country in eclipse. One can discern this continuous juxtaposition between the two countries in the following extract, in which the author projects the radical social system of Norway as superior to Swedish absolutism: Sweden, with neutrality and independence in her mouth, could not, in consequence of her double dynasty, be neutral and independent. Norway, having no interests distinct from the British, and having in her present constitution some control over her executive, could in some degree check in her own tribunals or functionaries, any secret or undue favour towards one of two belligerent powers. (425)

In accordance with the above fragment, Sweden is accused of having “distinct” interests from Britain contrary to Norway, which is described as a potential British ally in the North against the Russians. Laing’s presentation of Sweden as a country maintaining its neutrality in a period when the future of Europe was at stake is made in negative terms; it should be reminded that Sweden and Denmark, the unique imperial powers amongst the Nordic countries, were often seen as the despotic element in Scandinavia, suppressing the freedom of the other populations of Norway, Iceland and Finland. As Nordström notes, “many of the histories of these parts of Scandinavia in this period are heavily tainted by nationalist sentiments, and conditions in them are often described in strongly negative terms” (138). Viewing Norway as an Arcadian society which managed to keep its political integrity through its personal struggle for further independence, Laing praises the Norwegian nation’s political system despite the country’s annexation to the Swedish kingdom. On the contrary, Sweden, which holds a hegemonic position in the Baltic, is portrayed by the writer as a country deprived of social justice and political freedom. Sweden’s absolutist regime is criticised by the writer on another occasion, when Laing speaks of the Swedish government’s tendency to ignore the needs of its people:

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Part III Chapter One The principle and spirit of a government has more influence than its acts upon the well-being and social condition of a country. This principle of doing everything for the people and nothing by them, keeps a nation behind in real civilisation, notwithstanding the external appearances its government may display. (8)

Laing is concerned about the intrinsic connection between the dynastic regime of Sweden and the morals of the natives. The passage quoted above points to the author’s conviction that the political life of a country might impact prejudicially on the amalgamation of the national character of its nation. As Fjågesund and Symes point out, because of the constant changes in Victorian society, there was a growing necessity to tackle the existing sociopolitical disparity between the working class and the small elite; therefore, the Britons became interested in “the success of the Norwegian system [which] “became all the more evident towards the middle of the century, as class tensions in Britain became more strained” (186). Laing’s discourse in conjunction with the state of morals within the Swedish society reminds us of Barbara Goodwin and Keith Taylor’s definition of political utopia as a “political theory specifically directed towards the creation of human happiness” (226) and in this theory the role of the utopian, that is, the theorist of the utopia, occupies a prevalent position in the creation of the desired society. Given Laing’s negative attitude towards the nineteenth-century political system of Sweden, he creates a dystopian view of Swedish society and, consequently, portrays Norway contrapuntally as a political utopia. Based on Vieira’s definition of dystopia, Laing utilises the “saturated” image of Swedish society as the dystopian social model that Victorian Britons need to avoid in order to attain social improvement. As stated by the writer: “It would be difficult to find perhaps in any town in Europe, at the present day, such another instance of low moral feeling in the governing and governed” (115). Low moral feeling does not necessarily allude to the immorality of the Swedes, but to the characteristics of the country’s inhabitants that indicate the unfulfilled potential of the Swedish citizens due to their reduction to passive observers of the political situation in their country. A key reason for Sweden’s description by the author as a stagnant society, whose members are entirely stripped of any social rights, is the absence of a liberal constitution. Laing bestows considerable attention on the importance of the constitution as a sign of political freedom. Discussing the political situation in the two countries, Laing asserts that:

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In Norway and Sweden, such inquiries are peculiarly interesting at the present period, because these two nations, although the furthest removed from the agitation of the French revolution, have by a singular chance, been affected by it more permanently, and one of them more beneficially, than any others in Europe. Norway received a new and liberal constitution, and has started with the freshness of youth, a new nation, as it were, called suddenly into life from among the slumbering feudal populations of the north. (iv)

Clearly, the author makes reference to the forcible annexation of Norway to Sweden by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814. In spite of the fact that Norway was initially reduced to a Swedish province, the Norwegian society enjoyed a relative autonomy, being granted the right to design its own economy and frame a liberal constitution which rendered the country superior to its absolutist ruler. As mentioned by the writer, Norway maintains “the freshness of youth, a new nation” and this statement indicates Laing’s strong belief in the promising visage of the country in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Unlike Norway, Sweden still belongs to the “slumbering feudal populations of the north” because of its close attachment to the royal throne and the Swedish clergy, which authoritatively determine every aspect of the country’s political life. Given Victorian Britain’s ongoing social mutations, one is not particularly struck by the characterisation of Sweden as a static society which does not enable its citizens to take part in its way to progress. Barton points out that “in Norway, the very fact of its notably democratic regime derived above all from the union […]. It was in large part due to the popular backing thus gained that Norway succeeded in preserving its constitution under the union with Sweden” (170). In other words, Norway’s national awakening under a possible assimilation into Swedish culture resulted in the liberalisation of Norwegian political life. Aside from the dystopian view of Sweden at a constitutional level, and the parallel idealisation of Norway as a locus of extensive freedom, Laing also formulates another idea connected to his negative picturing of Sweden as a “contaminated” and “corrupt” Nordic country, an image of the North resulting from the implication of the Scandinavian countries in the Napoleonic Wars. It is noticeable that, when referring to Sweden’s role in the Napoleonic Wars, the writer asks: What did Sweden suffer during the whole revolutionary wars, from 1794 to 1814, compared to Prussia, Saxony, Denmark, Holland, and in fact all other European powers? No enemy was levying contributions, no revolutionary generals raising kingly fortunes by the dons of her towns: taking her cash account, she gained by the war from the subsidies of

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Part III Chapter One England, and her sale of Guadaloupe, provided her cash account was fairly kept. (219)

With this question, Laing addresses the issue of the Swedish neutrality, which is paradoxically mentioned by the writer as a sign of the country’s unethical stance in the political developments of the period in question, despite its actual alliance with the Britons. By referring to the price paid by all European countries and the utilitarian attitude of the Swedes towards the events, Laing argues that Sweden’s refusal to play an active role in the war is an act of opportunism rather than a sincere desire to maintain its bonds with the other Scandinavian countries and Britain. In that way, the author indicates that Sweden is twice as reproachful as Denmark, which allied with France and suffered the tremendous consequences of its choice because of the English invasion, because it remained in a neutral position that triggered further conflicts both in Scandinavia and continental Europe. This comment might be seen in connection with the values of the “frenzied celebration of the ‘fever of the fight’ […] of sacrifice and of heroic death” (Fjågesund and Symes 143) commonly associated with the Viking imagery of the sagas. Even though the Swedes hail from the Goths, a race renowned for its valour and proud spirit in the battlefield, their reluctance to take on a clear role in the Napoleonic Wars partly “confirms” the writer’s premise that their oppressive regime has precipitated the demoralisation of the nation and the consequent lack of their original national character. For this reason, he juxtaposes once again the Swedes with the heroic Norwegians, who seem to fare better as a heroic nation both in the way they are illustrated in the sagas and through the conflicts that accompanied the annexation of the latter by the Swedes, as the following remarks suggest: But Sweden has not, like Norway, an heroic age in her ancient history, connecting her earliest exploits with the fate of other countries. She had no Harold Haarfagre in the ninth century, driving her nobility and their followers to the high seas, to conquer new homes and kingdoms in distant lands, for themselves and their posterity. (2) I found the Norwegians in the midst of great rejoicings. They have just received the royal sanction to use their own national flag in all seas. The history of this flag business throws a light upon the policy and relations of Sweden with Norway. By the articles of their union, each nation is entitled to its own commercial flag, and as a war flag, the two countries were to use a union flag common to both. (17)

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The above references could be used to illustrate the previously articulated point that Sweden satisfies the role of the dystopian society, and, consequently, Norway is placed as a contemporary eutopia. According to the writer, Sweden does not connote any heroic instances in its history because the sagas mainly allude to the feuds between Norwegian kings, such as Harald Hårfagre3 whose reign was marked by the colonisation of Iceland, Greenland, and the discovery of Vinland (America) by the brave Viking pirates. Considering the masculine attributes that were associated with Viking piracy and imperialism, Norwegians not only meets Laing’s expectations as a land of modern Vikings through the historical events mentioned in the sagas, but also stimulate his imagination through their patriotic manifestations. In the nineteenth century, as illustrated by the writer in the latter excerpt cited above, despite their subjection to the Swedish Crown, Norwegians succeeded in acquiring the right to use their own flag on certain occasions, a rather decisive step concerning the overall dependence of the country on Sweden. In fact, Laing inverts this dependence by projecting the Norwegians as a masculine nation, preserving the patriotic feeling of their Viking ancestors. In contrast to the heroic masculinity of the Norwegians, Laing ascribes to the Swedes an effeminate state of existence that is certainly not in tune with their Viking background. Therefore, what mainly concerns the author is to locate surviving Viking elements in both cultures, that is, the Norwegian and the Swedish. Since nineteenth century Norway satisfies to a greater extent the characteristics of the old northern images encountered in the sagas (patriotism, simplicity, classless society, liberalism), Sweden is inevitably projected as a decadent nation, which does not conform to the heroic and idealistic elements associated with the spirit of the sagas. This is the reason why Laing unhesitatingly declares that Sweden with her splendid court, and her numerous and powerful nobility and clergy, forming distinct orders in her social structure, and distinct legislative bodies in her constitution, must present a curious contrast to the simple and democratic Norway. (1-2)

Looking at the above fragment, one immediately understands that Laing’s positive disposition towards Norway and his severe criticism on the Swedish despotism are again linked to his desire to witness old northern aspects in modern Scandinavia, such as social simplicity and political freedom. Thus his emphasis on the sociopolitical profile of both 3

Harald Fairhair (850-933) was the first king of Norway whose adventures are frequently narrated in the saga Heimskringla.

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countries is in conjunction with the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis that permeates his writing. As underscored by J. R. Hall, the Anglo-Saxon era was believed to rely on “natural rights, popular government, and free institutions” (133). In that respect, the political amalgamation of Norway fulfills the expectations of old northern antiquarians for political freedom whereas the Swedes defy this principle, having a government remotely associated with the radicalism of Old Viking society. The author appears to celebrate the Anglo-Norse connection and partly disapprove of any British link with nineteenth-century Sweden because Norway epitomises all values cherished by the old northernists. As Wawn claims, in Laing’s travel books, a firmly held idea is that “the roots of nineteenth-century Britain’s imperial power and social cohesion were to be traced to Norway alone, home of representative legislature, articulate public opinion, trial by jury, security of property, freedom of mind and person, and indomitable energy and courage” (99). On the contrary, given the nineteenth-century state of Sweden, it did not meet all the principles set by Laing and his contemporary Northerrnists in relation to its politics. With regard to Swedish society, it has already been illustrated that Laing constantly alludes to the enormous gap separating the Frenchspeaking nobility of the country from the majority of the population, still living in primitive conditions. If the juxtaposition between Norway and Sweden reveals Laing’s desire to experience the independent Viking lifestyle narrated in the ancient sagas, the exploration of the Swedish people’s manners and mores makes even more explicit the reasons of Swedish stagnation. In the travelogue, an analysis of Swedish national character is made in relation to education, folk culture and religious matters (that is, the importance of the Lutheran Church) observed by the author. First of all, the writer makes mention of the enlightened aspect of the Swedes when it comes to educational provision. In particular, the writer highlights that the Swedish nation is more generally educated than the English, the Scotch, or perhaps any in Europe, except the Danish. Elementary education in reading, writing, and the Shorter Catechism of the Lutheran church, is so universal, that even the aid of the schoolmaster in these branches is superseded in many districts, and the children are instructed by their parents. (425)

Based on this excerpt, the Swedish nation has achieved a degree of literacy that is rarely found in Britain or in other European countries, and

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this dissemination of education is attributed by Laing to the significant contribution of the Lutheran Church to the improvement of educational provision in the country. Nordström contends that “literacy rates had been relatively high in Sweden for centuries primarily because of the Church’s concern with the people’s ability to read the basic literature of the faith, including the Scriptures” (83). This means that compared with the British view of education, namely that it constituted a prerogative of the higher social orders, Sweden fared better as an enlightened nation whereas Britain, in spite of the writer’s attempt to present his country as the epitome of liberalism in every field of human activity, had remained considerably behind. Moreover, given the fact that Sweden was still viewed by the majority of the British writers as a Northern periphery, whose inhabitants were endowed with attributes of the concept of the noble savage, such as primitivism and communion with nature, the author’s comment on the enlightened state of Swedish population is an important step for the country’s positive projection in the eyes of his Victorian readership. For this reason, Laing declares that the Swedes, beyond all doubt “are an educated and reading people” (276). Nevertheless, the interventionism of the Swedish state is disapprovingly referred to in the travelogue, and the writer goes as far as to suggest that the restrictions imposed on Swedish citizens has transformed them into mere slaves, who are completely deprived of the political freedom that their Norwegian neighbours enjoy.In particular, Laing argues that The mass of the nation is in a state of pupilage, living like soldiers in a regiment, under classes or oligarchies of privileged bodies, the public functionaries, clergy, nobility, owners of estates exempt from taxation, and incorporated traders exempt from competition. (430)

Instead of treating the impact of Lutheran clergy on Swedish lifestyle as a positive sociopolitical development, as one would expect, given the importance of Protestantism in the national awakening of Laing’s countrymen, the author regards the constant intrusion of the Lutheran Church into the private lives and social manners of the Swedes as one of the principal causes for the people’s demoralisation. Laing is alarmed at the conservative dimension of Swedish clergy whose effect adds to the oppressive political mechanism of the Swedish kingdom, since Swedish clergymen were granted the same prerogatives as the bourgeoisie and the nobles, rather than alleviating the sufferings of the nation. What seems to be particularly problematic, according to Laing, is the lack of social mobility which characterises the Swedish social structures. The writer’s statement that “in no country in Europe is the church establishment so

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powerful, and perfect” (425) indicates the degree at which the clergy determines every aspect of life in Sweden, and is certainly not a positive one, given his general conviction that Swedish society is both lethargic and segregating. This is why the author condemns the prevalence of the old estate system in the country which is partly supported by the clergy, recalling the Ancien Régime in France in which the alliance of the clergy with the French nobility precipitated the French revolution. Owing to the role of the nobility and the clergy as the sole political forces, besides the monarch, that accumulated significant political power so as to impose their rule on the lower orders, Laing elaborates on the premise that Swedish class distinctions might lead to a similar political turmoil as in France during the late eighteenth century, asserting that: Another obvious cause of demoralisation in Sweden is the influence of the example of a dissolute court, amidst a poor and idle population. The diffusion of the spirit of the old French court, of the frivolity, gaiety, expense, gallantry, gaming, and extravagant importance attached to the cultivation of the fine above the useful arts, which characterised what was called the age of Louis XIV., was encouraged by the Swedish monarchs, particularly Gustavus III., although evidently unsuitable to the resources and to the natural character of the nation. The Swedes laboured to be lively, and attained the distinction of being called the French of the North. (122)

As has been affirmed, another issue frequently brought up in Laing’s narrative is the way in which its gentry exacerbated social injustice and was conducive to the development of a widespread feeling of disappointment amongst Swedish citizens. The author remarks that “it is not surprising that the moral character of this people should be the lowest in Europe, with its highest class so totally devoid of political principle, public spirit, or sense of right” (123). Looking at Laing’s comment, it is worth noticing that Laing interestingly draws a link between the status of Swedish nobility and the degeneracy observed in Swedish society. Lacking any political consciousness and sense of justice, Swedish aristocracy, along with the oppressive role of the clergy, does not render Sweden an enlightened nation bur bears a significant degree of responsibility for the widespread disappointment, and subsequent immorality of the lower classes. As Laing contends, “we see in Sweden the result of a social demoralisation for the time, aggravated rather than healed by the establishments for national education and religion” (431). Instead of serving the needs of the destitute citizens, Swedish aristocracy is presented by Laing as a nineteenth-century version of pre-revolutionary

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France, totally detached from the other classes. Laing’s argument is not very far from the actual historical reality in Sweden, given the absolutist monarchic regime that the country maintained, notwithstanding the significant social changes taking place in other European countries in the same period; it is also related to the dystopian perspective from which he regards Sweden, as he is anxious to trace vestiges of the Viking political freedom in the nineteenth-century politics of the country. In doing so, he opts for what Levitas defines as liberal-humanist utopia, characterised by an “emphasis on reason and free will” (72). By attempting to criticise the social reality in Sweden, Laing wishes to ponder on the issue of social justice at large in order to define his own ideal social system, which is built on his Anglo-Saxon principles mentioned earlier. However, apart from the critique on the Swedish nobility and clergy, the travelogue revolves around the effect of Swedish conservatism on the people’s national character. Throughout his narrative, Laing identifies several manifestations of Swedish corruption and low national feeling. For one thing, he severely admonishes the tendency of the Swedes to desperately pursue social distinction based on their material rather than moral achievements: Like soldiers in a regiment, a great proportion of the people under this social system derive their estimation among others, and consequently their own self-esteem, not from their moral worth, but from their professional standing and importance. (118)

Clearly the Swedes are presented as people excessively fond of titles and social ascension, a tendency which proves the author’s point that the social system under which they live is purely materialistic. Thus social improvement is not based on proper values such as freedom of conscience and constitutional liberalism. Their excessive attachment to social forms and wealth has stripped the Swedes of any spiritual aspirations. For this reason they are accused of being particularly indolent, an attribute frequently ascribed to the nation in question as well as to Scandinavian people as a whole. Barton mentions that Victorian travellers tend to project the Swedes as completely void of industriousness and prone to inactivity (77). Laing seems to cling to that point when he underscores the idleness of Swedish peasantry in his statement that “the young people attending with these horses, if not drinking, are idling and wasting time to no purpose.” (204). Given the incessant social changes that were taking place in Victorian society, and the absence of political developments of the same intensity in the country visited, the Swedes are not supposed to be as industrious as Britons. Hence Laing’s comment on their laziness as a

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consequence of their overall disillusionment with the political matters in their country. Always insisting upon the significant feeling of depression into which the natives have sunk, Laing stresses the desire of many nineteenth-century Swedes to abandon their country in order to pursue their fortune in foreign territories, a desire resulting from the fact that they grow weary of the oppression exercised upon them: “I find there is a considerable spirit of emigration arising in this country; the people are not satisfied in Sweden with their present state” (332). Laing certainly raises an important point, foregrounding the political causes of Swedish immigration besides the obvious economic reasons for which this phenomenon reached its peak at the writer’s time. Nordström maintains that the unpopular Swedish regime triggered a wave of immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century, who abandoned their country discouraged by the rigidity of the old estate society in Sweden, the religious persecutions approved by the Lutheran Church, and the degrading interaction of the peasants with the upper classes (74). Likewise, Laing reflects on women’s position in Swedish society. Despite the fact that gender is an issue on which Laing hardly touches, there are two instances in his travelogue that are related to women’s condition in nineteenth-century Sweden. The portrayal of Swedish women appears to be in tune with the writer’s overall presentation of the Swedes as a nation reduced to mere slavery because of the absolutist monarchy that regulates every aspect of the Swedish lifestyle. In particular, Laing notices that: Women are employed here in work not usually done by females with us; such as sifting lime, carrying sacks of coal, rowing boats across the ferries, and drawing carts. A couple of women working hard at the oars, and half a dozen young fellows sitting idle in the boat, would be an uncommon sight with us. (148)

In this passage, Laing criticises the hard working conditions under which Swedish women of the working class need to perform tasks not meant for their sex. Simultaneously, the writer glances at Swedish men’s apparently uncommonly indolent life which seems to serve as basic evidence for the writer’s treatment of the Swedish nation as tremendously idle and devoid of any social initiatives. Due to the fact that masculinity was usually associated with independence, creativity and industriousness, Swedish men seem to embody quite the opposite, treating their wives as domestic slaves. Notwithstanding Laing’s awkward statement that British women of his age were not habituated to exhaustive working conditions, a fact which indicates his own upper class background, Swedish national

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depression is connected with women’s inferior position. According to Nordström, Swedish women were “considered physically, intellectually, and morally inferior; and they were always under the legal domination of a male” (80). Like many other Victorian writers, Laing tends to firmly believe in the improved state of women’s cause in Britain, juxtaposing the domestic slavery of the Swedish women with their allegedly independent British sisters (Fjågesund et al 56). Similarly, he provides the reader with another image of working class women in Sweden, mentioning that “of old the fire was on the hearth. The feeble constitutions of the female sex in Stockholm, who often are really unable to nurse their children, is attributed to the debility produced by living the whole winter in an overheated and unwholesome atmosphere” (335-36). On the whole, the writer elaborates on the Swedish nation by touching upon issues such as emigration, nobility, religion and womanhood in order to shed light on their view as a dystopian people, who is on the verge of losing its national cohesion. As I have already stated in the introductory part of my text, the British Empire made strenuous efforts to impose its rule on its territorial possessions. During that process, the notion of Britishness came to be a rather exclusive national property, which sought to substantiate the authoritarian rule of the colonisers over the insular or overseas populations who lived under the imperial yoke. Celtic discourse was either incorporated into the new Anglo-Saxon agenda (such was the case of Scotland) or developed a distinct national identity. This continuous shift from their insular to their imperialist identity tantalised the majority of Victorian travel writers, whose work abounds in descriptions of Britishness clinging to their Celtic or English origin. Given the split cultural image of the Britons, it is obvious that it also applies to Samuel Laing, who was of Scottish origin and spent most of his life in his native land, the Orkneys. Even though the author does not seem to be at odds with his British identity, his habitual reference to Scotland or Scottish culture as the main point of comparison between Sweden and Britain underlies his travel narrative and expresses his desire to come to terms with this dual national identity. Though not explicitly formulated in his travelogue, the idea of a separate Scottish identity on account of common cultural bonds with Sweden and the other Nordic countries comes to the foreground quite often, even in aspects such as the outfit of the Swedish peasantry: “the people are clad in the same way the peasantry very like our own Scotch country people” (167-8). The author of the travelogue, one of the forefathers of Anglo-Saxonism through his vital literary contributions to the promulgation of this cultural

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(and racial) hypothesis, apparently adheres to those Scottish writers, who, according to Pittock, “denied Scottish national territorialism by relegating the Celt to an ethno-cultural edge and making of themselves Germanic Englishmen” (56). In his travel narrative, Scottish identity is fully incorporated into the nation-building project of the Britons; hence the absence of the term Celtic when he addresses the alleged similarities between Scotland and the North. Laing presumably seeks to provide the reader with significant insights into an alleged cultural relation between Scotland and Scandinavia as an attempt to foreground Scotland not as a periphery, but rather as an integral part of Britain. This is why he associates the Anglo-Saxon (or rather the Scottish -Saxon) connection with aspects such as religion and societal norms, apart from the linguistic considerations with which he adorns his text. Regarding the issue of language, the writer stresses the striking similarities between Swedish and Lowland Scots, a fact which does not only reveal his desire to culturally link Scotland to the Germanic world but also adds to his attempt to project his country as participant in the AngloSaxon ancestry of the British culture: Every traveller is struck with the number of words and expressions in Swedish, almost identical with our lowland Scotch of the east coast; and in whole phrases there is a startling similarity. It is not so much the case between Norwegian and Scotch, and one is puzzled to account for this but the same convulsion in Norway in the ninth century, which drove adventurers to conquer and settle in Northumberland and the north of Scotland, drove settlers also across the Fjelde into Sweden, of which the upper provinces were colonised from the Norwegian side of the Peninsula. (48)

Laing’s historical approach to the shared cultural links between the Scots and Scandinavians is not unfounded and, as a matter of fact, there is important evidence that Scotland always maintained close cultural bonds with the Scandinavian countries, and with Iceland, the so-called cradle of Nordic civilisation. As Neil Kent maintains, “immigrants from Ireland and the western isles of Scotland” (298) had settled in Iceland in the MiddleAges, a fact which confirms Laing’s assumption that there had been a significant degree of interaction between the British Isles and Scandinavia at a cultural and racial level. Concerning Scottish national identity, William Ferguson also stresses that Victorian scholars believed in the Gothic origin of the Scottish culture. Ferguson states that the Picts, who were thought to be the Celtic ancestors of the Scots, “derived from the ancient colonies of the Gauls, who had settled upon the borders of the

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Swedish sea” (90). Without any doubt, Laing’s attitude reflects the national awakening of the Scots during the late eighteenth century, a phenomenon referred to by David McCrone as “Pictomania”, which set the focus on the Picts as the ancient Scottish tribe from which the modern Scots derived (157). It should also be mentioned that this nationalist awakening was triggered after the publication of MacPherson’s The Poems of Ossian. Although Laing does not belong to the Scottish writers whose outlook was Celtic-oriented, he wishes to accentuate the importance of the Scottish contribution to the Viking elements of British culture. The writer’s belief in the Nordic (Germanic) ancestry of the Scots is not only confined to the strictly linguistic connection between Lowland Scots and Swedish. Interestingly enough, Laing always makes reference to the Scottish missionaries that used to be part of Gustav Vaasa’s army in the 1600s, a fact which also indicates the potential cultural bonds shared by the two nations. In particular, Laing points out that: In 1556 Gustavus Vasa was in treaty for a body of 2000 Scotch troops which he obtained, and employed in his war against Russia in Finland. His sons, in their conflicts with each other, had occasionally as many as 6000 Scotch troops in their service, according to the Swedish historians. (111)

According to Laing, the use of Scottish troops by the Swedes during reign of Gustav Vaasa, the leading figure who turned Sweden into the most powerful empire, and unquestionable “Queen of the Baltic Sea”, is of particular importance for the excellence of the Scottish nation as a gifted people, able to contribute to the consolidation of the empire; presumably, in this passage Laing does not only centre on the valor of the Scots but also seeks to link their significant support to the Swedish might with the contemporary role of Scotland in the empowerment of the British empire. Laing’s emphasis on the dynamic presence of Scottish soldiers is meant to foster a masculine image of the Scots as a reaction to the constant effort of the English to present the Celtic cvilisations as effeminate, staunchly contrasted with masculine England. While Laing’s reference to the participation of the Scots in the Swedish (Gothic) army seems to conciliate peripheral Scotland and ruling England, at the same time his interest in the Scottish role in the expansion of the Swedish Empire constitutes subversion, to a significant degree, of Anglo-centric Britain. For one thing, Laing seeks to remind his Victorian readership that Scotland is an indispensable part of the British Empire. For another thing, he reminds the English reader of the fact that the Scots had an equal right in the placement of Britain as an Anglo-Saxon nation.

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In addition to the role of the Scottish soldiers in the Swedish army, Laing also alludes to another historical reality that tends to increase the status of the Scots in the eyes of the Victorian reader; this is related to the ennoblement of several Scottish merchants in Swedish society, a practice which reveals the influential position of the Scots in the politics of the Swedish nation. As the author points out: there was a considerable trade, or rather intercourse, between the nations carried on by Scotch traders, or properly pedlars, frequenting the fairs in the Swedish provinces on the other side of the Baltic and Polish kroemers (shopkeepers at fairs) as they were called in Scotland, are still recollected or talked of from tradition, as a respectable class of the trading community of the east coast of Scotland in their day. In Sweden there are among the nobility and upper classes the names of Hamilton, Seaton, Bruce, Maclean, Speus, Montgommerie, Murray, Colquhoun, at the present day; so that it is not surprising that any original similarity between the two languages should have been retained, and even augmented, while in Norway it was dying out. (55)

According to the extract, the linguistic similarities between the two countries, that is, Scotland and Sweden, extend to the realm of politics, and as the writer suggests, the common elements still found in the two languages are not only signs of Scottish military presence during Gustav Vaasa’s reign, but are also due to the increasing influence of the Scots on the commercial and political life of the country. Again Laing’s allusion to the significance of the Scottish nobility is historically attested: Nordström maintains that “in Sweden nearly 1,000 families were added to the noble estate during the seventeenth century. Much of the growth came from the ennoblement of members of the merchant class or from abroad, especially Scotland” (80). Even though Laing’s reference is not made to explicitly exalt Scottishness on a foreign soil, it is obvious that he desires to shed light on the political significance of his compatriots within the Swedish context in a number of fields, such as politics and the army, which are indispensable factors for the harmonious running of a country. In this case, the exertion of power by the Scottish merchants is favourably mentioned. Nonetheless, the accumulation of extensive power by Swedish nobility was previously cited as an important piece of evidence for the country’s degenerate state both morally and politically. It appears that there is a double standard in the evaluation of Swedish political conditions by the author. Class distinction appears to be used by the author in a quite ambivalent manner, containing both nationalist and sociological nuances, depending on his reference to the Scots or the Swedes. This implicit disparity between class and national character, according to which the

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Scots are destined to occupy leading posts whereas the Swedes are easily led to exaggerations when they are granted excessive power may also be attributed to the alleged polarity between the Celts and the (Anglo) Saxons in terms of social rank. Despite Laing’s genuine interest in the historical and linguistic connection between the two peoples, it is clear that he advocates a superior position for his countrymen as born-to-be leaders. Besides focusing on linguistic, military, political and economic elements related to the notion of Scottishness, the author also adopts a comparative outlook when it comes to the issue of religion. What is important is that Lutheranism was the prevalent religious dogma in both countries. Yet Laing is interested to find out whether this common religion is an embedded value of both countries’ cultures and, more importantly, whether it impacts to the same extent on the national feeling of the two countries. When referring to the Lutheran church of Sweden, the writer refers to the role of the clergy in Sweden, thus inviting ardent advocates of the Reform to: look at this country, in which the pure Lutheran church, filled with men unquestionably more highly educated, as a body, than the Scotch, or perhaps any other body of clergy in Europe, flourishes without dissent, and with great civil and political power as a part of the state; and look at the moral condition of the Swedish people. (249)

Looking at this passage, one can discern the writer’s strong belief in the paramount importance of religion both in Scotland and Sweden. In contrast with Sweden, however, in which well-educated and corrupt clergy does not allow the spiritual growth of its people, the Scottish nation is morally superior because the influence of its clergy is not of political nature but is mainly confined to the safeguarding (and strengthening) of the religious feeling of the Scottish citizens. In that sense, the distance of the Swedish clergy from the lower strata of Swedish society in terms of class is so vast that it accounts for the demoralisation of the people. Apparently Laing wishes to emphasise the liberal character of religious life in Scotland based on the harmonisation of religion with class. Yet his statement is more related to his attempt to idealise Scotland given “the fragmented minority tradition” (Ferguson 108) in Scotland and the continuous efforts to suppress the constant religious sects which sprang in the country in opposition to the strong Anglican feeling in England. Although the writer’s comment comes together with his overall conviction that Sweden functions as a dystopia in all its aspects, it should also be seen in connection to his view of Scotland as a liberally-structured society. What is more, Laing seems to criticise whatever does not succumb to his

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idealistic view of the North. Owing to the firmly held conviction of the Victorians that the less complex a society was, the more idealistic its depiction would be, Swedish society apparently “failed” to satisfy Laing’s desire to witness a classless society in Scandinavia. As Barton notes, Sweden with her “numerous and powerful nobility and clergy, forming distinct orders in her social structure distinct legislative bodies in her constitution, must present a curious contrast to the simple and democratic Norway” (50). Therefore, contrary to the Arcadian attributes of Norway, extensively visited by Laing prior to his journey in Sweden, Swedish society clearly defies this utopian image. Moreover, the author attributes the loose connection of the Swedes to Lutheranism to another reason, as indicated in the passage given below: Another cause I conceive to be, that although Luther's reformation found the minds of men in part of Germany, Switzerland, Holland, England, and Scotland, prepared for it, and demanding a form of Christianity more intellectual, more addressed to the understanding, and less to the senses, than that of the Roman Catholic church, the public mind in Sweden was in no such advanced state. (123-24)

In accordance with this extract, Laing asserts that the Swedes were not intellectually prepared to receive the new dogma; while in the other Protestant countries Luther’s reformation emanated from the spiritual needs of the citizens, an outcome of their overall refined (and advanced) intellectual state, the public mind in Sweden, that is, the lower orders of Swedish society, succumbed to the new faith more out of their desire to keep up with the other Germanic nations than out of a genuine interest in the religious matters. The comment made by Laing clearly reflects his view that Sweden, despite its significant position as a ruling country within the Scandinavian framework, retains a backward character, resulting from the political oppression imposed on the Swedish nation which is reduced to a state of vassalage. In that respect, Sweden is a less enlightened kingdom than the majority of the Germanic states. One way of explaining Laing’s deterministic view of the religious situation in Sweden is the “universal endorsement of Protestantism” (Fjågesund and Symes 241) in Scandinavia and even more in Sweden, which was a former imperial state. Another way of interpreting his comment is on account of his Scottish experience; David McCrone illustrates the significance of religion as a nation-building factor for the Scots, pointing out that religion in Scotland had impacted on Scottish cultural and political life: “this Scotland framed by Protestantism, Unionism and Imperialism was not short of internal divisions. Apart from

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the religious divide between Catholics and Protestants, and between the social classes […], Scotland inherited significant religious divisions” (13). Based on this argument, Scottish identity was built upon this polarity between Catholicism and Protestantism in the same way that English identity was forged as a reaction to the Catholic states (France, Spain). Yet in Sweden, this religious homogeneity does not accord with Laing’s cultural experience. Thus he treats this phenomenon as another piece of evidence regarding the lack of national feeling constantly mentioned in his travelogue. In that sense, the national identity of the Scots proves to be stronger than Swedish as it results from the coexistence (and suppression) of antithetical elements. The implicit opposition between Scotland and Sweden is also reflected in the way in which the author ponders on other issues such as criminality and education. Regarding education in Sweden, Laing observes that: the 80 newspapers, the 20 periodical publications, the booksellers’ shops in such petty towns, as with us, either in England or Scotland, would certainly not afford a living in that line, place beyond all doubt the fact, that the Swedes are an educated and reading people. (275-6)

Although the writer critiqued the backward character of the Swedes in spiritual matters, such as religion, he recognises the efforts made by the Swedish state to promote educational improvement in even in the remotest parts of the kingdom. This liberal attitude towards education is praised by the author, who immediately notes that the Swedes, unlike the English and the Scots, are remarkably educated, a fact attested by the relatively great number of newspapers and literary publications. In a period in which education was still viewed in Britain as a prerogative (and sign of social hierarchy) rather than a right granted to all citizens of the empire, Laing regards the literacy level in Sweden as exceptionally high, considering its small population and common treatment as a European periphery. Nevertheless, instead of using this important aspect of Swedish society in favour of the country visited, he sticks to his initial idea to present Sweden as a spiritually inert nation. This patronising attitude can also be discerned in the comparison of crime rates between Sweden and Scotland, when the writer formulates the idea that: Sweden is as generally held to be a country eminently moral. I can see no mistake in the results drawn from these official statements, although they overturn all my former notions of the comparative morality of different states of society, and of different nations. It appears an unavoidable inference from them, that the moral condition of Sweden is extremely low. (113)

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In other words, despite its agricultural economy and peripheral position compared with continental Europe, Sweden does not adhere to the “pastoral” Scandinavian world, usually depicted as entirely free from the evils of modern civilisation, but is rather presented as a Nordic dystopia at a social level, a characterisation which does not depart from Laing’s firmly held conviction that the Swedish nation is profoundly affected by its tyrannical regime. What is extremely interesting is the writer’s attempt to dismiss the positive, pure and natural image of nineteenth-century Scandinavia in Victorian consciousness. By contrast with the Swedish social reality, which is not “eminently moral” as opposed to other Scandinavian nations like Norway, the other country which Laing draws on to formulate his ideas about the North, Scottish society is endowed with more idealistic traits. One can discern Laing’s overt subversion of eighteenth-century “back-to-nature” theories, such as Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage, when the author contends that his tour in Sweden disproves the long-established theories of the superior moral condition, greater innocence, purity of manners, and exemption from vice or crime of the pastoral and agricultural state of society compared to the commercial and manufacturing. (109)

According to this assertion, commercial and manufacturing societies, such as the Scottish or the English, can combine the need for technological development with a certain degree of innocence, and this is mainly attributed to the existence of a liberal constitution that can render the Scottish citizen a free-spirited being, not suppressed by strict legislation or an even more rigid social hierarchy. On the contrary, the Swedish people though less industrialised and in closer communion with nature, are more susceptible to the commitment of petty crimes because of their attachment to social ranking as well as to their subjection to stagnant social norms. Consequently, Scottishness (and Britishness to a wider extent) comes to the foreground as a notion closely linked to liberalism and social mobility. Finally, the only occasion on which Laing wishes to depart from his dystopian view of Sweden is when he refers to the Dalecarlians, 4 that is, to Swedish peasantry. Given their unchanged manners as well as their sturdy appearance, the author positively mentions: “The Dalecarlians -the men of the dales or valleys take the same place in the Swedish population, that the mountaineers or Highlanders do in other countries. They are the most simple, liardy, and unchanged in their mode of living” (220). Laing 4

These were inhabitans of the region of Dalarna in Sweden.

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draws an interesting comparison between the Dalecarlians and the Scottish Highlanders, thus evoking the concept of the wild Highlander which Scottish nationalists revered. This comparison leads us to conclude that the author’s main purpose is to trace the elements of Swedish culture which preceded the country’s modernised state. The image of the Swedish peasant, who is a direct descendant of the ancient Goths, is as attractive to Laing as the picture of the independent Highlander. It is only this nostalgic glance at both countries’ past that brings them together. Notwithstanding the portrayal of the Swedes as people who have been reduced to mere spectators of their country’s politics, and despite the overall representation of Sweden as a country in eclipse, there are several instances in the travelogue Tour in Sweden which suggest a more eutopian image of the nation, the majority of which is revolves around the vestiges of Viking culture still noticed in the country’s folk culture, language and landscape. Considering the growing emergence of racial theories that flourished to justify the imperialist cause of the European superpowers of the time, like Teutonism (in Germany), Anglo-Saxonism (in Britain) and the adoption of a common umbrella term, the Gothicism by all Germanic countries, Laing could not but bestow considerable attention on the Gothic origins of the Britons. To this end, he made a trip to Gotland, the Swedish island which, due to its denomination (land of the Goths) received considerable prominence amongst Victorian tourists who journeyed in the country and who were always eager to devote a separate chapter to this island, that served both as a symbol of the ancient Goths and the sole unspoiled place in Sweden. Sweden’s representation in Victorian racial discourses was frequently adorned with attempts to glorify the country as the starting point of the Goths (or Saxons) before their spread across the other Germanic countries of the North. In their Passing of the Great Race, Grant and Osborn seem to coalesce with this belief, arguing that “the traditions of Goths, Vandals, Lombards and Burgundians all point to Sweden as their earliest homeland and probably all the pure Teutonic tribes came originally from Scandinavia and were closely related” (83). As has already been argued, Laing is more inclined to regard Norway as the country which constituted the starting point of the Anglo-Saxon culture, but his visit to the island of Gotland renders him quite willing to forget his general conviction that Sweden is the most demoralised (and immoral) Nordic state and reproduce the same pro-Swedish pattern, owing to the island’s remote position on the European map and strongly historical atmosphere. When the “ancient images of the Gothic world unfold” before the author’s eyes, he immediately ceases to deplore Sweden for its oppressive

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manners and mores, and indulges in a presentation of the unchanged character of the island’s capital, stating: This ancient city is the most extraordinary place in the north of Europe. It is a city of the Middle Ages, existing unbroken, and unchanged in a great measure to the present day; it appears to have undergone less alteration from time, devastation, or improvement, than any place of the same antiquity”. (302)

Here it is evident that Gotland meets Laing’s expectations and satisfies his thirst for places that substantiate his romancing of the North as the cradle of Gothic civilisation. At the same time, his description of the island is tinged with nostalgic glances at a culture which has died out, but had contributed to a considerable extent to the formation of British national identity. In this excerpt, Laing directs the reader’s attention to the very essence of the Saxon (Gothic) culture, that is, its stark contrast with the classical civilisations of Rome and Greece, being an unrefined but virile culture, hardly altered from time’s erosive impact. The writer does not hesitate to call the old city “the most extraordinary place in the north of Europe”, not only because it connotes the racial supremacy of the old Gothic tribe, but also due to its unaltered visage which is completely opposed to continental Sweden’s (and Europe’s) modernised situation. The utopian perspective from which Laing contemplates the unspoiled scenes on the Swedish island demonstrates his interest in places which retained elements reminiscent of the imagery of the sagas. Despite the fact that Sweden, as a whole, does not answer his expectations to link the saga scenes with the present state of the Nordic landscapes and institutions, Gotland obviously meets this desire to revive the old Viking spirit within the Scandinavian framework. Apparently this island, aside from its name’s association with the Gothic world and its unaltered image, is viewed by the author as the ideal utopian locus in Sweden because of its situation as a remote island, separated by Sweden. If, according to Vieira, the original meaning of utopia was based on the description of an imaginary, unknown island (4), then the contemplation of Gotland as an Arcadian locus conforms to this definition. Laing’s tendency to idealise this island as a Gothic paradise in the middle of a “decadent” kingdom does not depart from other travel writers’ inclination to treat other Nordic places, such as Iceland, as Northern utopias, located away from the technologically advanced European centres. By the same token, Laing embellishes his presentation of the island with other Arcadian elements, such as the destitute (but picturesque) state of the ancient streets, the ruined churches as well as the solidarity that

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characterises the islanders, as they share strong bonds with their neighbours. In his own words: The houses on each side of these ancient streets are in general poor cabins, with gardens, potato-ground, and corn crops, all huddled together, among ruins of churches of very extraordinary beauty and workmanship, and, as ruins, in very picturesque preservation. (303)

In addition, before his departure from the island, Laing also expresses his regret for abandoning the place to return to continental Sweden stressing that: “I left Gottland with regret: few places are so interesting to the traveller; although the scenery of the island is flat and tame” (332). As noted in the passage, the island does not equal the mountainous (and therefore sublime) regions of Norway, since it is flat and “tame”, that is, particularly feminine compared with the “masculinity” of the fjords and the sequestered fjells of Norwegian nature. Apparently, this Swedish island is so inextricably connected to the history of the ancient Goths that can do nothing but stimulate the writer’s appetite to discover remnants of Viking antiquity in Northern Europe. Thus the writer, as can also be seen in his final remark on Gotland, is both moved and identified with the place. It is also noticeable that, throughout his transition from one place to another, the writer’s attention is drawn to the ruins of ancient churches that add to his romancing of the North and his focus on the earliest stages of Christianity in the Northern boundaries of European civilisation. By choosing to focus on the ruined monuments of ancient Gothic settlements (and the timeless character of the landscape), the author reproduces the Romantic (and post-Romantic) aesthetic principle that sought to view “the landscape as a ruin” (Fjågesund et al 320) in the most desolate places of the world. Besides his journey to Gotland, one of the features that are positively viewed by the author is the high status of the sagas in nineteenth-century Sweden. When touching upon the literature in Sweden and the other Nordic countries, Laing states that: In the present literature of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, the Sagas occupy so important a place - their poets, historians, and antiquaries, draw so largely from this source that to understand them, a knowledge of the Saga mythology is almost as necessary as that of the Greek to understand the classics. (53)

There are three points in this extract that call our attention to the significant role of the sagas in Scandinavia. Firstly, the writer argues that

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the saga tradition is still celebrated by all Scandinavians as part of their common culture, contributing to the pan-Scandinavian spirit amongst them. Secondly, Laing raises an important point as to the timelessness of the sagas; in his opinion, the sagas are not only of pivotal importance as reliable historical documents but could also serve to a traveller’s (and reader’s) best understanding of the national character of modern Scandinavia, a fact which alludes to even higher valorisation of this literary patrimony of the Nordic nations. Thirdly, Sweden does participate in this rediscovery (and enrichment) of the saga tradition with new works in which the Viking spirit prevails as part of Sweden’s attempt to achieve national awareness after the traumatic events that scathed its political integrity. In that way, the writer inevitably contradicts himself by presenting the country both as a demoralised state, and a nation steeped to its literary tradition. Yet it also signals Laing’s approving outlook towards every development in Scandinavia that is based on old northern values. His positive attitude towards the dominant role of the sagas in the nineteenth-century literature of the Scandinavian nations stems from the high esteem that these documents enjoyed in Victorian Britain, and this is why he is eager to praise whichever aspect is akin to his northernist agenda and to his claims. Despite his definition of the traveller in a foreign country as a person who “swims on the surface of society; in contact, perhaps, with its worthless scum, as well as with its cream” and whose questionable authority “is not justified in drawing sweeping conclusions upon the moral character and condition of a whole people from what he may meet with in his own little circle of observation” (109), Laing seems to greatly depart from his original commitment to adopt an impartial stance towards the scenes and peoples encountered during his trip to this Nordic country. His travelogue is beset with generalisations that lead to the denigration of the country visited. Nevertheless, his vast contribution both to the promotion of Scandinavian culture in Victorian Britain and his genuine interest in every manifestation of the Viking culture in nineteenth-century Scandinavia show his sensitisation to the importance of old northern antiquity and the way in which it impacted on the formation of Victorian Britain as an imperialist nation. His elucidating remarks on the country’s language, literature and political framework throw light on the manner in which Sweden was contemplated by northern scholars in Victorian Britain, namely as the racial (and cultural) cradle of Gothic civilisation, a country in its first steps towards economic improvement, but at the same time as too modernised and conservative to qualify for the role of a Northern Utopia.

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His travelogue is also of particular significance because it provides us with the Scottish outlook on Scandinavia. Though not overtly exhibited in his narrative, Scottishness occupies a prevalent position in his comparison between Sweden and Britain, and there are various occasions in his work which suggest that what is at stake is not the Anglo-Saxon connection but its Scottish variant, as the author addresses linguistic, educational and moral issues. Therefore, his text approaches the concept of utopia in multiple ways, illustrating his complex personality as a scholar, a politician and a Scotsman.

CHAPTER TWO SELINA BUNBURY: A SUMMER IN NORTHERN EUROPE, INCLUDING SKETCHES IN SWEDEN, NORWAY, FINLAND, THE ALAND ISLANDS, GOTHLAND

Selina Bunbury (1802-1882) was an Anglo-Irish historical fiction writer and traveller, born in Kilsaran, County Louth in Ireland. Bunbury should be considered as a particularly prolific writer, having produced more than 100 works, ranging from historical novels to travel books. Her most important works are A Visit to My Birthplace (1821), Tales of My Country (1833) and Coombe Abbey (1844). Other historical novels are The Star of the Court (1844), Sir Guy D'Esterre (1858), and Florence Manyers (1865). Her most well-known travelogues are The Pyrenees (1845), A Visit to the Catacombs, or First Christian Cemeteries of Rome (1849), and a Midnight Visit to Mount Vesuvius (1849), Life in Sweden; with Excursions in Norway and Denmark (1853), A Summer in Northern Europe, Including Sketches in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Aland Islands, Gothland (1856) and Russia After the War (1857). She had befriended another important Anglo-Irish writer of the time, Fanny Burney. As many other women writers of her time, she was primarily interested in women’s social status in mid-Victorian England, although her viewpoint extended to other political issues such as Protestantism in Ireland. Bunbury wrote her narrative A Summer in Northern Europe, Including Sketches in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Aland Islands, Gothland in the mid-Victorian period during which racial theories were at their peak; the theory about the Anglo-Saxon origin of the English culture gave rise to a tremendous interest in everything related to the Old Norse civilisation and the Viking world. Given the fact that English kinship to the Nordic cultures attracted more and more English scholars and philosophers with the aim to justify the general cause of the rising British Empire, this author’s decision to travel to Scandinavia does not strike the reader as a particularly pioneering undertaking. However, the author’s travel narrative

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is beset with some peculiarities which do not only challenge the wellestablished borders of her gender but also render her undertaking even more interesting to analyse, if one considers her ethnic background and her focus on Sweden as the country of her main concern. In other words, her identity as a female traveller in Scandinavia does not monopolise Bunbury’s narration since it is the second visit of the writer to the Nordic countries. Bunbury defies the convention of the Victorian Northernists’ infatuation with Iceland and Norway as cultural remnants of England’s Anglo-Saxon past, by choosing to concentrate on Sweden, a country which, in spite of its Viking background and indisputable status as a Western republic, did not fare so well in the Victorian construction of Northern Utopias. The choice of a country sharing striking similarities with Britain in terms of cultural heritage, without constituting the favourite travel destination of Viking scholars in Britain, might be seen as the writer’s claim to originality amongst her male fellow travellers. Nevertheless, her Irish descent and her position as a woman in Victorian Britain do not exclude the misconceptions Bunbury presents at times about the Swedes or the other nations mentioned in her travelogue, thus reflecting the peculiar national identity forged in Great Britain; on the one hand, the concept of Englishness summarised England’s cultural superiority amongst the other members of the United Kingdom. On the other hand, Englishness took the form of Britishness, as British citizens, when confronted with other civilisations, threw an imperialist glance at the rest of the world. As Young points out, “Englishness”, in its more inclusive sense of Britishness, “led not only to an increasing emphasis on the idea of a Greater Britain […] but eventually also to the imperial idea that the Englishman was above any narrow ethnicity or race” (233). Aside from the racial theories (Gothicism) that probably incited the author to opt for Sweden as her country of interest, the originality of Bunbury’s tour in Sweden could be better explained by the historical background that underlies the author’s description of the country. In particular, despite the general belief of the Victorians that Scandinavia in general and Sweden in particular were characterised by a remarkable degree of political stability, Swedish history proves the opposite. During Bunbury’s short residence in the country in 1856, Sweden had already been reduced both territorially and geopolitically to an impoverished state. It seems that its sole claim to its former imperial glory was the loose Swedish-Norwegian connection established in 1815. Strongly influenced by the disastrous effects of the Napoleonic Wars and the subsequent loss of Finland, nineteenth-century Sweden reacted against territorial shrinking

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and reduced geopolitical control through the forging of a new identity which exalted the Viking spirit of the old times and reinforced the establishment of a pan-Scandinavian spirit. As T.K. Derry notes, Swedish nationalism culminated in view of the dramatic changes of the country and was properly expressed by the Gothic society1 (Götiska Förbundet) “whose members extolled a Nordic past in which their own Gothic ancestors loomed larger than life-size” (232). Therefore, the travel narrative A Summer in Northern Europe, Including Sketches in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Aland Islands, Gothland, published in 1856, should be viewed in the light of the longstanding French influence on Swedish culture, the emerging patriotic feeling of the Swedish population in view of the traumatic experiences of the near past, and the desire of the country to distance itself from the imperial powers of the era (Russia, Britain and Germany). One might notice the writer’s struggle to consolidate her identity both as a writer and a woman in a foreign territory, a tendency frequently noticed in travel narratives written by female writers. Bunbury’s discourse reveals her anxiety to achieve self-recognition in her encounter with members of other civilisations, a tendency which often leads her to assume an empowered position over the natives. Confined to the domestic sphere and with limited possibilities to escape their role as wives and mothers, it would be expected of Victorian women not to resort to an imperialistically nuanced discourse when interacting with members of the same sex in the country visited. Bunbury’s attitude towards native women, however, suggests quite the opposite as in several instances of her narrative she assumes a patronising role, employing a significant amount of irony when addressing Swedish women, who are judged as inferior to the author in terms of their socio-cultural status. The conversation which is held between the writer and Karin, her Swedish servant, is telling: Does not Madame think it pretty? Yes-does Karin think so? I think it heavenly beautiful, but then I have not seen such grand things as Madame has in her country. (8)

This fragment indicates the position of empowerment in which Bunbury is found when being asked by the young girl about the beauty of the Swedish landscape. The episode is purposefully mentioned so as to 1

Gothic society or Geatish society, a group of nineteenth-century Swedish intellectuals that focused on Scandinavian antiquity, was established by the prominent writers Esaias Tegnér and Erik Gustaf Geijer.

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show British supremacy over the natives, even in trivial matters such as the evaluation of a landscape. The Swedish servant appears anxious to fulfill the imperial beholder’s need for self-aggrandisement. Yet the relationship between Karin and the author serves as an indicative example of a British traveller’s typical intercourse with the indigenous people of the country visited, assuming the role of the traveller at the expense of the travellee, that is, the person whom travellers encounter during their tour. Another episode in the travelogue, which also disproves Mills’ argument on the “women traveller’s sympathetic view of native women”, is Bunbury’s description of an old Swedish woman, who, because of her disagreeable appearance, is viewed with apprehension: the door opened, and the most awfully ugly old woman I ever yet saw presented herself, and seeming to tremble at my august presence, kept only repeating " Her Grace — her Grace" — so often that I got annoyed at the sound, so tiresome to an English ear, and begged she would not say her Grace to me. The poor woman made an abrupt apology, looked frightened, and retreated immediately. I could not find her again when I wanted her, and it was some time afterwards that I discovered she had set off on a walk of more than two English miles, to ask the lady who decorated my apartment what was my title, since she supposed she had offended me by giving me one so much below my dignity as her Grace — one of the lowest in Sweden. (83)

The reader of this excerpt is struck by the stark characterisation of the native woman as “poor” and “annoying”- her disagreeable presence annoys the writer. The author’s attitude reminds us of the common categorisation of women (by men) as angels or “hags” (Fjågesund and Symes 214) according to their age and appearance. At the same time, the writer’s discourse is interspersed with imperialist nuances when entering the place. The writer tends to describe herself as superior when encountering women of an “inferior” race and social position, and is particularly unsympathetic to their impoverished condition as well as mocks their servility, as the episode with the old woman suggests. Another episode in the travelogue is also associated with the writer’s uniqueness as a British woman in Scandinavia: as I sat alone in my room in Jonkoping, its door opened, and a very pretty, pleasant-looking young lady came in with the customary ‘Forlat mig’ but now said in the sweetest English, ‘Pardon me, for being the first to come to see you, but Presten said there was an English lady here, and I am so fond of English, I would see an English lady.’ (107)

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Relying on this extract, one could notice the pride the author feels when becoming the object of a native girl’s attention because of her country of origin. She is certainly pleased to realise that she is received as a member of a superior race. Besides her sense of entitlement as a Briton, another common issue of womanhood comes to the fore as the narrative progresses: this issue, always occupying a prominent position in women’s travel accounts, is their placement in the text as travel writers. Given the abundance of conventional roles in male travel writing, in which the authors are self-presented as adventurous, intrepid travellers defying the elements of nature in search of the unknown and providing the readers with accurate scientific or historical information on the country visited, women travellers have often been treated as transgressors due to their refusal to succumb to a passive domestic existence within Victorian society. Indeed, the following passage from Bunbury’s text suggests a masculine attitude on the part of the author disaccording with Victorian principles of femininity. In particular, the writer excels in strength and depicts herself in an empowered state, when a Swedish coachman is taken over by fear at the risk of a possible accident: He, good man, was so pale, that, if it were not profane, one might hazard a suspicion that he actually feared an abrupt reunion with the sainted wife. I never could learn how to drive, but I caught the loosened reins and pulled one so much more decidedly, than the other, that one of the wild steeds obeyed the tug and plunged right off the road, dragging the other and the carriage with it far into an open field, where it leaped into a mass of large excavated stones, and stuck us all fast. (75)

In the above episode, the writer obviously assumes the role of the adventuring heroine, by rising to the occasion and by deconstructing the image of frailty ascribed to the female sex. As an adventuress, she projects herself as “the master of a situation […] that women writers have difficulty adopting this role with ease” (Mills 78). Considering the submissive role ascribed to women in the patriarchal world, according to which women should never subvert male authority, one can understand the importance of this excerpt, in which the ‘effeminate’ coachman is completely effaced by the writer’s empowered presence as a British citizen. The underlying conflict between the writer’s female identity and the hero position that she adopts in her travel narrative illuminates her reluctance to comply with the sentimental narrator’s stance towards the events taking place in the account. The assumption of an adventuring hero position by the writer clashes with the conventional narrative voice reserved for women, and characterised by sentimentality. In attempting to

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find a proper identity in the foreign territory, the writer jeopardises her female subjectivity by adopting a male authoritative voice. Her empowered position over the Swedish coachman seems to be unnatural, considering the portrayal of women as vulnerable beings, alien to perilous conditions without a decisive male companion. Moreover, the writer seeks to emphasise her status as an individual traveller in her travelogue. In fact, there is no clear evidence of her being escorted by any man during her trip from Sweden to Gothland. Throughout her narration, the only name mentioned is that of a Swedish baroness, the writer’s sole travel companion in certain instances in the book. Thus, Bunbury defies women’s inability to survive abroad without a male companion. Indeed, in her travelogue, the author travels more than once to distant countries and is met with situations that challenge male hegemony and female vulnerability in travelling. Even though Bunbury is not the only woman writer placing herself as a heroine in her own narrative, it is still unconventional that the author chooses masculine agency instead of feminine passivity. In doing so, she renegotiates the gender boundaries of her sex. Moreover, Bunbury does not hesitate to speak openly about the advanced social position of Swedish women within the framework of midnineteenth century Sweden, by contrasting gender conditions in Victorian England with those in Sweden. Marvelling at the decisive steps made in Sweden in the 1850s concerning the progress of women’s movement, the author praises the native women’s social achievements through the granting of a legal status to women by the Swedish state: but if Smaland has produced some celebrated men, what shall we say of its women, since even now there is a law extant which, says the native historian, gives the women of a certain district in Smaland the right to inherit property like men, to wear belt and sword, and march to church to be married by beat of drum; the tow latter privileges being of so high a character as to lead one to envy the fair maidens who purchased them for their descendants, by bravely resisting the attack of the enemy with whom their nation was at war, while the men of the district were ‘not at home’. (110)

In this extract, Bunbury explicitly refers to the remarkable struggle of Swedish women for greater representation in legal matters during the 1850s. As Nordström claims, in the nineteenth century “important changes were passed by parliament, including equality in inheritance (1845), legal independence (1858), suffrage (1862 and 1918)” (82). Compared with the poor developments on the same field by English women, Bunbury overtly

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criticises the rigidity with which Victorian England denied women the opportunity to play an important role in the public affairs of their country. This critique is rendered even more obvious through the use of Sweden, a poor and remote state with low geopolitical prospects, as a modern gender Utopia whose pioneering work on female emancipation sheds sufficient light on British backwardness regarding women’s rights. In addition to Bunbury’s positive comment on Sweden as a utopian locus of gender equality, the author makes another point which highlights more intensely the advanced state that Swedish women enjoyed. She refers to Fredrika Bremer2, a fundamental female figure of mid-nineteenth century Sweden, twice in her travelogue: As this is the case, however, I will go and speak to Fredrika Bremer, who has been to see the midnight sun, and says it looked like a cheese or a pewter plate. (5) Bridget, after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, died at Rome, at the age of seventy. ‘A strong and enduring spirit’ says Fredrika Bremer, ‘did she possess- the mysterious being who went forth from Upland, and was canonised by Rome. (113)3

Drawing upon the two references to the well-known Swedish-Finnish writer, the reader is struck by the familiar way in which Bunbury addresses the work of her Swedish colleague. In the first case, it is clear that the author had befriended Bremer during her stay in Stockholm and that she is not afraid to use a female writer of another country as a primary source of information, a fact which is remarkably straightforward considering the common Victorian belief that texts written by women were amateurish and not worthy of academic consideration as texts produced by male travellers were (Mills 83). If male predominance in travel writing is put widely into question through the writer’s own depiction as a selfreliant and risky traveller, her solidarity for another woman writer challenges male authority in literature in general. There is no doubt that Bunbury has good reasons to ally with Bremer both at a moral and a spiritual level given the striking similarities in their lives: Bremer was raised in an upper-middle- class home, she travelled in Sweden, across Europe but also in the New World and the novels that she wrote at the 2

Fredrika Bremer (1801-1865) was a feminist novelist and travel writer from Swedish Finland who supported the early feminist cause through her novels on the social position of women. 3 Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373) was a Swedish saint, well known for her charitable work.

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peak of her writing career focused on the hardships of the female sex. Most importantly, Bremer had been engaged in a public debate about women’s rights (Nordström 159). In that respect, Bunbury’s emotional attachment to Bremer as a living symbol of female struggle against male oppression makes full sense. After all, Fredrika Bremer was not unknown to Victorian Britain, since “as early as the 1840s, tales by the Swedish feminist and traveller were being translated for an English public” (Derry 265), an important detail which illuminates the Victorian public’s interest in women writers from foreign countries. However, despite her non conformist attitude towards the gender barriers of Victorian society, Bunbury appears to deem Samuel Laing who had made a trip to Sweden before her as the indisputable authority regarding Swedish manners and more, a fact which indicates her insecurity about her role as a woman traveller: The English traveller whose book is best known and most disliked in Sweden — Laing, whose calm, deliberate statements to the prejudice of their country are read and felt, while the complaints of fly-away and illinformed travellers are passed over. (76) Mr. Laing might carry on a parallel from this further than I would like to do; but without venturing on the intricate subject of morals, I would characterize Sweden in one word, as the nation of outward decorum. (110)

Bunbury clearly expresses the need to resort to a male traveller for the validity of her allegations with regard to the Swedish social system. The dichotomy between women’s impressions and the scientific, factual knowledge of a country appears to be a recurrent convention in travel writing. Bunbury is well aware of this dichotomy between women and science; this is the reason why she feels the need to employ Laing’s opinion as important evidence for the corroboration of her sayings, avoiding challenging the patriarchal order in more than one respects, that is, both as a female writer and a scholar. Moreover, I contend that through her reference to Laing, the author reveals her role as an imperial beholder. As has already been mentioned, a significant number of British travellers assume an empowered position that does not only allow them to severely criticise the Other but also to deprive the natives of any voice. To put it briefly, for Bunbury Swedish people should only be confined to their role as the Other and every reaction opposing such a function is taken as a direct challenge to British literary (as well as cultural) superiority. Despite her genuine interest in the women’s cause in this sequestered part of Europe, Bunbury wrote during a period marked by Britain’s

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continuous struggle to forge a cultural identity against the other imperial powers of Europe in an attempt to overcome its long-standing inner conflicts. This anxiety for a more coherent identity is reflected in the rise of Britain as a strong advocate of Protestant values. According to Linda Colley, religion was “able to become a unifying and distinguishing bond as never before. It was this shared religious alliance combined with recurrent wars that permitted a sense of British national identity to emerge” (18). The ideological foundations of Britishnness were based upon this religious and ideological background, totally opposed to every religious element not akin to the Protestant ideals, such as the hostile Other (Catholic France). Being a Lutheran kingdom, Sweden is religiously linked to Britain. However, there are several features of Swedish culture regarded rather reproachfully by Bunbury, who is anxious to investigate Swedish people’s interest in church attendance and other aspects of religious life. An extract of her travel account expresses her conviction that the religious feeling has faded away in Sweden, a thing which is commonly witnessed by other British travellers: “English tourists often speak of the Swedes and Norwegians going to church with their Bibles rolled up in a handkerchief. The Bible is not used in church” (28). The loose connection of the Swedish population to the Protestant Church is interpreted by the writer on the basis of her own cultural experience. What the writer implies in mentioning the Swedes’ poor respect to the Bible as a religious symbol is a lack of patriotism and overall social demoralisation, probably stemming from the country’s limited experience in religious conflicts with other countries, such as the anti-catholic struggle of Britain against France. It also reflects Bunbury’s concern about the religious dichotomy in Ireland, in which the Anglo-Irish Protestant minority was considered alien to the interests of the Irish Catholic majority. Similarly to Laing, Bunbury believes that every Protestant country should be on the alert for Catholic expansion. As it seems, her general concern about the issue of religion in Sweden is more related to the social conditions in Victorian England, in which religion was regarded as an essential part of the nation-building project against the other European great powers of the time (France and Russia4). In addition to the writer’s preoccupation with the secularising tendencies of the Swedish social system, the reader is also struck by Bunbury’s negativity towards the surviving heathen elements in Swedish 4

Finland, after its long-lasting Union with Sweden, was annexed to the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century.

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culture. Drawing significant attention to the importance attributed to the Runic inscriptions by the Swedish population, the author phrases the following statement, expressing her depreciation for the connection of the runic alphabet to the supernatural world: It is said, that while ignorant of the simple power of an alphabet, an ignorant people, seeing that ideas were communicated by the apparently unintelligible figures, called Runes, naturally imputed magical powers to them. (103)

In setting the focus on the ignorance of Swedish people rather than the actual impact of the runic past on Swedish national identity, the writer underestimates one of the pillars of the contemporary nation-building plan of the Swedish scholars, who aimed at emphasising every remnant of the Old Norse culture. If mid-nineteenth century nationalism in Sweden was built upon the conviction that “northern paganism was a splinter of the true light” (Wawn 227), Bunbury shows significant indifference when it comes to the national revival of the Swedish population, illustrating her point that Sweden can only achieve cultural self-realisation through the strengthening of the Protestant feeling, which is in danger of fading out because of heathenish influence: It was condemned by the Christian Church, and when the Runic characters were given up by the learned, and only used by the people for the inscriptions on their tombstones and on their wooden almanacs, the faith in their power, which had formed so curious a part of their heathen mythology, was long cherished, and in some parts is not believed to be yet wholly destroyed. Not Odin himself, who first mastered the mystery of the Runes. (103)

The strong attraction of Victorian England to heathenism and Pagan beliefs was simultaneously combined with a fear of everything that could challenge conventional religious beliefs. The existence of pagan customs in a country which was fighting its way through the advent of industrialisation is not approved by the writer, who treats these elements as impediments to the country’s further development. As the passage suggests, the condemnation of the superstitious beliefs connected to the worshipping of the runic characters is positively mentioned by Bunbury, who desires to restore Sweden’s reputation as part of the Protestant realm to which Great Britain also belongs. Bunbury’s hostile approach to the Runic culture reveals her wish to differentiate her stance from the majority of mid-nineteenth century Victorian scholars who venerated northern heathendom, “retaining sympathy both for the spirituality of old northern

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paganism […] and for the particular values identified in individual pagan deities” (Wawn 231), putting aside their strict Protestant background. In doing so, the writer bears stronger resemblance to late nineteenth-century travellers, since she draws little attention to the Northernist fascination with the pillars of the Viking culture and chooses to highlight the Protestant dimension of the Scandinavian nation, a common tendency in late nineteenth-century travelogues, in which the notion of Britishness was built upon Protestant ideals and not by reference to other Germanic cultures. Paradoxically, despite her overall indifference towards the Viking past of Sweden, indisputable evidence of which is the existence of the runes around the country, the writer accuses the country of not having preserved any historical evidence of her illustrious past, stating that: In old Scandinavia there is no visible antiquity; the Vikings have left no more trace behind than if their only resting-place had been the waves. The robber-fortresses and castles of the refractory nobles were all leveled to the ground when their multitude rendered their demolition needful; and really, in Sweden, one cannot help being struck with the fact that nothing but the mighty fir forests, and the boulders, and granite rocks, have the air of antiquity about them. (110)

Interestingly enough, in the above fragment Bunbury’s discourse is particularly contradictory since her previous statement about the need to eradicate dangerous pagan beliefs from Swedish culture does not accord with her desire to see elements of visible Scandinavian antiquity. It is more than evident that the writer’s self-contradictory attitude stems from her effort to follow the eighteenth-century tradition in travel writing (linked to Rousseau’s notion of the noble savage), yet without succumbing fully to the conventional mid-nineteenth century cult of Old Norse tradition. Her idea is to foster an image of Sweden as a country which is not contaminated by the vices of modern civilisation, exactly as Rousseau had postulated in his famous works on human education Emile or on Education within the realm of nature, highlighting the conflict between nature and society: Everything should therefore be brought into harmony with these natural tendencies, and that might well be if our three modes of education merely differed from one another; but what can be done when they conflict, when instead of training man for himself you try to train him for others? Harmony becomes impossible. Forced to combat either nature or society, you must make your choice between the man and the citizen, you cannot train both. (13)

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Undoubtedly, a country without a visible touch of civilisation but the presence of eternal forests is romantically nuanced. Sweden’s representation as a country blessed with natural beauties, non overburdened by history, ascribes a static image to the country that fosters an Arcadian dimension. At the same time, however, the writer purposefully ‘others’ Sweden by choosing to underestimate the old remnants of the country’s patrimony and stresses a more neutral presentation through the depiction of Swedish nature. Bunbury’s tendency to view the North from an eighteenth-century perspective is more obvious in another extensive extract, in which the writer provides the reader with a dystopian image of Sweden as a centre of the occult, a reference which adds to the country’s mystic dimension: Wherever the reformation came this zeal appears to have been quickened, and, in the north, our first James had his co-equals in the art of discovering and reporting witchcraft. Yet the Trollkarl still exists in Sweden, though he is not burned as a sorcerer. In most districts here, as well as in Sweden, there is a wise man or woman who acts as its oracle or fortune- teller, its councillor or doctor. They are generally skilful in healing wounds and sprains, or even setting bones. The old belief in the value of relics is evinced in the practice of carrying about them as a charm the bone of a dead person. They are said to venture at night into cemeteries for the purpose of invoking spirits, and in visiting the sick they chant their cabalistic songs, and so expel the spirit of evil. (38)

According to the writer’s view of nineteenth-century Sweden, the existence of the trollkarl (magician in Swedish) and the signekone (folk healer in Norwegian/Danish) renders the country prone to witchcraft, a faulty situation standing as an impediment for the modernisation of the Nordic country in question. At the same time, Bunbury’s portrayal of Sweden as a European country where the practices of dark magic and primitive healing methods are in abundance purposefully increases its primitive character. Yet the author’s emphasis on the mystic aspect of the North cannot be seen as a novelty in British travel writing. Waldemar Zacharasiewicz affirms that the image of northern locations “was enhanced by unfavourable associations of the North generally with demons, devils, and a threat to God’s people” (32). The presentation of Sweden as a country steeped in the old Viking traditions considerably impacts on the reader’s imagination. However romantic this description may be, it contains a certain degree of prejudice against the Swedes, as it highlights their backward practices, and exoticises the country in the eyes of the Victorians.

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A less exotic depiction of the country is provided later on, when the writer argues with a Swede about the oldest university in Europe. Indignant, Bunbury feels particularly offended when the native man questions Britain’s status as both a strictly Protestant country and a more refined civilisation compared with the Swedish culture: Our Royal Secretary refuted this assertion; whereon the Adjunct affirmed that Upsala was the most learned university in the world. This point we English ventured to dispute, and having speedily driven the Adjunct from his position, he returned again to his former one, asserting that Upsala was much older than Oxford University, and by way of proof, he turned to me and triumphantly demanded if there were any remains of paganism at Oxford. I replied, with some hesitation, that I believed not, I hoped not. Another triumphant laugh bespoke the superiority of Upsala, “For,” said the Adjunct, "there were relics of paganism at Upsala, and there was the proof that Upsala existed in the pagan time. “But in what age was paganism abolished in Sweden?” I demanded. “And in what age was the University of Upsala founded?” (86)

Said considers British travellers’ discourse in colonial texts to be “disregarding, essentialising, denuding the humanity of another culture” (108). In the above extract, Bunbury’s discourse reveals her arrogance, as a Swedish citizen is not entitled to patriotic manifestations when these question British supremacy. In that respect, peripheral peoples should always function in accordance with the inferior status given to them by British travellers, who are more eager to consolidate British supremacy through their interaction than to concentrate on the other country’s cultural identity. It is also interesting that Bunbury is deeply offended by the fact that the Swedish “Others” display a superior and patronising attitude towards her imperial culture by reversing stock roles and positions stereotypically imposed by the British imperial beholder. In addition to her reluctance to be subjected to the Swedish people’s criticism, Bunbury also adopts other imperial conventions in order to emphasise her Britishness amidst the places she comes across throughout her tour in Sweden. The author alludes to the notion of backwardness of the indigenous population through the use of Gotland, the ancient centre of Swedish culture, as an island where time has stopped, a fact which stresses the primitive aspect of the country as well as its romantic dimension as a Northern Utopia: The Swedes who come here say that Gottland is fifty years behind Sweden in the way of progress, and as the English who go to Sweden say that

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country is more than a hundred years behind England, the distance between us and the Gottlanders must be considerable. (77)

Drawing upon this excerpt, it might be observed that the writer is anxious to contrast the over-refined state of Victorian culture with the lethargic condition of Gotland at first and then Sweden as a whole. That Gotland is a hundred years behind England and even more static than Sweden as a whole is also a statement that reveals the writer’s exposure to mid-nineteenth century Northernism, essential ingredients of which were knowledge of Old Norse history and German Gothicism (Wawn 43). Moreover, Bunbury’s remark on the unaltered condition of the island is similar to the one made by Laing, when he states that“it appears to have undergone less alteration from time, devastation, or improvement, than any place of the same antiquity” (302). This proves that both authors were influenced by this mid-nineteenth resurgence of interest in the Gothic origins of Europe. Yet it also reminds us of Johannes Fabian’s point on time and the Other; being presented as something unchanging, the Other is rediscovered by the traveller while this very act is temporal, historical and political (1) depending on the message that the traveller wishes to convey to the reader. Bunbury’s gaze at the island of Gotland is both nostalgic and derogatory, a fact which expresses her constant shift from the sentimental narrative position to that of authoritative (and largely factual) narration. In other words, she wishes to renegotiate her own female identity by assuming different narratorial roles. As has already been demonstrated, Bunbury is not extremely concerned with the cultural effect of the Eddaic tradition and the Viking world on the formation of British culture, since her reference to the sagas and Viking lore is made in order to interpret the contemporary situation in the country. Yet it is of paramount importance that she focuses extensively on that island, which was regarded as the “cradle of Gothic culture” (Hägg 5), as a separate cultural entity from Sweden and Finland. Without any doubt, Bunbury’s interest in Gotland lies in its status as the core of the Gothic culture, considering other British travellers’ fascination with this island (for instance, the travelogues of Samuel Laing, Horace Marryat). Her travelogue coincides with a period in which the spirit of Teutonism, occupying a prevalent position throughout the first part of the nineteenthcentury, sought a “Teutonic cradle, a place which everyone of the Teutonic race could read about or visit, becoming acquainted with their origins and German qualities” (Isleifsson 125). Moreover, it can be partly attributed to British imperial aspirations over Swedish territory. Thus, the author seizes the opportunity to highlight the role of Britain in the

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Swedish-Russian conflict resulting in the disastrous relinquishment of Finland to the Russians: The English troops arrived at Goteborg under the command of Sir John Moore, but with orders to act as a separate corps, under the orders of the English general, and not to remove so far from the coast as to lose the facility of re-embarkation in case it should be expedient. (30)5

Clearly, the historical reference to the accomplishments of the British army on this Swedish territory is conducive to an exaltation of British might and strength in the peripheral world. In stressing the British presence during the Napoleonic Wars, the writer depicts the Britons as redeemers of the Swedish nation. The author also acknowledges the loss of a great chance to incorporate Gotland into the British Empire, admonishing the native people for keeping British experts “at a distance” and not showing the same eagerness regarding a potential British appropriation of the island in various fields (economic, cultural): The Gottlanders say that if the English fleet had their harbour, England would soon have their island; and some of them add that the island would not be the worse for that, but those who do so are few, for the people like to go on as they suppose their fathers did, and wish to keep British agriculturists and encroachers of all sorts at a distance. (76)

In order to appreciate this point, one should bear in mind differentiating factor between Sweden and other Nordic countries in British travel literature. Unlike Norway and Iceland, which appeared quite vulnerable both at a political and cultural level because of their long-lasting subjection to the Danish or Swedish Crown, Sweden’s imperial past, clearcut social hierarchy, decisive steps towards industrialisation and women’s emancipation could not permit the country’s categorisation as extremely backward. This is the reason why Bunbury chooses to describe the country as culturally inferior to Britain on account of the country’s liberal stance towards heathendom and other religions. At the same time, the country is depicted as less cautious in view of the decadent state of Protestantism in the country. Furthermore, the author’s alarming remarks might also be attributed to the rise of Russia to a European superpower. The writer’s tendency to compare the increasing Francophobia in Britain to the turbulent relations between Russia and Sweden is made explicit in another extract, in which Bunbury reassures the reader that “but except at the 5

Lieutenant-General John Moore (1761 – 1809) was a British military officer who assisted the Swedes in the Baltic during the Russian invasion of the island.

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Court, there is a general hatred of Russia in Sweden. Old jealousy, like the feeling in France against us” (5). Like many other British travellers in Scandinavian countries, the author relies primarily on her own historical experience to present and discuss contemporary issues related to Swedish national identity. At this point, her Anti-French discourse is very similar to Laing’s own negative comments on the French cultural presence; indeed, while in Sweden, he seizes every opportunity to criticise Swedish mimicking of French culture6. Based on anti-Catholicism as a means of constructing a national identity, Bunbury envisions a Swedish Protestant Church with greater exertion of control over its citizens in order to combat any further expansion of the French element. By the same token, the Protestant faith could also tackle, to a certain extent, the “ominous” Russian impact on Swedish politics and society. Apart from the religious polarity between Protestant Sweden and the Eastern, Orthodox Other (Russia), the writer’s animosity towards Russian expansionism might be explained by Sweden’s active participation in the Lutheranist movement during the reign of Gustav Vasa7, the most illustrious Swedish monarch being involved in several war expeditions against the Catholic states. It is not a mere coincidence that Bunbury makes specific reference to an incident that occurred on the Swedish island of Gotland, when the aforementioned king managed to save the island from Russian invasion and reestablish Lutheranism against the will of a Catholic bishop: The view from the summit of the ruined wall shows the town of ruins, with its walls and towers, to advantage. The Russians, too, had a church here; and indeed the great number of churches must partly be accounted for on the supposition that in the commercial times of Wisby rich merchants built their own when they settled there. ‘At St Hans Church,’ says a little guidebook was first preached Luther's doctrine, under strong opposition from Bishop Brask, 8 who drove away the Lutheran priests; but King Gustaf soon got them back again. (195)

The author’s direct mention of the Swedish struggle against Catholic forces seems to have a triple purpose. On the one hand, Sweden’s reputation as a Western, Protestant country is fully restored in the eyes of 6

For example, he comments that” the French-like blue and red uniforms of the troops posted on the stairs and looking over the balustrades, recall strange ideas of past events, and are by far too Versailles-like” (100). 7 Gustav I of Sweden (1496-1560), was the most influential king of the country. During his reign, Protestantism was introduced both to Sweden and Finland. 8 Hans Brask (1464–1538) was the Catholic bishop of Linköping.

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the Victorian reader, who is anxious to trace any similarities between his homeland and the country in question. The fact that Sweden played an active role in the battle against the Counter Reformation increases the British reader’s sympathy for this Scandinavian country. The powerful image of the Swedish army and the representation of Gustav Vasa as the epitome of the country’s claim to the pantheon of the Western world serve as sufficient proof for Britain’s cultural alliance with Sweden. In this way, Sweden ceases to be a northern periphery and is depicted as an ally of imperial Britain. Therefore, the depiction of the country as a northern state and the negative connotations (barbarism, coldness) attached to its geographical position are renegotiated. On the other hand, Bunbury’s reference might imply Sweden’s return to its previous dynamic past as the “Queen of the Baltics”. More importantly, the reference to the particular event induces us to believe that the writer is more interested in the incident’s impact on the British reader, whose patriotic identity, as has already been suggested, was closely related to religion within and beyond the metropolitan space of the British Empire (Colley 55). As John S. Bratton has noted, throughout their journeys most British travellers are likely to reproduce images of Britishness rather than place emphasis on the local character of the country (76). Defining the concept of Britishness through the binary opposition between the Protestant West and the Orthodox East constitutes a frequent phenomenon in mid-nineteenth-century travel writing: thus, the definition of the North becomes less inclusive than before and the fragmentation of the Northern peripheries is based on political rather than geographical factors. This is obvious in the writer’s reference to the loss of Finland by the treacherous Russians, resulting in the reduction of Sweden to a mere observer of major political developments after this tragic outcome of war: Famine reduced Finland to a state of depression from which it was, perhaps, only recovering in the reign of Gustav III. In that of his son, the Russians entered Finland again, and left it no more. This invasion of 1808 was less cruel and more decisive than their former forays: and Sweden, deploring the loss of her brave Finlanders, imputes to treachery rather than conquest its acquisition by Russia, who has ever since held undisputed possession of a province that has certainly not retrograded under her rule. (34)

Kliemann-Geisinger underlines that at the threshold of the nineteenth century, and in particular after the Treaty of Vienna, there is a tendency amongst Victorians to exclude Russia from the North due to the strong oriental basis of the Russian civilisation. As Kliemann-Geisinger points

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out “the North was transformed into a Scandinavian-Germanic concept” (75). Thus the position of Russia as a Nordic force, widely reflected in eighteenth-century travelogues, ceases to exist. In that sense, the spatial dimension of a country is of minor importance as opposed to the political unities shaped in accordance with particular historical circumstances and political power shifts (Schultz 8). In the case of Sweden, Bunbury gives voice to the increasing preoccupation of the Swedish population with the Russian expansion which could suppress the Western element and transform the North into a bastion of Eastern culture. This expansion might also pose a threat to Britain’s nation-building project, which drew much of its self-identification from its Germanic connection to the North. One of the principal differences between Sweden and other Nordic countries was its well-established social hierarchy. This meant that the classless form of society that Victorian tourists encountered in Norway or Iceland does not conform to Sweden’s nineteenth-century social order. Bunbury acknowledges the importance of social distinction amongst Swedish citizens, stating that: “The possibility of being without a title, or of addressing any one without giving a title, be it what it may, is what cannot be understood in any part of the Swedish dominions” (83). Clearly, the author’s comment on Swedish infatuation with titles and social ascension is associated with the country’s rather rigid social hierarchy; yet again, Bunbury’s critique of the superficiality of Swedish society strikes the reader’s attention as a paradox, given the Victorians’ own obsession with social distinction at any cost, and the condemnation of social equality as a sign of cultural inferiority (Granqvist 200). Pär Elliason also stresses the growing desire of the Swedes to ascend socially claiming that “nobility was held in very high regard in Sweden and men of science as well as merchants all wanted to become ennobled” (353). In fact, like many other British travellers of her time, Bunbury intends to criticise the lack of social mobility in Victorian Britain, using another country to attack on the status quo of her own society, comparing and contrasting the shallowness of Victorian social ranking with different societal forms. Notwithstanding their obsession with social distinction, the Swedes are also praised for their hospitality, a value often appreciated by British travellers and certainly contributed to the Arcadian presentation of the Scandinavians: Who should ever speak well of Swedish kindness and hospitality if I do not? Much could I relate which cannot in these pages be recorded. Such has often been my lot in travel. Yes, I have wandered far, dwelt among many people, but never found I yet a land unsunned by human kindness. (107)

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Part III Chapter Two There never were, I believe, a more hospitable race than the Gottlanders are (59).

According to Paul Langford, qualities such as honesty, hospitality and simplicity are highly praised within Victorian society, although people who possess them are never regarded as members of superior civilisations (88). Bunbury obviously brings up such qualities in order to strengthen the natives’ positive image in the eyes of Victorian readers without excluding the simultaneous assessment of their culture as a backward one. The inhabitants of Gotland are also depicted as a sturdy and attractive race by the writer, thus bringing their inward and outward qualities in perfect harmony: “The islanders are a hardy, lively, good-humoured race, naturally resembling their relatives the Swedes” (10). Bunbury’s emphasis on this positive image of the Swedish islanders can be attributed to the utopian nineteenth-century perceptions of the North contrasted with the completely dystopian image found in the previous century. One could also draw an analogy between Bunbury’s positive comment on the country’s peasantry and Laing’s equally enthusiastic remark on the Dalecarlians. Aside from their positive image as sturdy and honest descendants of the ancient Goths, embodying all the positive qualities associated with the nineteenth-century North, the Swedes are also praised in the travelogue for possessing a remarkable military past as well as a strong patriotic feeling, expressed through their attachment to the Swedish royalty. Bunbury refers to these additional traits of the Swedish nation in the extracts cited below, in which Swedish military fame and loyalties to Swedish sovereignty are brought to the fore: the poor fellow -a true Swede- was so overcome by this royal speech and action that he burst into tears. His sovereign was said to have been nearly equally affected. (11) The Swedes, proud of their military fame, are perhaps not reluctant to ascribe the loss of Finland to treachery. But, however that may be, you can seldom meet a true Swede who will not tell you that Cronstedt sold Sveaborg. (23)9

The author’s stay in Sweden coincides with the main period of Swedish nationalism, which culminated through the establishment of the Gothic society and the consequent dissemination of the Scandinavianist 9

Carl Olof Cronstedt was the commander of the fortress of Sveaborg in Helsinki, Finland. During the Finnish War of 1808 between Sweden and imperial Russia, he was defeated by the latter and subsequently surrendered the fortress.

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spirit amongst Swedish citizens. The writer is interested in the existence of patriotism in the foreign country because of Victorian Britain’s excessive focus on its imperial patriotism. Indeed, Victorian Britain’s values “during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were fundamentally shaped by its imperial possessions: militarism, heroism, masculinity and monarchy formed a cluster of the core beliefs of imperial patriotism” (Darian-Smith et al. 4). Given its military history, Sweden fares quite well as a Germanic nation. As has already been mentioned, the issue of language receives significant attention in Laing’s travelogue. Likewise, Bunbury is concerned with the extensive use of French amongst members of Swedish aristocracy. Upon her encounter with an old Swedish lady, she is surprised when being addressed to by an old woman in French: “The kind old lady came up to me, as a matter of royal duty, and said some- thing not meant for any one in particular, but in French, for she cannot speak a word of Swedish yet” (47). The writer treats this preference for the French language as a weakness; that is to say, in her view Swedish national identity is affected by its superfluous exposure to French culture, which was particularly despised by the Britons who were always reluctant to acknowledge other empires’ cultural influence on foreign territories. On the contrary, the author is extremely interested in the fluency of an old captain in English: I was told Herr Grub spoke English perfectly well, and I was presented to him with the full confidence that we should be at once at home together in that delightful language. But when I spoke Herr Grub smiled his answer. Sweet as such answer may be, I at last expressed to our Royal Secretary a wish that Herr Grub would let me hear his English speaking voice. On hearing which wish expressed Herr Grub ceased to smile, and, shaking his head, said in his own speech ‘I can talk English to English sailors, but I cannot talk English to an English lady’. (392)

This extract proves Fjågesund and Symes’ claim about the British fantasy of the Scandinavian reverence for British culture, mainly observed in the use of the English language in the remotest parts of Europe (260), a fantasy that stimulated British aspirations about a potential appropriation of the Arctic regions. At the same time, Bunbury refers to this incident in order to highlight her own empowered status as a British traveller in a foreign territory.

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The final comment that the author makes on Swedish culture is related to the country’s renowned botanist Carl Linnaeus,10whose major works in botany and anthropology were acclaimed beyond the borders of the Swedish state and constituted one of the main reasons for which Sweden stood out as a modern European culture despite its remoteness in Europe. Smaland has been the birthplace of some celebrated men, foremost among whom is Carl Linne, known to the world, according to the fashion of learned men latinising their names, as Linnaeus. In the deep wood spreads and blooms the sweet little flower that bears the name of its discoverer -the Linnea Borealis, the almost adored flower of Sweden- for it is Swedish, and has been made famous by a Swede. (110)

Barton claims that Linnaeus “was the great dominating and symbolic figure of Swedish natural science […] and it unquestionably provided one of the most powerful attractions to the foreign travellers of the following decades” (35). Clearly then, Bunbury lays stress not only on the weak points of the Swedish culture, such as religion and social rigidity, but also on Swedish progress in the field of science, highlighting the industriousness of Swedish people despite the harsh living conditions with which they are faced. Her mention of Linné as a pioneering figure in the history of Swedish letters is partly associated with her effort to present the country in accordance with the nineteenth-century theories about the Nordic populations’ capabilities. Bunbury’s testimony on the Swedish people challenges the climate theory and portrays the Swedes as an enlightened nation. This representation is also evident in another extract of her travel account, in which she refers to the high level of literacy even in Gotland, a sequestered district of the country: But we were engaged to another house, to one of a man of literature, for there are many such in Gottland, and there we spent a very agreeable evening, and after viewing one of the rich, gorgeous sunsets of Gottland, which, when standing on the cliffs of Wisby, and looking down on its ruins, bathed in that dazzling glow, inspire reflections to the poet or the moraliser, we returned to the poor fallen town, only to prepare for another excursion from it. (89)

Based on this passage, literacy appears to be universal in Sweden despite the impoverished state of the country. The writer’s comment defies the firmly-held view of eighteenth-century Europeans that the cold climate 10

Carl von Linné (1707-1778) was a Swedish physician and botanist as well as a Professor at Uppsala University.

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might impact negatively on a people’s qualities. She subverts the dystopian image of the North through the reference to the dissemination of education in this Northern periphery of Europe. In doing so, Bunbury challenges Laing’s negative view of Sweden to a great extent, as she does not only seek to represent the country in relation to its Viking past. On the contrary, she seems to marvel at the nineteenth-century accomplishments of the Swedes. Along with the positive qualities of the Swedes as an enlightened Germanic nation, another Victorian value, that of education, is added to their quite favourable depiction by Bunbury, coinciding with the dynamic rise of Germanism amongst Western countries. Given all the above, Bunbury’s travel account appears to subvert several mid-nineteenth century conventions in British travel literature. The author chooses to focus on the contemporary image of Sweden, overlooking the Victorian infatuation with the Viking culture and its impact on British civilisation. Her view of gender issues resembles the stance that many women travellers adopted with the aim of defying the dominant patriarchal viewpoint. Despite the fact that her narrative revolves around the idea of women’s emancipation in Sweden, as she contrasts the Swedish liberation movement with the poor progress in the women’s movement in Victorian Britain, she does not escape entirely from gender stereotyping. In particular, on the one hand her radical standpoint is undoubtedly in contrast with the dominant male ideology. On the other hand, she seems to be trapped in her role as a travel writer, since her narrative position ranges from her adoption of the role of the adventure heroine to a narrative style of sentimentality and individuality. Moreover, she also aligns herself with male authorities such as Samuel Laing, a fact which inevitably reinforces the male status quo in travelling. What is more, Bunbury’s discourse is interspersed with patronising comments on Sweden’s cultural status. Yet, at the same time, the author endeavours to bridge the gap between her own status as an oppressed member of Victorian society and her sense of Britishness. Profoundly influenced by the theory of Herder on people’s language and clearly affected by Rousseau’s theory on the noble savages, the author bestows significant attention on the depiction of the Swedes in the light of these two theories. Finally, Bunbury seems to utilise both the dystopian and the utopian image of the North, combining a plethora of eighteenth-century elements related to the theory of climate with new Arcadian attributes associated with the North due to the rise of Teutonism.

PART IV: NORWEGIAN UTOPIA

CHAPTER ONE FREDERICK METCALFE: THE OXONIAN IN THELEMARKEN

A relatively unknown British travel writer, who focused on the Old Norse language and culture, is the Reverend Frederick Metcalfe (18151885). He was educated in Shrewsbury School and subsequently followed religious studies. Being a clergyman, a Fellow of Lincoln College in Oxford, a botanist, and most importantly a Scandinavian scholar on Old Norse language, he sought to promote every aspect of the Nordic culture in a meticulous manner, gathering data and explaining the peculiarities of the Scandinavian nations through his close encounter of places and people. Unlike many British travellers of his time, he was familiar with the Scandinavian literary and linguistic context, that is, he was able to employ the language of the indigenous people through his journeys to the North. This fact is of particular importance, considering that “few of the visitors had any command of Scandinavian languages” and that “lacking such familiarity, the contemporary literatures of the Nordic lands were, literally a closed book to most foreigners, except in those rare cases where translations existed” (Barton 33). Sufficiently acquainted with the Viking lore and Old Norse literature, Metcalfe undertook a series of journeys to the Scandinavian countries between the 1850s and 1860s, which subsequently led to the publication of the travelogues The Oxonian in Norway: Or Notes of Excursions in that Country in 1854-1855 (in 1856), The Oxonian in Thelemarken or Notes of Travel in South-Western Norway, in the Summers of 1856-1857 (in 1858), and The Oxonian in Iceland: With Glances at Icelandic Folk-lore and Sagas (1861). His travelogues were popular with the Victorian public, setting the pace for other mid-Victorian (Sabine Baring-Gould, William Morris, Elizabeth J. Oswald) and Edwardian travellers (Disney Leith, Ethel Brilliana Tweedie). During that epoch, he was “an acknowledged authority on Icelandic and on Norse language and literature” (Fjågesund and Symes 361). These texts should be read in the light of his AngloSaxon theory, thoroughly analysed in his book The Englishman and the

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Scandinavian: or a Comparison of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Literature (1880) in which he endeavours to prove the increasingly influential theory of Anglo-Norse connection emphasising similarities between the two countries that can be detected in epics of the Middle Ages. Apart from his capacity as a Northernist antiquarian and “Oxonian” professor, he was the main translator of Wilhelm Adolf Becker’s work.1 Bearing the writer’s scholarly background in mind, one can easily grasp the fact that Metcalfe does not belong to that generation of travel writers who journeyed to remote countries for the sake of leisure. He sets out on his trip to Norway with the aim of discovering the main piece of evidence which will corroborate his theory about the common AngloSaxon heritage between the Britons and the Norse (and Icelandic) ancestors of the Vikings. His travel narrative is imbued with the historical perspective from which he tends to reflect on Norway, given the abundant references to Norwegian history up to the 1850s, the period during which he produced the travelogue in question. Wawn argues that Metcalfe’s purpose for travelling does not constitute “a whimsical antiquarianism” but is rather “a means of renewing contact with the spiritual roots of his nation, ‘that Scandinavian breed, to which, and not to the Saxon, England owes her pluck, her dash, and her freedom’” (82). His approach to the Norhernist hypothesis, reaching its peak at the times when Metcalfe wrote his travel narrative, is indicative of the Anglo-Saxon agenda. It is quite obvious that Metcalfe embraces the theory on the Northern Unity between Britain and the Scandinavian nations, as is evident in the following two fragments: ‘And are the Norwegian students such ardent spirits as their brethren in Germany?’ They are intense lovers of liberty, and their minds are full of the idea of Scandinavian Unity - i.e., a junction not only moral, but political, of the three kingdoms, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. (270) ‘A grand idea,’ said I, ‘no doubt, this of Scandinavian unity. I hear that Worsaae, and many of the Danish professors, have taken it up. But I don't think professors, generally, are practical men -at least, not in Germany, judging from what they did in Frankfort in 1848.’ (271)

In these extracts, the author aims at shedding light on the idea of Scandinavianism that began to dominate the intellectual circles in mid1

Wilhelm Adolf Becker (1796-1846) was a German scholar, who published several works on the Greco-Roman tradition. Metcalfe translated several books of the particular author, such as his historical work Gallus: or Roman Scenes of the Time of Augustus (1866).

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nineteenth century Scandinavia. On the one hand, while inquiring about university life in Norway, the writer is glad to be informed that Norwegian students possess a patriotic feeling and are in favour of a potential unity between their nation and the other two countries, that is, Denmark and Sweden. On the other hand, in the latter extract, Metcalfe alludes to the existing polarity between the pan-Germanic movement in the Germanspeaking areas and the simultaneous effort of the Danes to spread the spirit of Scandinavianism across all Nordic countries. These two nationalist movements, in spite of their common theoretical background, that is, a unity between all the Germanic nations, differed in terms of political aspirations. While the Danish movement, manifested amongst a circle of Danish scholars such as Rasmus Rask and Hans Christian Andersen, was purely cultural, the Germanic Nationalist movement was triggered by the adoption of an expansionist attitude amongst German professors, leading a group of German liberals to incite the Revolution of 1848 in Frankfurt. As Jonathan Sperber notes, the German Revolution of 1848, which failed to achieve its goals, was one of the first nationalist revolts in nineteenthcentury Europe, seeking to unite all German-speaking states into a National Assembly, the major events of which were “the German nationalist uprising in Schleswig-Holstein against Danish rule” and the meeting of a “Pre-Parliament in Frankfurt issuing call for elections to a German National Assembly” (x). All these events resulted in SchleswigHolstein’s relinquishment to Germany and Denmark’s transformation into a weak state which was remotely related to its former imperial status. The question is why Metcalfe is reluctant to accept the pan-Germanic spirit, otherwise termed Teutonism, while, at the same time, a similar movement of cultural nature in Denmark is highly approvable. Highlighting as well as supporting George Stephens’ effort to promote the unity between Nordic nations in view of the rising German Nationalism, the author criticises the attempt of several German philosophers of the University of Kiel in the region of Schleswig-Holstein, to incorporate the Viking (and British) world into a nationalist project of “Great Germany”.2 Gomard points to some German scholars, mainly from the University of Kiel (such as Johann Christoph Adelung and the Brothers Grimm), to include Norway and the rest of the Nordic world into the Germanic culture on the basis of Herder’s theory about the Sprachgeist (201). This pan2 George Stephens (1813-1895) served as an English lecturer at Copenhagen University for several years. He should be deemed as one of the most influential figures of Victorian Northernism thanks to his extensive studies on medieval literature and folklore as well as his composition of saga-based songs and translation of Old Norse poetry

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Germanism challenged the origins of the British civilisation, which ran the risk of being absorbed by another imperial system, the Germanic, a fact which is hardly ignored by Metcalfe. At the same time, the Dano-German conflict in 1848 that resulted in the partial defeat of the German nationalist uprising, increased the antiGerman feelings of several Victorians, mainly the circle of the Northernist scholars, who indignantly watched the expansionist undertakings of the Germans towards the North, which violated the unifying endeavours between the Scandinavians and the Britons after the disastrous outcome of the Napoleonic Wars. As Wawn stresses, “there was talk of support for Denmark in the Slesvig-Holsten conflicts” (17). The relinquishing of the Danish territory to Germany in the 1860s, constituting the culminating point of German expansionism, is foreseen by Metcalfe some years before its actual happening. Consequently, the anti-Teutonic spirit of the writer constitutes a stance often adopted by mid-Victorian travellers towards the geopolitical developments of their times. Apart from the German expansionist movement, to which Metcalfe is staunchly opposed, the author wishes to shed light on the heroic struggle of the Norwegians for independence in the beginning of the nineteenth century, which was conducive to the secession of Norway from the longlasting Union with Denmark and to the latter country’s annexation to the Swedish kingdom. To this end, he uses an aged Norwegian man to narrate the earlier days of Norwegian Romantic Nationalism: Opposite me sat a fine old fellow, with grey streaming locks, while two bagmen and the host completed the company. Under the influence of some tolerable Bordeaux, the old gentleman became quite communicative; he had been in arms in '14, when Norway was separated from Denmark, and the Norskmen recalcitrated against the cool handing them over from one Power to another. ‘That was a perilous time for us; one false step, and we might have been undone; but each man had only one thought, and that was for his country. In this strait," continued he, his eyes sparkling’ one hundred Norskmen met at Eidsvold on May 1, and on May 17 the constitution was drawn up which we now enjoy. Please God it may last. The Norwegians may well be proud of it, and no wonder that the Swedes are jealous of us with their four estates, and their miserable pretence of a constitution—the worst in Europe. (308)

In this excerpt Metcalfe highlights Norwegian patriotism as well as the traumatic historical experience of a country, constantly sliding from one dynastic regime to another. This incident had a considerable impact on the self-projection of the Norwegians as a distinct Nordic race fighting its own battle for national recognition. Notwithstanding the unfavourable outcome

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of the whole undertaking in Eidsvold, ending up with the Junction of Norway with Sweden, the liberal constitution of Norway reflected, as Metcalfe suggests, the free spirit that dominated the Norwegian ancestors of the Viking in contrast to their Swedish brothers, who possessed “a miserable pretence of a constitution”. With regard to the liberal aspect of the Norwegian Constitution, Margaret Hayford O’ Leary argues that “a constitution was written that was heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideals, including those found in the American and French constitutions” (30). Given the peculiar state of Norway that is being annexed to Sweden while retaining to a significant extent its parliamentary freedom through the Eidsvoll Constitution, many Scandinavian countries attempted to emulate the Norwegians by declaring their own claim to independence through their own cultural contributions to European civilisations such as Finland, which had been relinquished to the Russian Empire, and Iceland, through Jon Sigurdsson’s cultural uprising. Metcalfe seems to be fully aware of the Norwegian accomplishments under the Swedish rule, as he refers to the Swedish king Karl Johan’s reluctance to enslave the Norwegians, given his unfavourable position as a French king in a foreign country: The Crown Prince, the crafty Bernadotte, with his invading army of Swedes, had Norway quite at his mercy on that occasion; but the idea seems to have struck him suddenly that it was as well not to deal too hardly with her, as in case of his not being able to hold, his own in Sweden, he might have a worse place of refuge than among the sturdy Norwegians. “I am resolved what to do, so that when I am put out of the stewardship they may receive me into their houses.” So he assented to Norway's independence. (49)

Taking this important historical background in mind, one can understand that Norway’s struggle for full independence is mainly what has stimulated Metcalfe to devote two travelogues to a country still deemed as a European periphery that was poverty-ridden and constantly tried by harsh weather conditions. Metcalfe’s historical (and literary) approach to the country is particularly visible in his representation of the major events of Norwegian history. It also contributes to the romancing of the country throughout his travel account in Telemark (spelled Thelemarken by the author), which is one of the most historical regions of Norway, as it constituted the centre of the Norse culture during the Viking period of Harald Fairhair (Boyesen 78). The author’s utopian vision of Norway and its people is closely related to the narration of these events

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and their subsequent connection to Norway’s image as a country steeped in its old lore and history. Moreover, at a political level, many Victorian scholars felt that Britain had betrayed the nationalist purpose of their Norse “brothers” given the close Anglo-Norse commercial and political relations in the past. As Geoffrey Malcolm Gathorne-Hardy notes, the commercial relations between the two nations “have throughout [Norway’s] history been of the closest description and her political relations sympathetic and almost uniformly friendly” (25), a fact that throws light on the cooperative spirit between Britain and Norway at a political level, in addition to the cultural and linguistic similarities noticed in the two countries’ cultures. Metcalfe’s familiarisation with the fundamental aspects of the Old Norse culture is highly important, as he is less susceptible to misconceptions compared with other travel writers that treated the Nordic countries as terrae incognitae in terms of language, customs and literary tradition, that is, the main characteristics composing the national identity of the Scandinavian countries. As Wawn highlights, Metcalfe’s originality lies in his interest in the linguistic connection between Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse languages, as this travel writer “points to questions of language rather than to judicial and parliamentary procedures when discussing old northern influences in modern Britain” (295). This means that, unlike other British travel writers, such as Samuel Laing, Metcalfe’s journeys to the North seek to verify his own speculations on the potential AngloNordic cultural connection. The author’s belief in the cultural bonds between the two countries, that is, Norway and Britain, is made explicit in the prefatory part of his travel narrative, in which he associates the wild character of Norwegian nature (the mountains and the fjords) with the sturdiness of the Norwegians, who fare quite well as citizens of an Arcadian society, endowed with a liberal spirit, that can also be discerned in the sagas about the old Norwegian kings: A strange attraction has Norway for one who has once become acquainted with it: with its weird rocks and mountains—its dark cavernous fjords— its transparent skies—its quaint gulf-stream warming apparatus—its ‘Borealis race’—its fabulous Maelstrom—its ‘Leviathan slumbering on the Norway foam’—its sagas, so graphically portraying the manners and thoughts of an ancient race its sturdy population, descendants of this northern hive which poured from the frozen loins of the north, and, as Montesquieu says, left their native climes to destroy tyrants and slaves, and were a thousand years ago, the upholders of European liberty. (2)

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In accordance with Metcalfe’s view of Norway, the country’s past and present converge, rendering its people a unique nation, placed on the margins of Europe. Although the darkness of the Norwegian landscape alludes to the uncivilised nature of the Norwegian people, Metcalfe’s discourse is also underpinned by an admiration for this European periphery’s cultural accomplishment, epitomising the ideals of liberty and communion with nature to a considerable extent. For one thing, it seems that the liberal spirit of the Norwegian nation coincides with the myth of the noble savage (hence the author’s reference to the French philosopher) which incorporates all peripheral nations into the people who are impregnated with “high moral qualities or ideals […] morally superior to civilized man” (Ellingson 3). Thus, by focusing on the savage grandeur of the Norwegian landscape as one of the main aims of his journey, the author draws the distinction between the notions of civilisation and culture, a disparity firstly emphasised by Herder. In particular, Norwegians are obviously seen as a backward nation by Metcalfe. However, this backwardness is not a mere reproduction of Rousseau’s theory of the noble savage, since the savagery of Norwegian nature impacts positively on the national character of its people; Metcalfe draws a link between the national character of the Norwegians and the sagas of the ancient Vikings; apparently the sagas serve as an important piece of evidence that the harshness of the Nordic climate has benefited the cultural development of the Norwegians, “ portraying the manners and thoughts of an ancient race” as well as “the descendants of this northern hive”. Consequently, Norwegians may not be civilised in the nineteenthcentury sense of the word, closely related to the demands of industrial revolution, yet they are certainly cultured, that is, they possess a significant cultural heritage which places them amongst nations of superior cultural (and racial) stock. In lieu of seeing them as noble savages, Metcalfe refers to Norwegian people’s spiritual development on the outskirts of modern civilisation as nature’s noblemen. Their romancing by the writer is interrelated to his conception of the Scandinavian world as something dynamic, thus departing from the stock eighteenth-century view of the Nordic nations as lethargic. The description of the Norwegians as nature’s noblemen might be attributed to the writer’s scholarship. His interest in the dynamic aspect of the Old (and Modern) Norse world is explicitly expressed in his other work The Englishman and the Scandinavian: Or, A Comparison of AngloSaxon and Old Norse Literature in which he goes as far as to describe Scandinavian superiority over the Anglo-Saxon static character. He stresses that the Scandinavian

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has shown how the Anglo-Saxon nature was somewhat dull and devoid of “go” while the Scandinavian was just the reverse, far removed from the lotus-eater, and not in the least disposed to get behind the north wind for shelter. He has exhibited then in the infancy of their faith, not so much perhaps stretching out their palms to heaven, if haply they might find the true God, as dividing their worship and indiscriminately between the god Thor and their own might. (viii)

Contrary to other travel writers, such as Laing, 3 who criticise the loose connection of the Norwegians and other Scandinavians to religion, and label them as heathen practitioners, Metcalfe idealises their communion with nature, seeking to connect the ancient Vikings’ creativity and strength to the cult of Thor and other Scandinavian deities. He also depicts British Christians as “lotus-eaters”, a characterisation which demonstrates his belief in the decadent moral state of the Britons compared with the freespirited Scandinavians. Besides their Nordic appearance, remarkable literature and attractive heathenism, Norwegian people are also praised by the writer for their simplicity. In Metcalfe’s own words: If you are a lover of fashion and formality, you will not be at ease in Norway. The good folks are simple-minded and sincere. If they invite you to an entertainment, it is because they are glad to see you. Not to fill up a place at the table, or because they are obliged to do the civil, at the same time hoping sincerely you won’t come. Their forefathers were men of great self-denial, and intensely fond of liberty. (13-14)

Clearly, the author endows the Norwegians with sincerity, simplemindedness, hospitality and lack of formality. All these qualities certainly reinforce their representation as members of an Arcadian society, that is uncontaminated by the evils of technological growth and political convulsions. They also stress the Norwegian people’s utopian dimension as members of a society which has slightly changed throughout centuries. While the bourgeois materialism of the Victorians is implicitly condemned by Metcalfe’s emphasis on the above traits, the ingenuity of the Norwegian nation is starkly contrasted to the artificial manners of British society. This comment adds to the overall appraisal of the natives as a cultured nation, which may not possess the imperial and technological accomplishments of the Britons, but has maintained its manners and mores 3

He claims that “the Reformation has not worked beneficially in Sweden. It found the public mind dormant, and sensible to nothing in religion but the external observances of a ceremonial church.” (124-5)

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unaffected by the negative impact of modern civilisation. Metcalfe’s tendency to stress the timelessness of their existence is associated with Fjågesund’s argument that peasants are frequently viewed as direct descendants of the ancient Vikings, epitomising “the admirable Rousseauesque qualities of the Norwegians” (384). Metcalfe obviously emphasises their virtues because of his willingness to connect their Viking past with their humble, but equally virtuous spirit. As has already been suggested, these three qualities (simplicityhospitality- honesty) which are associated with the natives of the majority of Scandinavian nations, are usually incorporated into the primitivism of Scandinavian populations in British travel literature (Fjågesund and Symes 5). Though praised they are at the same time criticised by the Victorians as a sign of Scandinavian backwardness and cultural inferiority. In this case, though, the pastoral aspect of the indigenous people is linked to the Norwegians’ Viking ancestry. Unlike other writers, who incessantly stress their Englishness in their interaction with the northern “barbarians”, in the extract that follows Frederick Metcalfe underlines his perfect adaptability to the foreign land, by stating that “of course the good folks bid me welcome, and bewailed my mischance; and I felt as secure here, though quite alone, and not a soul in England knew where I was, as if I had been in my native country” (189). The writer states that he has merged with the natives, feeling at home thanks to their welcoming behaviour. His attitude is also reminiscent of his overall attitude towards Norway and its people namely trying to remind the reader of the possible Anglo-Norwegian connection which relies on visible similarities between the two countries in terms of religion, language and national character. Given the peripheral position of Norway as one of the northernmost countries in Europe, Metcalfe subverts the stock practice by British travellers to view their travel destinations as savage zones or terrae incognitae. This is evident in another extract of his travelogue, in which he refers to the general accusations of other travellers that Norwegians do not follow the path of social improvement that Victorian Britain as well as other industrialised countries of continental Europe followed at that time: The present Norwegians have a good deal of the same sturdy independence about them; some travellers say, to an unpleasant degree. It's true they are rather rough and uncouth; but, like their forefathers, when they came in contact with old Roman civilization in France and Normandy, they will progress and improve by intercourse with the other peoples of Europe. (14)

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Despite his comment on the “rough and uncouth” visage of the Norwegian people compared with those of France on whom the influence of the Old Roman civilisation, that is, the classical tradition was evident, Metcalfe seems to identify this unrefined aspect of Norwegian culture with its people’s independent lifestyle. By juxtaposing other (possibly French) travellers’ sayings with his own perception of Norway, the writer explicitly indicates his loyalty to the old Viking world, and its main piece of evidence in the modern world, which is the masculine independence of the Norwegians as opposed to the Latin (and effeminate) Greco-Roman culture, symbolised by the French. The choice of France, and not any other form of culture, as a representative Roman Catholic state is not coincidental, given the negativity that it connotes. It seems that Metcalfe defends Norwegian people’s tendency to maintain the uncontaminated spirit of their Viking forefathers. This juxtaposition between the North and the civilised world certainly alludes to the nineteenth-century conflict between the masculine Nordic world and the corrupt yet civilised Latinised world. His presentation of Norway as a country at the threshold of civilisation, “which will progress and improve by intercourse with the other people of Europe” suggests Britain’s involvement in this civilising process as a Germanic ally. Being a northern antiquarian himself, Metcalfe draws on the attractive aspect of Norwegian roughness in order to identify Britain’s national rebirth with Viking independence. After all, as Young claims, the Anglo-Norse connection was based on this masculine impetus that characterised both imperial Britain and the North, “enabling the idea of the English freedom-loving, residual Saxons” (38). Simultaneously, the writer’s attempt to present Norway as a state under refinement shows the different perspective from which Victorian travellers started scrutinising the country. The change of the Norway’s mapping after the Napoleonic Wars from a Northern periphery to a modern European state, seeking to find its national identity under the Swedish reign, modernised the image of this country. This is why the writer, met with new social conditions in Norway, seeks to link the country’s Viking background to its contemporary state, as well as to Britain’s mid nineteenth- century effort to forge its identity based on its connection to the Nordic countries. Besides linking the national character of the Norwegians to their Viking background, Metcalfe pays tribute to Norse mythology as a vital piece of evidence for the Old Norse supremacy in Europe. There is ample evidence that this mythological background is used not only as a significant attribute of Norwegian utopia but also to support the writer’s claim about the Norse-British connection. In the following extract,

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Metcalfe highlights the importance of Old Norse mythology to contemporary Norway, through his conversation with a captain: Their old mythology is grand in the extreme. Look at that rainbow, yonder. In their eyes the bow in the cloud was the bridge over which lay the road to Valhalla. Then, their legends. do you know, I think that much of our fairy lore came over to us from Norway, just as the seeds of the mountain flowers in Scotland are thought by Forbes to have come over from Scandinavia, on the ice-floes during the glacial period. If I had time, I could tell you a lot of sprite-stories; among others, one how the elves all left Jutland one night in an old wreck. (14)

In the above passage, one can discern the writer’s loyalty to the ancient Viking past through his reference to Viking imagery (Valhalla), supernatural elements (elves) and connection to the Britain (mountain flowers in Scotland, our fairy lore came to us from Norway). On the one hand, Metcalfe’s glance at Norse mythology coincides with the average mid-Victorian scholars’ view of the Old Norse antiquities as material attractive and unspoiled -by the evils of more advanced societal forms, ready to be explored by the Britons. On the other hand, the link between the ancient world of the Vikings and Britain is undoubtedly drawn to foster the idea of Anglo-Saxon connection. While addressing Norse mythology as a subject pertaining to a foreign culture, Metcalfe seems to concurrently emphasise the cultural bonds of the Britons with their Norwegian “Germanic brethren”. Acknowledging the pivotal role of Norse mythology and legends in the common cultural heritage between the Britons and the Norwegians, the author also labels the superstitions about trolls as pagan beliefs which form an integral part of Norwegian national culture. During his journey to Telemark, the Norwegian county which abounds with myths and legends connected to supernatural beings, the writer gives his own interpretation for the existence of these folk stories in Scandinavia, Britain as well as in Southern Europe: While the repast was digesting, I began to ruminate on these stories, and the remarkable likeness, nay, even identity, some of them exhibit to the superstitions of that part of Great Britain where the Northern invaders mostly frequented. Fairy lore is traced by some authors to the Pagan superstitions of Greece and Rome, and to the superstitions of the East. But we prefer to regard these supernatural beings in Scandinavia rather as in the main of home-growth than as exotics; the creations of a primitive people, who, living among wonderful natural phenomena, and being ignorant of their cause, with the proverbial boldness and curiosity of

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ignorance, were fond of deriving an origin for them of their own manufacture, and one stamped with the impress of their own untutored imaginations. And what a country they live in for the purpose! (236)

Metcalfe wishes here to dispute the allegations about the presence of the Occult in the North, a pattern commonly repeated in other Victorian travelogues. By referring to the universality of these folk elements, even in countries which epitomise the eighteenth-century ideals of Greco-Roman classicism (Greece and Italy), he criticises other travelogues produced in the past about the Nordic countries, which focused chiefly on the supernatural dimension of these countries. What is important is that Metcalfe, without questioning the attractive character of these folk beliefs attached to a country’s culture, addresses the issue of the Occult from a scientific perspective. His statement that trolls are “the creations of a primitive people, who living among wonderful natural phenomena and being ignorant of their cause” subverts past narrations of supernatural events associated with the remoteness of the Scandinavian countries from continental Europe. For one thing, Metcalfe’s approach to Norway shows that he has embarked on his trip to pay homage to Norwegian culture instead of demonising its traditions and legends. For another thing, the author aims at providing the reader with reliable information on Norway’s contemporary culture and society in lieu of resorting to fictional representations, which could have a negative impact on the country’s reputation in the eyes of the British reader. The rejection of earlier conventions of travel literature, such as the preponderance of the supernatural and the depiction of the natives as savages, alludes to a less conventional usage of the notion of utopia. Moreover, as Vieira remarks, “[literary] utopias put forward projective ideas that are to be adopted by future audiences, which may cause real changes” (8). Although Metcalfe aims to produce a travelogue that does not depart from the observation of the society he lives, and Norway is not an imaginary place, his idealistic representation of Norwegian culture stems from his comparison of Britain and Norway with the aim of tracing important similarities which could contribute to the desirable Anglo-Norse unity that he envisioned. Furthermore, he clearly attributes the existence of superstitions to the Norwegian people’s increasing communion with nature, while concurrently views the appealing aspect of these folk beliefs as resting on their use as elements for the forging of national cultures. Metcalfe’s use of Norwegian superstitions treats the preservation of this lore in contemporary Norway as important proof for the country’s valuable cultural heritage, an attitude which is closely related to the Herderian notion of the Volksgeist.

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Far from being coincidental, his adoption of a global perspective regarding folk culture seeks to explore the effect of the folk elements on the amalgamation of national identities; in the case of Old Norse mythology and lore, Neil Kent makes reference to the attempts of the Nordic scholars such as Grundtvig to restore the pan-Scandinavian spirit from 1830s onwards through the use of Norse mythology and Scandinavian folk tales, seeing “an ancient cultural-historical world stretching from Iceland and England in the west to Finland in the east, a rich and variable alternative to that in the Mediterranean South” (238). Besides the appealing- to the Victorian reader -mythological properties of Old Norse civilisation, Metcalfe alludes to the supernatural elements (trolls) of Norwegian folk culture by a means of a discourse that is racially formed in another excerpt: But other causes were at work. The more ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, some of them of giant size and prodigious strength, others small of stature but very agile, like the Fins or Laps, were driven into the mountains by Odin and his Asiatics. From these hiding-places they would at times emerge—the former to do deeds of ferocity and violence, the latter to practise some of their well-known tricks, such as thieving, changing children, kidnapping people away with them. And this would, in process of time, give rise to the fancy of the existence of supernatural beings, gigantic Jotuls and tiny Trolls (in the Edda Finnr is the name for dwarfs), endued with peculiar powers. In the same way the vulgar Scotch ascribed superhuman attributes to the Picts, or Pechts. (239)

Interestingly enough, the writer wishes to explain the existing folk beliefs about trolls by applying the emerging racial theories on human abilities. In lieu of attributing the folk tales about trolls to the Norway as a country of sorcery, inhabited by grotesque creatures, Metcalfe chooses to “other” the country by relying on the racial features of the Norwegians and the Sami tribe of which the country’s population consists. Thus, he argues that the native people’s beliefs in hidden spirits is related to the gigantic size and prodigious strength of the Norwegians, being “the more ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia” and to the dwarfish stature of the Finns or Laps.4 On the one hand, this reference enhances the masculinity and tracial superiority of the Norwegian descendants of the Vikings, who were capable of committing ferocious and violent deeds, as the writer suggests. On the other hand, the small stature of the non Germanic populations (that 4

These are terms used by the author (as well as by many eighteenth-century travel writers) in an interchangeable manner to refer to the Finnish and Sami inhabitants of Norway, that is, those of non- Viking descent.

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is, the Sami and the Finns) of the country accounts for meeker deeds such as fathering children out of wedlock and thieving. In that way, Metcalfe wishes to provide the reader with a more scientific explanation of the abundance of Norwegian culture with folk tales about trolls and the Hulder. For Hayford O’Leary, “trolls are the large creatures that are believed to be found in the mountains and forests” whereas Huldrefolk are “other land-based creatures” (47) of Lilliputian stature; both are connected to the heathenish practices that outlived Norwegian Christianisation. Interested in the racial dimension of these folk beliefs, Metcalfe highlights the physical traits of these two different racial groups that coexisted in the same territorial space, influenced by works which were published in the Victorian era, such as On the Origin of Species produced by the naturalist Charles Darwin in 1858. Apparently Metcalfe seeks to read Norwegian society from a racial perspective. In spite of being an old northern scholar, he is not only interested in the Herderian components of national identities (language, history and folk culture) but he also clearly addresses the racial distinction of the Norwegians from the Sami tribes, which are deemed to be inferior to the Victorian ideals of appearance. In order for the English reader to comprehend more efficiently the racial dichotomy between the dynamic Norwegians and the meek Sami, Metcalfe resorts to another stock strategy of Victorian travellers, that is, the analogy drawn between the peripheral Other (the trolls as well as the Sami/ Finns) and the Scottish/ Celtic (insular) periphery. As the writer states, Norwegians tend to attribute supernatural characteristics to primitive tribes “in the same way that the vulgar Scotch ascribed superhuman attributes to the Picts or Pechts”. 5 By referring to the Scotch as “vulgar”, the author obviously draws a parallel between the backwardness observed in Norwegian lifestyle and that in Scotland. Owing to the increasing national identification of many English scholars with everything anti-Celtic, it is likely that the writer be eager to draw a comparison between the “backward” Scots and their even more “primitive” ancestors, the Picts. It is also of particular interest that he wishes to draw a parallel between a peripheral, and supposedly backward, group such as the Norwegian Sami and the Celtic population of the British Isles, as this attitude shows that Metcalfe approaches the notion of Britishness from an exclusive perspective. Apparently, the writer’s comment on the tendency of the Norwegians to ascribe to the racial features of their gigantic ancestors and the “midget” appearance of the Sami supernatural attributes is certainly an attempt to 5

Picts were a Celtic group inhabiting Eastern and Northern Scotland.

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interpret folk tales in a more scientific manner. Yet Metcalfe’s allusion to the vulgar Scots’ attempts to mythologise their barbarous ancestors is a racially nuanced comment, which reiterates the author’s view that supernatural creatures of the kind are the creations of a primitive people, who living among wonderful natural phenomena and being ignorant of their cause with the proverbial boldness and curiosity of ignorance, were fond of deriving an origin for them of their own manufacture, and one stamped with the impress of their own untutored imaginations. (235)

Nevertheless, his allusion to the Picts is certainly due to the late eighteenth-century attempts of the Scottish people to forge their national identity. Metcalfe attempts to ridicule the nationalist goal of an insular periphery, the Scottish Celts, to forge a separate cultural identity by distinguishing themselves from the dominant ethnic group, the English. David McCrone defines as “Pictomania” the theory that emerged in Scotland about the actual origins of its ethnicity, treating the Picts as the ancient Scottish tribe from which modern Scots descended (157). This nationalist awakening was triggered after the publication of MacPherson’s The Poems of Ossian, which was regarded as one of the first literary attempts to stress the Scottish Celtic contribution to the development of British culture. Metcalfe’s reaction to the nationalist endeavours of the Scottish is a sign of insular (English) imperialism; in contrast with the English and the Norwegians, the Scots are not entitled to claim a distinct national identity because their attempts question the British Empire to its core. As regards the issue of religion, once again Metcalfe aims at proving the Anglo-Norse connection on the basis of historical facts that indicate the Christianisation of the country by English monks: We have given the following particulars, because the state of the Christian religion in Norway must for ever be deeply interesting to England, if on no other account, for this reason, that in this respect she is the spiritual offspring of Great Britain […] in fact, the Norsk Christian Church is entirely a daughter of the English. The first missionaries came over with Hacon the Good, the foster son of our King Athelstan; and thought his attempt failed, through the tenacity of the people for heathenness, yet the second did not, when Olaf Trygveson brought over missionaries from the north of England—Norwegian in blood and speech—and christianized the whole coast, from Sweden to Trondjem, in the course of one year—996997. (27)

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Owing to the writer’s twofold capacity as a pastor and old northern antiquarian, his reference to the relatively late conversion of the Norwegians into Christianity indicated his loyalty to the Northernist hypothesis. Instead of criticising the “tenacity of the Norwegian people for heathenness”, he accentuates the Anglo-Norwegian connection to these attempts by referring to Olaf Tryggvason6, the Norwegian king who resorted to English monks in order to christianise his heathen vassals. Metcalfe’s claim is partly accurate. Although the Norwegian king forcibly imposed Christianity on his people, his attempts were unsuccessful. As Hayford O’ Leary contends, it was Olav Haraldson7 who “had Christianity declared the legal state religion at the ting [and although] he was not the first to introduce Christianity to Norway, he used it as a tool to consolidate his power” (27). Given Metcalfe’s statement that Norway “is a spiritual offspring of Great Britain”, this relegates Norway to a subordinate position in comparison to England. Despite his strictly religious background, Metcalfe does not seem capitalise on the actual conversion of the Norwegian Vikings to Christianity; instead, he rather indulges in a description of the Anglo-Norse political bonds during the Middle-Ages, the existence of which substantiates his theory about the English presence in the chronicles related in Snorre Sturlusson’s sagas. He does not erroneously draw this conclusion, if one considers that many Norwegian Vikings headed west, towards “England Scotland and Ireland […] and they came in contact with Christianity, and a number of Vikings were baptized, including kings Olav Tryggvason and Olav Haraldsson” (Hayford O’ Leary 26). Obviously, his allusion to the Norwegian Kings and their collaboration with the English monks as well as to the troublesome consolidation of Christianity in Norway reinforces the pagan dimension of Norwegian culture. Yet the writer does not seem to critique this strong opposition to Christianity manifested in medieval Norway, but is rather interested in illuminating the historical bonds shared between the Norwegians and the English. Contrary to other Victorian travellers, Metcalfe does not utilise history to emphasise the dystopian character of Norway; nor does he seek to stigmatise the heathenness of the Norwegians. His mention of the difficult process of Christianising Norway reflects his high esteem of the Old Norse world as whole, whether pagan or not, a fact which is quite incompatible with his deeply religious 6 Olaf Tryggvason (960-1000) was a well-known Norwegian king, frequently mentioned in the Eddas, that succeeded in imposing Christianity upon the Norwegians. 7 Olaf II Haraldsson (995-1030) , “Norway’s Eternal King”, was a king that achieved Norway's final conversion to Christianity.

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upbringing. Intrigued by the saga tradition of the Viking culture, he desires to emphasise all instances related to the medieval and pre-Christian imagery associated with the Viking culture. With regard to the issue of heathenism in Norway, Metcalfe refers to another episode which is indicative of the Norwegians’ close attachment to their pagan beliefs and the staunch opposition with which they reacted against the introduction of Christianity: Mr. Tovel got off much better than many clergymen of the Reformed faith in those days. Old Peder Clausen, the chronicler, relates that he knew a man whose father had knocked three clergymen on the head. The stern old Norwegian bonders could ill brook the violence with which the Danes introduced Lutheranism; a violence not much short of that used by King Olaf in rooting out heathenism, and which cost him his life. (35)

The reader of this extract is struck by the way in which the author presents the struggle of the Lutheran priests to impose Protestantism on the local people. If Norwegians were particularly reluctant to adopt Christianity and abandon their heathen practices, they were twice as more unwilling to convert to Protestantism. Considering the veneration with which Victorian Britons tended to see Protestantism as an essential part of their national identity in opposition to Catholic nations such as France (Colley 25), it is unusual that Metcalfe does not intend to condemn the attachment of the Norwegians to their pagan customs but rather seeks to present their negative attitude towards Christianity as an attractive (as well as indicative) attribute of their Viking ancestry. Wawn argues that Victorian travellers, regardless of their capacity (priests, politicians, scholars) cast a sympathetic glance at signs of heathendom still discerned in the Scandinavian countries, calling this attitude medievalist because it echoed their eagerness to defend the medieval north and Old Norse mythology (145). It appears that the strict religious standards of Victorian Britain was fatally placed aside for the sake of the revival of Old Norse mythology in both literary and travel texts. Metcalfe certainly juxtaposes the spirit of Reform with the sturdy pagan image of the Norse, a fact which implies that Norwegians were possibly not ready to accept a new Christian dogma, being steeped to their heathen traditions. Loyal to the Anglo-Saxon spirit that he aims to promote through his writings, Metcalfe relies on Herder’s assumption that “art, technology, industry, and commerce form as much part of culture as do ideas, beliefs, values and myths. For culture is held to derive from both the physical and spiritual nature of man” (Barnard 23). From this perspective, the connection of the Norwegians to the heathen world of their past is a

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natural process as much as the adoption of Christianity is. Abandoning altogether their heathen practices might unsettle the very core of their nationhood, and this is why Metcalfe sympathises with the Norwegian heathens; that is to say, he is aware of the important function of myths in the forging of a national awakening, especially in the case of the Norwegians who, as has already been stated, were under the Swedish yoke at the time of his visit. Hence his utilisation of the word “violence” to demonstrate the conversion of the Norwegian peasants into Lutheranism by “fire and sword”, an adjective which shows that he attempts to view the events in a rather objective manner, given his own role as a British pastor in the Scandinavian country. Another striking feature in Metcalfe’s travelogue is the link that he wishes to draw between the Old Norse World and the Greco-Roman culture. In spite of the fact that the emphasis on the Viking culture usually implied a defiance of the neoclassical patterns in literature and aesthetics, Metcalfe does not reinforce this binary opposition between the North and South but rather makes an attempt to bridge the gulf between the two cultural ends. There are two instances in his travel account which indicate this analogy that he tends to draw between ancient Greece, the Byzantium and the Vikings: Similar ornaments have been found, I believe, in barrows; the pattern of them having probably been imported hither by the Varangian guard from Byzantium and the East; in the same way that these Northern mercenaries probably gave the first idea of the Scandinavian-looking trinkets which have been recently discovered in the tombs at Kertch. (226) The inner route has been followed by coasters from the days of the Vikings. Those pilots on the Norwegian Government steam-vessels whom you see relieving each other alternately on the bridge, spitting thoughtfully a brown fluid into a wooden box, and gently moving their hand when we thread the watery Thermopylae, are men bred up from boyhood on the coast, and know its intricacies by heart. The captain is, in fact, a mere cypher, as far as the navigation is concerned. (13)

While in the first extract Metcalfe makes explicit reference to the Byzantine-Viking relations in the Middle Ages, evidence of which is the existence of ornaments from the East found in the Norwegian soil, the second passage compares the powerful image of the Norwegians sailors, accustomed to sailing across the most perilous sea paths like their Viking ancestors, to the heroic events of Thermopylae, where the famous ancient Greek battle took place.

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As regards the historical reference to the Varangian guards being missionaries of the Byzantine Empire, Metcalfe’s mention is not unfounded, and the connection between the Northern warriors and the Southern Empire suggests that the polarisation and limited communication between the North and the South, as depicted in many travel texts until the midVictorian century, was actually more political than historical. In her book The Vikings, R. R. Sellman purports that an interesting outcome of the activities of the Rus was the Viking bodyguard of the Greek Emperors called the Varangian Guard. The Emperors welcomed Vikings into their service as soon as they reached Constantinople; and by 988 they formed a regular regiment of household troops, valued both for their prowess with their great axes and also because as outsiders they were less likely to be mixed up in palace plots […] later on the recruits included Normans. (44)

Sellman’s thesis suggests that there had always been a political bond between the Nordic peoples such as the Rus8 and the Normans (that is, the Norwegians), on the one hand, and the Byzantine Empire, on the other, which was closely linked to the Greco-Roman cultural tradition. Acknowledging the historical link between the Scandinavians and Southern Europe is an important step taken by Metcalfe, since the mapping of Europe as a binary opposition between North and South preoccupied a major number of Victorian scholars, who tended to overemphasise the superiority of the sturdy Scandinavians over the degenerate habits of the Orient. Yet Metcalfe’s reference to the wellestablished Greco-Roman antiquity is also made to restore the northern antiquity as a valuable part of Germanic culture. In doing so, he does not only wish to compare the European North to the South; he also attempts to unite the two worlds. Metcalfe’s strong belief in the significance of northern antiquities is manifested in all his travelogues. In his other travelogue on Iceland, while elaborating on the Germanic race, Metcalfe notes that the Vikings were “a race whom their admirers compare with the Spartan in deliberate valour and mother wit; with the Athenian in daring and genius” (124). Hence the author’s allusion to the heroic site of Thermopyle, which epitomised the valour of the ancient Greek soldiers while fighting against an army of Persians, that is, an Oriental force that outnumbered them. His holistic view of Scandinavia as a Nordic Hellas becomes evident through his constant allusions to ancient Greek imagery. 8 The Rus were the Swedish Vikings, who established a principality in Novgorod and gave their name to “Russia”. They are still called “Ruotsi” in modern Finnish.

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In addition to the portrayal of the Vikings, and in this case the Norwegians, as members of an ancient society, whose role in the formation of modern Europe is deemed by the author as vital as the one assumed by the ancient Greeks, Metcalfe also stresses the social equality of the Norwegians, a fact which is interpreted by every Victorian writer from a totally different perspective but always in comparison to Victorian social reality. Criticising the increasing tendency of the Victorians to overemphasise social hierarchy as well as social improvement, Metcalfe argues that: The usual explanation given for the sharper distinction of ranks in Great Britain is the vulgarity and want of savoir faire of the less elevated classes, who, if they get an inch, will take an ell. If this is true, it is a great blot on the Anglo-Saxon, or whatever you call it, character, that an Englishman cannot take some middle place between flunkeyism and forwardness, sycophancy and rudeness. (125)

Clearly, Metcalfe reflects on Victorian society and at the same time seeks to explore the issue of social hierarchy by relying once again on his loyalty to the Anglo-Norwegian connection. In attempting to compare the two societies, Metcalfe makes use of the British (Anglo-Saxon) obsession with social ascension as well as the unjust criteria set by Victorian upper classes when they distinguish themselves from the low orders of society. The absence of class segregation in Norway provides the author with an opportunity to stigmatise his own countrymen, based on the assumption that Norwegians, who are idiosyncratically closer to their Viking ancestors than the Britons, defy social norms and maintain a society which is free from social labelling and a constant struggle for an improved social status. On the contrary, Britons are accused of being particularly fawning and rude in their effort to gain a better social status. Evidently, his critique over the problematic societal demands of his society reveals his reverence for the old Viking world, whose best embodiment is nineteenth-century Norwegians. The perspective from which he beholds social manifestations in Norway is entirely utopian, formed on the juxtaposition between the British and Norwegian societies. By referring explicitly to social injustice observed within the Victorian framework, Metcalfe simultaneously projects his desire that social change be brought so that Anglo-Saxon Britain can resemble an authentic Viking society, relieved from the evils of social ambitions. This can be noticed in another passage of The Oxonian in Thelemarken, in which the author presents the simplicity which governs the relations between the Swedish royalty and the Norwegian citizens:

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Part IV Chapter One The Viceroy continually indulges in harmless, pleasantries with the good folks, without any loss of dignity by thus unbending. Can anyone tell me why things are so different in England? When Shakespeare said "' that a sort of divinity hedges a king," he did not mean to say that royalty should be iced. I remember many years ago being at a public masked ball at a continental capital when the King, who was good, humouredly sauntering all among the maskers, came up and asked me what character my dress represented, and then made some witty apropos as he passed on through the crowd. (196)

Drawing upon this extract, one can discern Metcalfe’s eagerness to depict Norwegian society as a Northern Arcadia; the author makes a rather daring argument when he comments on the Swedish King’s arrival in Norway to examine the draining operations near Molde. The warm reception that awaited the Swedish king, the pleasantries exchanged between the Norwegian peasants and the King, and the informality with which this event is addressed by the Norwegian peasantry and the Swedish king and Viceroy constitute social experiences at which Metcalfe marvels. By stating that in England “royalty should not be iced” and by asking himself “can anyone tell me why things are so different in England?” Metcalfe attacks the social sterility of his native country, where people bestow the utmost attention on social forms. While earlier in his text Metcalfe was concerned with the Anglo-Norse connection at multiple levels, at this point he engages in a discourse seeking to juxtapose social practices in the British metropolis and the Norwegian periphery. Most importantly, unlike other British travel writers, who saw social equality in Scandinavian countries as a sign of their unrefined lifestyles, Metcalfe focuses chiefly on the country’s perfect organisation, emanating from Norway’s limited exposure to the vices of contemporary civilisation. This is the reason why he dismisses the savagery which Norway was supposed to represent in other travel narratives by adopting a nostalgic glance both at Norwegian nature and social stability, as suggested in the following excerpt: In Norway scenes are constantly meeting the traveller's eye, whether it be such as that just described, or the rude log-huts, or the countless tree stumps, the work of the axe, or the unthinned density of forests which are not near any watercourse, which forcibly bring to one's mind Oliphant's description of Minnesota and the Far West. But there is this trifling difference, that whereas there you may as likely as not be bulleted, or your

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weans and slit by a bowie-knife, you are safer in this country than in any land in Europe. (253) 9

Contrary to other Victorian writers, such as Laurence Oliphant, who tended to exaggerate on the exotic and dangerous aspects of their voyages, Metcalfe defies the common pattern in travel literature that sees the travel destination as a threat to the traveller’s (as well as the reader’s) very existence; by declaring that “you are safer in this country than in any land in Europe”, the author does not only question the traveller’s “masculine” role as an adventure hero but also subverts the well-established dystopian tradition in Victorian literature related to the North as one of the most perilous destinations in Europe. In his travel narrative, Metcalfe remains faithful to his agenda to picture a Norwegian society which is the exact opposite of the social images he is accustomed to witnessing in his home country, and his positive attitude towards the country visited reminds us of what Kenneth M. Roemer has defined as “eutopia”, that is, a form of literature “that invites readers to perceive realities and potentialities of their cultures in new ways” (79).The difference between Roehmer’s definition and Metcalfe’s representation of eutopia is that the author of the travelogue constructs his eutopia based on the alleged cultural connection between his place of origin and the travel destination. Another difference is that the positivity which permeates Metcalfe’s depiction of Norway does not emanate from fictitious products of the writer’s imagination but constitutes an unquestionable part of the real world; Norway’s untouched beauty and its people’s unspoiled character do not belong to an imaginary culture, which is more agreeable than the writer’s and/or the reader’s present reality, but is based on reality. The portrayal of Norway as a travel eutopia, relieved from the corruption and the dehumanising aspect of modernity, is also made obvious in the introductory part of the travel account, through which Metcalfe aims at presenting Victorian society as a devouring reality, in which individuality disappears on the country’s way to progress: Civilization has smoothed the gradients actually and metaphorically—alike in the Brunellescque and social sense. As people progress in civilization, the more prominent marks of national character are planed off. Individuality is lost. (vi) 9

Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888) was a British writer, traveller, diplomat as well as a member of the spiritualist sect of Thomas Lake Harris (1823-1906), an American mystic and poet. Metcalfe refers to his popular travel account Minnesota and the Far West (1855).

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In accordance with this extract, Metcalfe criticises the sacrifices made in the name of technological evolution. This implies that Norway, a Nordic periphery which has fallen way behind Britain in terms of progress, has retained “the picturesque of man and man” and individuality has not lost its vigour, as suggested by all the aspects of Norwegian culture that synthesise its national character (folk elements, Viking culture), that is, the Volksgeist of the country. Since Victorians are viewed by the writers not as members of a refined society but rather as individuals whose national character has been uprooted, one could also claim that Metcalfe emphasises the eutopian aspect of Norway to such an extent, that Britain comes to display negative traits encountered in dystopias. In this way, the author inverts the rule of travel literature by projecting his home country as a place of distortion and social isolation. As has already been suggested, Metcalfe is anxious to trace all the elements that are akin to the purported Anglo-Norse connection. To this end, he creates a euphoric image of his travel destination. His concern about the national character of Norway is expressed through the enumeration of several historical and cultural pieces of evidence, such as folk culture, heathenism and Norse mythology, the historical link to Eastern civilisations, the physical attributes of the Norwegian nation and the social equality manifested between the peasantry and the gentry of the country. Besides the above characteristics, another attractive component of Norwegian identity is the Norwegian language. This is actually the purpose of his voyage to Telemark, namely to discover the Nordic liaison between the English language and the Norwegian dialects spoken in one of the most historical districts of Norway. The reader of the travelogue realises this aim when a Norwegian lieutenant inquires the reason for the writer’s arrival in Norway: “You have been in Thelemarken?" inquired the lieutenant. "That's the county for old Norsk customs and language” (300). At the same time, the author confesses that “I am in a part of the country where a portion of the old tongue still keeps its ground, such as it was when brought over to England, and engrafted on its congener, the AngloSaxon, nearly a thousand years ago (101). Metcalfe shows a keen interest in the potential similarities between Norwegian and English in order to substantiate the alleged AngloNorwegian connection. In his attempt to link the two languages (and cultures), Metcalfe appears to have been affected by the mid-nineteenth century thesis that there is an intrinsic connection between language and race. Having already shown that Britain bears strong resemblance to Norway in factors such as culture and tradition, Metcalfe desires to shed

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light on the issue of language, as well, so as to prove the racial affiliation between the two countries. Therefore, there are several instances in his travelogue, in which he indulges in the projection of common linguistic elements that are treated as indisputable evidence of the cultural intercourse between the two countries. In his endeavour to link Norway and Britain on cultural and linguistic levels, he adheres to Herder’s view of language as a nationbuilding tool. Far from being coincidental, Metcalfe’s earlier reference to Norwegian folklore forms part of the same collective identity that is defined as Volksgeist. A vital component of the old northern movement is the premise that there existed a Germanic linguistic continuum amongst Scandinavian countries. Metcalfe could not but be added to this scholarly group, given his keen interest in everything that composed the old northern Volksgeist. Metcalfe’s position towards the existence of a common collective identity between the Norwegians and the Britons is made explicit in his The Englishman and the Scandinavian Or a Comparison of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Literature in which he formulates the idea that: If Anglo-Saxon literature is useful in elucidating the topography and the antiquities of these isles, in explaining our proper names and appellations of places, in illustrating our provincial dialects and local customs, of Icelandic this is also true. And how could it be otherwise, when we remember that Saxon and Scandinavian were both dialects of one widespread language […] Numberless forms and words and phrases have thus, as we have seen, come into our modern English from a Northern and not an Anglo-Saxon source. (484)

It is crystal clear in this extract that language is treated as a component of a common national identity between Norwegians and Britons. Owing to the link between language and race, Metcalfe proposes a new conceptualisation of the North in which Britain is affiliated with the other Germanic nations both linguistically and culturally. In addition to the racial dimension of language, revolving around the idea of northernist unity, Metcalfe also provides the reader with other linguistic elements that pertain to the connection between the Old Norse world and modern Britain. These words, which have passed to the daily vocabulary of the English language, reveal the considerable extent to which English is linked to its Germanic brother, the contemporary Norse language, as well as to the Old Norse language, which reiterates the author’s admiration for the Saxon background of the British culture:

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Part IV Chapter One Neither the French nor the Germans have any word to represent that very pleasant accident of our being, which we call comfort; so they borrow the word and its derivatives out and out from our English vocabulary when they desire to express a thing, which, after all, they cannot possibly have experienced practically. Only fancy, then, the Norwegians presuming to think of such a phase of existence. And yet they have a word said to answer exactly to our word ‘comfortable, —viz., ‘hyggelig,’ from hygge; which is, no doubt, identical with our word ‘to hug,’ or embrace. (111)

While Metcalfe incessantly highlights the old northern unity between Britain and the Scandinavian nations, this passage indicates its political dimension. The author’s reference to French and German as languages which are remotely connected to the Scandinavian languages in terms of vocabulary reveals his willingness to stress the predominance of Britain in this desired unity. For one thing, French is entirely dismissed from this unifying idea because of its Latin origin. For another thing, Metcalfe’s endeavours to reduce the German role in this northern unity stems from the emergent linguistic and racial theories of Teutonist scholars, such as the Brothers Grimm and John Mitchell Kemble, which tended to ascribe a leading position to Germany. Metcalfe’s standpoint overlaps with George Stephen’s thesis that “as a people we are an independent race, of ancient north extraction and speaking a Northern tongue…our nearest homeland is Denmark; our furthest kin-land is Germany” (239). Without any doubt, Metcalfe’s contribution to the better understanding of the northern antiquities by the Victorians, as well as to the transmission of cultural elements that substantiated the nationalistic impetus of midVictorian Britain, is of capital importance. Earlier in the text, I claimed that Metcalfe was one of the few old northern scholars and travellers who possessed a significant degree of fluency in Old Icelandic and other Scandinavian languages, a fact which enabled him to easily adopt a comparative perspective when touching upon the language issue. His knowledge permits him to provide the northernist hypothesis with a significant academic background that justifies the Anglo-Saxon aspect of British nationalism. Even though the linguistic analogies that he draws in his travel accounts point to his erudition and general concern about the origins of the English language, one could also affirm that he also plunges into the very origins of Britishness, that is, the alleged British national superiority over other European nations at a racial, cultural and, in this case, at a linguistic level. For this reason, he does not accept the sharp criticism of the Norwegians, who defy the dominance of English in the Germanic world and ascribe to the language an inferior status compared to other Germanic languages:

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The Norwegians look upon English, I may here remark, as hard to pronounce. On that notable occasion, say they, when the Devil boiled the languages together, English was the scum that came to the top. A criticism more rude than even that of Charles V. (43)

Victorian scholars like Metcalfe were in constant search of linguistic similarities between Norwegian and English so that British culture could be placed on the same level with other ancient cultures, such as the GrecoRoman culture. This is why he touches upon an archaic property of the two languages, which still exists in Norwegian but has become obsolete in English: I observed here, for the first time, the difference between the two words "ja" and "jo."Have you seen a bear?—"Ja." Haven't you seen a bear?— "Jo." I have met educated Norwegians who had failed to observe the distinction. A perfectly similar distinction was formerly made in England between "yes" and "yea.""Yea'' and "nay," in "Wycliffe’s time, and a good deal later, were the answers to questions framed in the affirmative. (81)

Apparently, the author dwells extensively on the common linguistic background between the two countries, a connection which can have political and racial ramifications, given the incessant focus of the Victorians on the role of language in the development of a national identity. Although his travelogue abounds with references to Norway, there is the general impression that he is more concerned with the antiquity of the English culture. Hence, for example, his allusion to John Wycliffe. 10 Being and old northern scholar and “Oxonian” himself, the author seeks to promulgate the ancient dimension of British culture, a tendency which is frequently encountered in travel texts of other northernist writers as well. Despite the fact that Metcalfe’s purpose is to discern potential similarities between English and Norwegian in order to substantiate his Anglo-Saxon hypothesis on a linguistic basis, he also endeavours to draw an analogy between contemporary Norwegian and Old Norse. This is made quite explicit in his encounter with Katinka, a young Norwegian girl: Katinka, -the eldest girl, is very well read; better certainly than any I have met with in the country, for they are not a reading people. She sings a national song or two with much feeling, and explains 10 John Wycliffe (1320-1384) was a fourteenth-century English scholar, translator and professor at Oxford University.

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Part IV Chapter One to me the meaning of them, which, as they are written in old Norsk, would be otherwise difficult of comprehension. -“But how do you know the meaning of this outlandish lingo?—it's not a bit like the written Norsk of the present time." -“It was not for nothing," replied she, "that I lived from a baby in the mountain parish where we first saw you. The inhabitants of those sequestered dales still use many of the old words and forms of speech”. (258)

This episode, narrated by the writer at a Norwegian friend’s house, is of particular importance. While conversing with the young woman, Metcalfe rejoices over the fact that she is well acquainted with the folk culture and the Old Norse tongue. Yet Metcalfe is equally impressed when the girl reassures him that the contemporary Norwegian peasantry is familiar with the language of their ancestors, speaking dialects which are closer to the Old Norse than the Dano-Norwegian spoken in the big cities. On the one hand, the narration of this episode brings us back to the question of the Volksgeist, since language, folk music and patriotism are manifested in Metcalfe’s intercourse with the young girl. On the other hand, the author is eager to underscore the language situation in Norway, an issue which preoccupies the writer from the very start of his journey to the country; the existence of Norwegian dialects which are closely related to the Old Norse and are widely spoken by the Norwegian people signals the actual condition that the writer encounters during his residence in the province of Telemark. Metcalfe’s observations are in tune with the Nationalist movement in Norway that blossomed during the 1800s and concentrated on the distancing of the language from the Danish influence. As Hayford O’ Leary notes, the two written forms of Norwegian, that is, Bokmål (literally meaning book language) and Nynorsk (New Norwegian), “were created during the 1800s as part of the creation of Norwegian national identity during the National Romantic Period in Norway and both were declared official languages in 1885” (98). Apart from Ivar Aasen’s contribution to the separation of the two languages, the one being the language spoken in the urban centres (Bokmål) and the other of the rural areas (Nynorsk), Henrik Wergeland11, a well-acclaimed poet of the country, was the one who provided the national awakening of the country with the appropriate ideological background. As noted by Hayford O’ Leary, the nationalist preoccupation of the Norwegian nation with the 11

Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland (1808-1845) was a Norwegian poet, playwright and linguist, considered to be a leading figure of Norwegian Romantic Nationalism.

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language issue was largely based on Wergeland’s assumption that “an independent people should have its own language” (99), an idea that overlaps with Herder’s definition of language as a socio-cultural tool and a nation-building property. Acknowledging the significance of this nationalist struggle of the Norwegians to acquire a distinct cultural identity from other Scandinavians, Metcalfe sees his discussion with the Norwegian girl as a perfect opportunity to examine the national character of contemporary Norway, based on its connection with its ancient Viking heritage. Therefore, he also tries to draw the distinction between the two languages, by asserting that: I may as well refer to the difference between the pronunciation of Danish and Norwegian, though they are at present the same langue. The vapid sweetness which your Dane affects in his articulation is most distasteful after the rough and strenuous tongue of Norway. (7)

In this extract, the writer juxtaposes Danish and Norwegian being aware that the Norwegian struggle to remove Danish elements is attributed to the country’s acquisition of a separate national identity after the dissolution of its union with the despotic Danish kingdom. Though sympathising with these efforts, accentuating the masculinity (rough, strenuous) of the Norwegian tongue and the more effeminate Danish language, Metcalfe wishes to convey to the reader the idea that Norway is the epitome of Vikingness. His conviction that Norway is directly associated with the Viking culture rests on the fact that Metcalfe finds in Norway more similarities with Britain than any other of the Scandinavian countries that he visits, a conviction that he also maintains in his other work The Englishman and the Scandinavian, in which he stipulates that “the two tongues [Norwegian and English] in their similarities and divergences illustrate English and also each other. Without knowledge of the Northern literature nobody can be thoroughly furnished for the study of our mother tongue” (486). His infatuation with Norway both at a linguistic and at a cultural level stems from his belief in the role of Norway, along with Iceland, as Northern Hellas, hence the use of the adjective “Norse” as synonymous with the word Viking. Most importantly, his view of language in the travel account coincides with “his attempt to come to terms with his own identity as a Briton” (Fjågesund and Symes 151), that is, his Anglo-Saxon roots. Notwithstanding the depiction of Norway in alignment with the old northern ideals, that is, an ideal coexistence of past and present, both revolving around the Old Viking World and the idea of Anglo-Norwegian connection, there are several occasions in the travelogue suggesting that

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Metcalfe also conforms to several Victorian stereotypes. Since he focuses extensively on the Old Norse background of the Norwegian nation, praising their racial, linguistic and lifestyle similarities of contemporary Norwegians with their Viking ancestors, the question which immediately arises is whether Metcalfe only treats Norway as a storehouse of history in lieu of providing the reader with a modernised profile of the country visited. His insistence on always describing the country in accordance with its folk culture and sagas certainly offers significant insights to the Victorian reader about the picturesque of a place so far removed from modern civilisation. This tendency is defined by Mary Louise Pratt as “archeologising”. According to Pratt, in the reinvention of nineteenthcentury utopias, “the links between the societies being archeologized and their contemporary descendants remain absolute obscure, indeed irrevocable” (134). One is struck by Metcalfe’s archeologising of Norway by the writer in the preface of his travel account, when he addresses the readers with the following words: “But it is not so with the population of a primitive country like Norway. Much of the simplicity that characterized our forefathers is still existing there. We are Aladdined to the England of three centuries ago” (vii). Clearly, Metcalfe aims at representing the country in a monolithic manner, as a country in which time has stopped. As Metcalfe suggests, the Victorian reader is invited to “witness” a voyage to the distant past of England. In this way, Englishness is brought to the foreground whereas Norway is viewed as a country in a lethargic state, stuck to its past and unable to move forward. Pratt compares the “archeological” perspective which British travellers tend to adopt in their utopias to the act of reviving the indigenous culture and history as if they were dead; “the gesture simultaneously rescues them [the natives] from European forgetfulness and reassigns them to a departed age”. By assuming the role of the old northern antiquarian, the author delivers a vivid image of the country’s ancient past. Yet this view deprives its inhabitants of a new national identity, incubating the idea that Norway serves as museum of ancient history rather than constitutes an integral part of modern Europe. By the same token, the classification of Norway as a primitive nation is regarded by the writer as the main reason for which a Victorian traveller should show an interest in the travel destination in question: Indeed, the avidity with which books of travel in primitive countries— whether in the tropics or under the pole—are now read, shows that the more refined a community is, the greater interest it will take in the occupation, the sentiments, the manners of people still in a primitive state of existence. Our very over-civilization begets in us a taste to beguile

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oneself of its tedium, its frivolities, its unreality, by mixing in thought, at least, with those who are nearer the state in which nature first made man. (viii)

By looking at the introductory part of the travel narrative, the reader realises that through his journey to Norway, Metcalfe aspires to shed light on the “over-civilization” of Britain contrasted with the savage aspect of the Norwegian manners and mores -he states that the sentiments and the manners of people “are still in a primitive state of existence”. His statement alludes to the Other whereas the Norwegian landscape and culture acquire an exotic dimension that stimulates the reader’s imagination and undermines its position in Europe. When he introduces the reader to his travel destination, that is, the district of Telemark which abounds in legends and folk elements, the author alludes to the primitivism of the landscape as well as to the myth of Ultima Thule which the writer associates with King Alfred the Great12: “Thelemarken is the most primitive part of Norway; it is the real Ultima Thule of the ancients; the very name indicates this, and the Norwegian antiquaries quote our Own King Alfred in support of this idea” (xi). Clearly, the author compares Norway, and in particular Telemark, to Ultima Thule because of its primitive aspect and its close link to the Old Norse culture, but also because of its removed position from continental Europe. Metcalfe’s reference to King Alfred, one of the most well-known Anglo-Saxon kings, and to this ancient king’s belief in the existence of a utopian land on the Norwegian soil may be true, but what is more important is the way he connects Britain, the Old Norse tradition and the utopian dimension with which he associates this Norwegian district. Even though in late nineteenth century, Ultima Thule came to signify “Arctic adventure, discovery and exploration” (Bravo et al. 6), the author “others” Norway by utilising the term Ultima Thule in the eighteenth-century sense of the word, which signified both a remote and backward place. Moreover, Kirsten Hastrup remarks that “the notion of ‘Thule’ soon took on a life of its own and was to refer to a moving and imaginary horizon that marked a boundary between a habitable and civilised South and a barely habitable land of barbarians in the far North” (106). This reference to the savage aspect of utopia certainly pertains to the utopian dimension of Norway, but it also indicates Metcalfe’s contradictory attitude towards the travel destination; on the one hand, Norway is represented as a Northern Hellas, while on the other hand, it retains its position as a northern periphery, 12

Alfred the Great (848-899) was the Anglo-Saxon king who is said to have defended England against the Danish attack.

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inhabited by noble savages and characterised by total isolation from the civilised world. Another extract suggests that the author adopts the role of the country’s defender when he meets a French traveller at the end of his journey. The different perspectives from which Metcalfe and the French tourist contemplate their travel destination are immediately stressed by the writer, who allies with the Norwegians while hearing the prejudiced manner in which the other persons talks about them. “Were you ever up beyond the North Cape?” said a Frenchman to me, at dinner. ”Oh! yes; I once went to Vadso.” “And what sort of things are they up there? Half civilized, I suppose?” “Not only half, but altogether, I assure you,” said I. "I met with as much intelligence, and more real courtesy and kindness, than you will encounter half the world over”. (312)

Instead of adopting the Eurocentric stance of the other traveller, who only sees in Norway a savage world totally devoid of culture or technological development (an image of Otherness which is partly remarked in Metcalfe’s travelogue as well), the author identifies with the Norwegians and seeks to disprove the assumptions of his fellow traveller that Norwegians are mere things, half-civilised people by projecting all the virtues related to the national character of the local people. Metcalfe’s reaction to the derogatory comments of the French traveller might be interpreted in various ways. Firstly, one should not neglect the Anglo-Saxon theory on northern unity. In the eyes of the Victorian northernists, Metcalfe included, the Nordic countries are incorporated into the racial and cultural forging of Britishness. This means that the negative comments made by the Frenchman pose a challenge to Metcalfe’s perception of the Germanic virtues, the perfect embodiment of which is Norway. Loyal to his Anglo-Saxon doctrine, Metcalfe shows particular reluctance to accept the Otherness of a country so close to Britain in terms of cultural experiences. His attitude also reflects the fact that the “originary myth of Saxon England began to grow strong as a point of resistance to French political ambitions […] the Anglo-Saxons are associated with a valorous and happy past and with religious and social traditions that need to be preserved” (Frantzen et al. 7). Hence the writer’s desire to defend the Germanic values associated with the Norwegians to a representative of a rival nation. In addition to the cultural- political dimension of this reaction, I also view it as a defense of the Northern Arcadia that Metcalfe seeks to establish through his travel narrative. In particular, accepting the labelling of the Norwegians as savages, the author would question his own

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representation of the country as an ideal society that Britons should look upon in order to reduce the superficiality that governs Victorian society. That is to say, the Norwegian utopia fulfils the author’s ideals of social change as well as the cultural self-realisation of the Britons, hence his effort to defend it. Taking all the above into consideration, it is not paradoxical that, after having defended Norway to the French traveller, Metcalfe feels more at ease with a Norwegian traveller on board the same vessel: At this moment my neighhour to the left, a punchy, good humouredlooking little fellow, with a very large heard and moustache, which covered most of his face, and who had evidently overheard the conversation, said, in English: “You not remember me? You blow out your eyes with gunpowder upon the banks of the Neiden. What a malheur it was! Lucky you did not be blind. I am Mr., the doctor at Vadso. We went, you know, on a pic-nic up the Varanger Fjord. Count E, the bear-shooter, who was such a tippler, was one of the party.” “Opvarter (waiter), bring me a bottle of port, first quality, strax (directly),” said I, remembering the little gentleman perfectly well, and how kindly he and his companions had on that occasion drunk skall to the Englishman. (312)

It is evident that the author uses this episode to apply the northern connection between Britons and Norwegians by highlighting his cordial relationship with a Norwegian doctor. The two members of the Germanic “stock” share the same sense of humour, and they both feel at home, an image that shows Metcalfe’s need to give a practical example of these cultural bonds between the two nations, which extend to a common mentality as well. The earlier image of the French traveller obviously can be associated with Metcalfe’s willingness to dissociate Britain from the Latin world, and even more so from the French realm. His will to espouse the Norwegian lifestyle indicates his strong belief in the Vikingist spirit which underpins his work and life. It also evidences his idealisation of the country visited, a fact which shows that the process of Othering does not permeate his writings to the extent that it does in the case of contemporary travelogues which are interspersed with prejudiced opinions on the Scandinavians. Metcalfe provides the reader with significant information on the role of women within Norwegian society. Unlike other male travellers, who tend to focus on their own role as adventure heroes or on the issues of language and politics in the country visited, the author is quite sensitised to the importance of exploring women’s roles in his travel destination. The writer’s emphasis on the description of Norwegian women might partly be

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attributed to his view of the female element as part of the “human attractions” that he encounters, while traversing the region of Telemark. In Metcalfe’s discourse, one can trace the several conventions attached to Victorian women, as they are reproduced in his interaction with indigenous women. The author touches upon imagery related to witchcraft, eroticism, motherhood and the nation. It seems that women come to epitomise Norwegian national identity and its numerous peculiarities; while being a backward Protestant society, struck by poverty and dependence on the Swedish nation, Norwegian society is beset with heathen elements and a significant degree of female emancipation which compose a selfconflicting identity that is particularly appealing to Metcalfe. In an extract of his travelogue, the writer focuses on the powerful image of the signekone, Norwegian witches acting as mediators between the real and the spiritual world. In his chapter dedicated to Norwegian superstitions, Metcalfe states that: “there are some women who are skilled in breaking the charm. They are called ‘Signe-kone’ (from signe, to exorcise, and kone, woman). One or two such live in the valley. They are considered better than any doctor for a sore” (211). In this fragment, the writer clearly underlines the mystical character of the country in an effort to invoke the Old Norse imagery while, at the same time, he contributes to the othering of the country by focusing on the exotic dimension of Norway. Apart from the link between Norwegian women and the occult that constitutes a recurrent pattern in British travel literature related to the Arctic regions (mainly Lapland and Iceland), the writer stresses the masculine manners of Norwegian women, as suggested in the following extract: A friend of mine, proud of his fancied skill in talking Norsk, was once stopping at a clergyman's in Norway, when he apologised to the ladies for his deficiencies in their language. He was evidently fishing for compliments, and was considerably taken aback when one of them, in the most unsophisticated manner, observed, taking him quite at his word, “Oh yes, strangers, you know, often confound the words, and say one for another, which makes it very difficult to comprehend them.” (59)

The excerpt reflects the fact that Victorian men, accustomed to the passive image of British women, feel quite embarrassed by the “unbecoming” attitude of dynamic Norwegian females. The Victorian codes of propriety seem to be completely inapplicable to the Norwegian context, where women do not behave in alignment with specific gendered patterns. The conduct of Norwegian women appears to be a significant

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issue in male travel writing. As Fjågesund and Symes note, “the masculinity of the Norwegian female, suggested in part by her outdoor lifestyle, clashed with British notions of the daintiness and the fragility of the Victorian ‘angel in the house’” (216). The depiction of Norwegian women as emasculated females and prone to witchcraft could be associated to the classification of Victorian women into two different kinds, the angel and the mermaid. Nina Auerbach argues that while “angels were thought to be meekly self-sacrificial […] pious emblems of a good woman’s submergence in her family”, women seen as mermaids had “powers of mysterious, pre-Christian, prehuman dispensation” (7). On the basis of this distinction, Norwegian women are characterised by a dynamic (and therefore castrating) attitude which “unsexes” them and hinders their view as angels. At the same time, their sturdy appearance and negligence of female conduct render them ideal Viking mothers, reproducing a rather attractive image of the Vikings as a bellicose race. The masculinity of Norwegian women and their lack of the feminine traits of sensuality and eroticism are delineated in the following excerpt of the travelogue: Gro Johannsdatter, a really pretty-looking young woman, with delicate features, smiles in a subdued manner as we enter, and thanks her husband quietly and monosyllabically for bringing up the food. This, together with her little boy, she proceeds to examine with inquisitive, eager eye. The larder was doubtless nearly empty. She then gives her husband, whom she had not seen for some time, a furtive look of affection, but nothing more— no embrace, no kiss. How undemonstrative these people are! It is a remarkable characteristic of the lower orders of Norway, that, unlike their betters, they never think of kissing or embracing before strangers. Compare this with those demonstrations in Germany and France, where not the opposite sexes, but great bearded men, will kiss each other on either cheek with the report of popguns, regardless of bystanders. (94)

In this passage, Metcalfe observes that Norwegian women are not as passive as their British counterparts. Notwithstanding the Norwegian woman’s delicate appearance and good looks, her attitude towards her husband is deemed by the author as extremely masculine, deprived of any assumed fragility which could render her attractive to the male gaze. In order to make his argument even more explicit, he attempts to compare this asexual attitude with that of women from other countries, such as France and Germany, in which women (and men) are more demonstrative. This view certainly recalls the Foucauldian definition of sexuality, which, as Teresa de Lauretis points out, “though commonly thought to be a natural as well as a private, intimate matter, is in fact completely

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constructed in culture according to the political aims of the society’s dominant class” (12). Taking this definition of sexuality into consideration, it is clear that women’s sexuality is not a private matter but is also interwoven with the social character of a country. By describing an erotic woman as cold, Metcalfe ascribes a powerful and masculine dimension to Norwegian culture, which is related to his overall purpose to present this Viking nation as such. Another image of womanhood is presented by Metcalfe when he meets a Norwegian story-teller. The way in which he depicts this old woman differs from the manner in which he tends to view young Norwegian girls: Rapt into days of old, the intelligent eye of the old lady gleamed like a Sibyl's, as she told her story, with much animation. At the same time, she placed her hand, half unconsciously, as it seemed, on mine, the little boy all the while drinking in the tale with suspended breath and timid looks; reminding me of the awful eagerness with which Beranger, I think, describes the grandchildren listening to some old world story of grandmamma's. A capital scene it was for a picture—the group is still before me. (228)13

Based on this description, Metcalfe nationalises the old woman, whose description is associated with Norwegian folk culture and the romancing of the North, and to a lesser extent to womanhood as such. The old lady is compared to Sibyl, the Cumaean priestess from Virgil’s Aeneid. This powerful image of the ancient prophetess is of particular importance, if one considers that Cumaean Sibyl was frequently employed in medieval writings as a symbol of the birth of Christ (Kiefer 238), in spite of her link to the pagan Greco-Roman culture. Similarly, the old story-teller is reminiscent of the importance of folk tales in Norwegian nation-Building. Therefore, her depiction is related to the nineteenth-century efforts of the Norwegians to consolidate their national identity by resorting to folk tales in which the Norwegian national character comes to the foreground. If Norwegian women are both praised and criticised by the writer in relation to their less fragile attitude towards their spouses and other males as well as their function as national embodiments, English women are certainly ridiculed when refusing to comply with their domestic roles and pry into the male public sphere of action. Metcalfe explicitly formulates this idea upon his encounter with two English women on board the steamer, an old lady and a young traveller, possibly Emily Lowe, a woman 13 Pierre-Jean de Béranger (19 August 1780 – 16 July 1857) was a French poet and songwriter.

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travel writer who undertook a journey to Norway and also mentions Metcalfe in her travel account. When it comes to the old lady, Metcalfe makes the following critical statements: On board the steamer that bore us away over a sea as smooth as a mirror, was a stout English lady, provided with a brown wig, and who used the dredging-box most unsparingly to stop up the gaps in her complexion. "Awild country is Norway, isn't it?" inquired she, with a sentimental air; "you will, no doubt, have to take a Lazaroni with you to show you the way?" (5). “The scenery,” continued she, "isn't equal, I suppose, to that of Hoban. Do you know, I was a great climber until I became subject to palpitations. You wouldn't think it, so robust as I am; but I'm very delicate. My two families have been too much for me.' I imagined she had been married twice, or had married a widower."You know," continued she, confidentially, "I had three children, and then I stopped for some years and began again, and had two more. Children are such a plague. I went with them to the sea, and would you believe it, every one of them took the measles”. (5)

By ridiculing the woman, the writer wishes to defend his own role as a traveller. The English lady is presented as a caricature of a tourist, who undertakes a trip that is in conflict with her gender. Instead of taking care of her children and complying with her age, the woman is presented as a violator of the male space, engaging in activities that do not accord with her sex and age. This point is further stressed in her reference to mountaineering, a masculine activity par excellence. By comparing motherhood to a plague, the English lady becomes even more repellent to the author given the veneration of motherhood in Victorian society. Metcalfe’s hostile attitude towards the old woman traveller summarises the patriarchal position towards non conforming women: the rejection (on the part of women) of the domestic roles is entirely contemptible. Especially in the field of travel literature, the idealised position of the adventure hero “appears to have been, not one choice among many possible selves, but a form that was installed as the norm” (Dawson 272). Hence Metcalfe’s expedition to the wilderness is defied by the very presence of this old woman, who reaffirms that a trip to the North does not constitute such a perilous undertaking, as male travel writers seek to claim, but rather a mainstream activity amongst middle-class travellers, even when being of certain age and of the female sex. Similarly, a patriarchal air permeates the writer’s description of his young countrywoman, who may not be as insipid as the old lady, but certainly fulfils the role of the gender transgressor:

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Part IV Chapter One But there was a little countrywoman of ours onboard, whose vivacity and freshness made up for the insipidity of the ‘Hoban lady.’ She can't bear to think that she is doing no good in the world, and spends much of her time in district visiting in one of the largest parishes of the metropolis. Not that she had a particle of the acid said to belong to some of the so-called sisters of mercy—reckless craft that, borne along by the gale of triumphant vanity, have in mere wantonness run down many an unsuspecting vessel— I mean trifled with honest fellows' affections, and then suddenly finding themselves beached, in a matrimonial sense, irretrievably pronounce all men, without exception, monsters. And, thus, she whose true mission it was to be ‘the Angel in the House,’ presiding, ministering, soothing, curdles up into a sour, uneasy devotee. (6)

In this portrayal of the young English woman, Metcalfe resorts to typical labellings of women, such as “the angel in the house”. Clearly, the old woman in the previous episode fulfils in Metcalfe’s eyes the role of the hag. However, the young woman of this passage does not meet the requirements of the angel despite her youthful disposition and appearance. Although her true mission was to be “the angel in the house”, her challenging of this conventional role turns her into a sour being, disagreeable in the eyes of the male passengers, as the author insinuates. De Lauretis points out, that the sexual space ascribed to women by the dominant male ideology revolves around the idea of lack of agency within the Victorian framework, associated with the “erotic potentialities (fertility, passivity, sensitivity, jealousy)” (69). The subversion of these female qualities also challenges men’s dynamic placement in the gender interplay, a fact which puts female sexuality at risk. Mertcalfe sees both women travellers’ attitude as reproachful because it does not conform to clear-cut gender patterns. While female conduct is of pivotal importance in the description of British women, the same does not appeal to native women, who may deviate from these norms and are treated in a different light. If masculinity appears to arouse men’s sexual interest when they encounter Norwegian women, masculine behaviour is considered objectionable when found in British women. On the whole, The Oxonian in Thelemark constitutes a travel account that revolves around the idea of the Volksgeist and is used by Metcalfe to formulate his ideas about the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis that was in a prevalent position in the mid- and late-Victorian era. Metcalfe investigates every aspect of Norwegian culture that can justify the British union with the Scandinavian world. For this reason, his text is imbued with the Northernist spirit, as he frequently draws a parallel between Norway and England at several levels. Moreover, the author employs language as a tool

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to justify his purpose. What seems to be the weak point of his travelogue is that he constantly aims to present the country in question in the light of the Northernist spirit by projecting Norway as a nineteenth-century utopia, and relying on the abundant folk elements which he comes across during his journey in Telemark. Nevertheless, one is left with the impression that Metcalfe does not wish to look beyond the very image of the Nordic country as a storehouse of history. Notwithstanding the excessive attention that he pays to the Old Norse tradition, the author is considerably unprejudiced towards the country visited. Instead of assuming the role of the adventure hero in his text, Metcalfe opts for the narrative position of the omniscient traveller, who is both well informed about and concerned with the historical background of Norway. As per the role of gender, he reproduces, to a considerable extent, the Victorian conventions attached to the female sex.

CHAPTER TWO EMILY LOWE: UNPROTECTED FEMALES IN NORWAY: OR, THE PLEASANTEST WAY OF TRAVELLING THERE, PASSING THROUGH DENMARK AND SWEDEN

Emily Lowe might be deemed as one of the mid-Victorian travel writers, the major part of whose work has sunk into oblivion despite their significant contribution to the field of travel literature about the North. Born to a British judge, she married Sir Spencer Clifford (1815-1892), the 3rd Baronet Clifford of the Navy, a descendant of Henry VIII. Lowe undertook a journey to Norway with her mother (Helen Lowe) in 1856, a year in which Frederick Metcalfe, had also undertaken a trip to the same country. The travelogue, which was produced afterwards, was entitled Unprotected Females in Norway: Or, the pleasantest Way of Travelling there, passing through Denmark and Sweden (1858). Three years later, she wrote in collaboration with her mother a sequel to her first narrative naming it Unprotected Females in Sicily, Calabria, and on the Top of Mount Etna (1859) which received more prominence because of Lowe’s influential and quite revolutionary ideas on Italy’s nineteenth-century political situation which approvingly contemplated on Garibaldi’s efforts to unite his nation. As Maura O’ Connor suggests, it is actually “the tone of Lowe’s travel accounts” which renders her narrative style original by dallying with “the extremes of both natural landscape -plenty and squalorand national character” (138). In fact this “unique” stress on the country’s national character through extensive descriptions of the Norwegian landscape appears repeatedly in Lowe’s representation of the North. Lowe’s narrative takes place in a period which is particularly turbulent for Norway, and for Scandinavia at large. The Norwegian nationalist movement, which manifested itself as a reaction against the imperial Nordic powers of Sweden, to which the country was forced to unite, and Denmark, whose despotism had suppressed the cultural aspects of

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Norway, challenged the mid-nineteenth century spirit of Scandinavianism. Starting as a movement among Danish scholars of the upper-class, and imbued with nostalgia for the common Nordic past amongst Scandinavian countries, Scandinavianism never enjoyed wide recognition due to the aforementioned historical instances that prevented its flourishing; as Derry puts it, “tentative efforts of Scandinavia’s political unification had ended in a complete fiasco” (248). Being a mid-Victorian woman writer, Emily Lowe is certainly influenced by the rising Northernist spirit which governed the discourse of many British male travellers such as Metcalfe. The selection of Norway as a travel destination is far from coincidental, given the country’s positive image in Victorian consciousness. Norway gathered all the necessary qualities of a Northern Arcadia. Anne Janowitz lays emphasis on British travellers’ excitement about places which are “free from the burdensome conflicts of the past” (22). Maintaining a loose connection with the Southern cultures, Norway possessed a Romantic dimension which epitomised the ideas of freedom and primitiveness in the Western world. In addition, as has already been shown, Norway functioned as a symbol of Britain’s distant Germanic past; Norway constituted a multidimensional locus, representing all the necessary qualities for a travel destination untouched by the negative impact of the industrialisation that was taking place at that time in Victorian Britain. Lowe’s text is in tune with Metcalfe’s outlook on Norway; as it will be demonstrated, she treats the country as a place which is endowed with uncorrupt peasants, steeped in their folklore, that is, the main components of a nation’s Volksgeist. If the country in question incarnated a desirable locus thanks to its isolation and cultural proximity to Britain, the same travel destination is employed by Lowe in her travel narrative for a different purpose; the author wishes to subvert male authority in travelling. While male travellers sought to present women as completely unable to engage in this activity due to their general inferiority in terms of strength and dynamism, the writer undertakes the task to deconstruct all conventions related to female travellers’ abilities. Even though the adjective “unprotected females” suggests the writer’s submission to the portrayal of women as vulnerable beings, always attached to their male escorts, it is purposefully misleading and ironic, judging from the writer’s statements on the importance of having a male escort. As a matter of fact, Lowe uses her supposedly unprotected status as a female traveller in order to disprove the allegations made by male writers that Norway could never be reached by women due to the hazardous character of such a voyage.

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Part IV Chapter Two We two ladies, having gone before, show how practicable the journey must be, though we have found out and will maintain that ladies alone get on in travelling much better than with gentlemen: they set about things in a quieter manner, and always have their own way; while men are sure to go into passions and make rows. (5)

On the basis of the above passage, Lowe makes a very important point in relation to the travelling process undertaken by women: unlike male travellers, who are always eager to stress their essential role as protectors, the female writer does not only defy the common presentation of journeys as perilous missions to the unknown, frequently encountered in male travelogues; in fact, she goes so far as to question male presence in general, attesting that women travellers possess the necessary degree of maturity allowing them to design their journey carefully, without resorting to superficial exhibitions of power which might undermine their travelling experience. By defying male dominance in the field of travel literature, Lowe attempts to establish her identity not only as a travel writer, but as a dynamic woman in Victorian society as well. As to Lowe’s deviant nature, Giorgia Alu maintains that this British woman traveller’s effort to defy male overrepresentation in British travel literature impacts decisively on her work, which can also be taken as a clear example of how some Victorian women constructed pictures of themselves as adventurous, brave travellers, and at the same time, maintained their image of respectable ladies, physically weak, romantic and sentimental. (102)

Another instance in the travelogue, which indicates the author’s reluctance to comply with male ideology concerning travelling, is her commentary on the narrative’s title. The word “unprotected” has lost its original meaning, whereas the writer continues to provide the reader with arguments about the meaninglessness of having a male escort in her journey to Norway: The only use of a gentleman in travelling is to look after the luggage, and we take care to have no luggage. “The Unprotected” should never go beyond one portable carpet- bag. This, if properly managed, will contain a complete change of everything. (6)

Once again, Emily Lowe appears to surpass the limitations of her gender by making another claim as regards male superiority in travelling. The writer shows no sign of hesitation or insecurity before embarking on her strenuous journey to Scandinavia, reducing the status of a male

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protector to that of a porter, stating that men can only be necessary for the transportation of the luggage during a journey. If male travellers are eager to convey the impression “that Norway is primarily a place where none but men of mettle may survive” (Fjågesund and Symes 59), Lowe certainly disperses this allegation by placing herself as an anti-heroine who is capable of undertaking a trip to a remote travel destination with her mother, thus ridiculing any attempt to depict her experience as an extreme case of strength and patience. In addition to her ironic comment regarding the need of male escorts for female travellers, Lowe also satirises female passivity, one of the fundamental stereotypes associated with women’s role in Victorian society: It is astonishing, if ladies look perfectly helpless and innocent, how people fall into the trap, and exert to serve them. “Unprotecteds” cannot do better than keep firm to the old combination of the qualities of the serpent and the dove. (15)

The above comment on female passivity is made by the writer for two reasons. On the one hand, she critiques male writers’ attempt to monopolise travelling as a gender-specific process. On the other hand, Lowe undermines the conventional quality of passivity ascribed to women, stating that this old combination of “the serpent and the dove” is also employed by members of her own sex to manipulate their male counterparts in order to satisfy their personal interests. Lowe’s argument about female hypocrisy can be interpreted in multiple ways; first of all, Victorian women were conventionally viewed “both as tempting sirens and holy virgins” (Reed 53), expressing the existing confusing stereotypes in Victorian Britain. Secondly, through her irony, the writer emphasises this contradictory formulation of female nature as substantial proof of their multidimensional function as mothers, lovers, victims or victimisers. All these contradictory elements are carefully suppressed by Victorian women, who are accustomed to remaining on the margin, absorbed in their domesticity. Owing to Victorian society’s patriarchal character, Lowe wishes to show that the domestic space is only one of the areas in which women can excel. In that sense, male ideology excludes them from other fields of activity, suppressing their real potential. At the same time, women tend to adopt the passivity, which is interwoven with their gender so as to avoid being regarded as gender transgressors. Nevertheless, Lowe rejoices over her empowered role, juxtaposing her exciting position as a female traveller with the dull existence of Victorian women in their domestic sphere: “it was ten o'clock at night; I was

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standing in wild Norway - how many young ladies in towns were hearing the street organs play “La donna e mobile” for the six-thousandth time!” (42). The “adventurous” dimension of Victorian masculinity is appropriated by the writer in order to juxtapose her status as a travel writer with the unchangeable circumstances in Victorian women’s daily life. Graham Dawson states that female travellers tend to “reject female interiority” and embrace the male world of action which puts the male traveller’s character to a constant test (63). According to Dawson’s view, imperialist discourse is beset with various masculine virtues, defining the real man as one “who was prepared to fight for Queen, Country and Empire” (1). In that respect, a Victorian woman was imagined as the complete opposite, fulfilling the need to preserve the balance of genders by being led to apathy. Yet Lowe seems to defy this “stereotypically female attribute”, desiring to describe herself in the capacity of a female traveller, who is ready to confront every possible condition that might pose a threat to every traveller, thus demonstrating the universal dimension of her gender. Interestingly enough, she indirectly attacks the above conception of female vulnerability by contrasting common views of female dependence on men with their actual application in real life: things are not right immediately. Should ladies have no escort with them, then everyone is so civil, and trying of what use they can be; while, when there is a gentleman of the party, no one thinks of interfering, but all take it for granted they are well provided for. (6) With us ladies it was sometimes quite amusing to see the rough countrymen disguising the fact that they had never moved in ladies' society before, by watching every action, and anticipating what we would ask, all very quietly, with the truest gallantry. (75)

According to the writer, women may take advantage of their stereotypical passivity in order to have natives put at their service. As has been previously argued, Lowe dallies with gender stereotypes claiming that women assume a passive role because they wish to achieve their goals without pain. However, she still does make use of this stereotype herself to achieve her goals. This is particularly true in the travelling process, during which women are more likely to avoid possible dangers due to the locals’ being at her disposal. As a matter of fact, the author portrays herself as a female traveller who turns all the disadvantages of her gender into practical benefits. The excerpt also reflects Lowe’s condescending attitude towards the lower classes (“it was sometimes quite amusing to see the

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rough countrymen”). Moreover, she does not hesitate to question the status of male travellers, who are always willing to display the power of their gender in every aspect of their voyage. It is precisely this willingness of the writer to present herself as capable enough of overcoming the hardships of her Norwegian tour that rendered her work susceptible to severe criticism; Fjågesund and Symes refer to another travel account, Norway in 1858, Lindesnaes to the Midnight Sun, written by a British couple, John Benjamin and Sarah Popplewell, who argue that Lowe’s travel account is nothing more than a product of fiction: Mr. A- saw a good deal of Miss Lowe (the unprotected female) in Christiania, and told us many amusing things about her. There is no doubt her book is an entirely made-up thing, and she writes of many things as having happened to herself which had been told her by fellow-travellers, some of them having taken place years ago. Mr A-took her to dine with her friend of his in Christiania. The gentleman said of Miss Lowe “Well, I am very glad indeed to have spent an hour with such a woman, it is quite a treat, but heaven defend me from such a woman as a wife”. (36)

Lowe is accused of not having complied with more than one Victorian principle. The credibility of her travelogue is put into question because of her peculiar status as a woman traveller. In addition, her indirect attack on men’s authority in dangerous voyages is met with a considerable amount of negativity due to her attempt to “intrude” into the core of Victorian manhood. The passage suggests that the work of a female writer, who openly defies gender constructions, must be immediately questioned, and for that purpose, a male “assessor’s” opinion about her womanhood overshadows all the features of her travelogue. From the male perspective, Lowe loses her femininity by getting trapped in a world alien to women. It is obvious that Victorian society does not favour women’s exploration of roles traditionally reserved for men. As a result, women who endeavour to challenge gender norms are labelled as marginal. Nevertheless, the writer’s self-portrayal as a pioneering female traveller is not constricted to the British context; Lowe is also eager to compare herself with Norwegian women in order to re-establish her identity in different terms. This can be seen in the description of Norwegian women on board of the ship to Norway: “the passengers had not yet begun to be picturesque, but the lady part were cheerful and agreeable, speaking English nicely, and planning routes for us, though surprised at our courage in doing what they would not venture upon” (32). Drawing upon this fragment, it would be necessary to remark that Lowe yearns to compare herself to Norwegian women. If the beginning of the

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travelogue coincides with the author’s attempt to defend her status as a female traveller, the narrative in progress substantiates her effort to project her voyage to Norway as a perilous journey. Consequently, the writer seems to contradict her earlier claim that a trip to Norway might be undertaken irrespective of one’s sex, by adopting a superior position towards Norwegian women who are represented in this case as friendly but static beings, that had never having dared to explore their own country. As observed by Foster and Mills, “some women writers find no difficulty in adopting these masculine roles” (255), due to their desire to play the role of the “adventure hero”, the commonest concept in male travelogues, according to which a journey amounts to a real mission, beset with perils. A similar approach to the process of travelling is made by Lowe in a different episode, during which the author makes explicit reference to the dangers with which she is met when passing through the Norwegian woods: and as you must be a little initiated into the style of the country by this time, you will not be more nervous than we were, in penetrating into wilds where English ladies had never been heard of, and only one Norwegian lady had once given the inhabitants an idea of the refined feminine world beyond. (49)

It is worth stressing the use of the word “penetration”, which is extensively used both by male and female travellers of the nineteenthcentury while describing the process of being acquainted with a new land. Being the first English lady to venture on a trip to the Norwegian woods, Lowe does not only acquire the unique status of a female explorer; her courage is purposefully compared to Norwegian women’s reluctance to undertake the voyage to the Norwegian wilderness. In this way, penetration into the Norwegian forests is imbued with a slightly imperialist spirit. The unusual situation, in which the two women of the travelogue are found, is also noticed in another instance, when the two ladies are chased by a pack of wolves and are finally rescued by a group of peasants: on reaching a plank which crossed near a watermill, some friendly hand was extended, and we were led into a hall, where the open countenances of the peasants seated round a table drove the wolf's image away on the spot. Whatever surprise they may have felt at seeing ladies alone in such a spot, they expressed none; their whole endeavour was to make us comfortable. (58)

Clearly, Lowe is not interested in emphasising the dangers that she experiences while cutting through the woods; her main concern is to

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interpret the reaction of the Norwegian peasants, who are amazed to hear that the ladies in question are off to a perilous journey to Sognefjord (the largest fjord in Norway). In that respect, Lowe is more anxious to establish herself within the new environment than depict the dangers with which she is confronted during her voyage. The writer’s insistence on undertaking the mountaineering expedition to the impenetrable Norwegian mountains coincides with her penetration into the male sphere, that is, with her effort to go beyond the prescribed borders of her own sex. In addition to her constant efforts to achieve recognition by travellers of the opposite sex, Lowe’s obsession with the Norwegian mountains overlaps with a Romantic effort of early and mid-Victorian writers to unite with the mountainous landscapes, in order to achieve the highest communion with nature. This increasing tendency of British travel writers to use woods and mountains as a symbol for their closest communion with nature and the sublime was named Waldeinsamkeit (“wood solitude” in German, firstly used by Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) in his novel Der blonde Eckbert) or Bergeinsamkeit (“mountain solitude” in German), overlapping with the Rousseauesque ideals of “solitary” Romantic travellers wishing to break away from society and civilisation (Pethes 382). Furthermore, Robertson raises another issue in conjunction with midVictorian travellers’ enthusiasm with mountaineering: if Waldeinsamkeit constitutes one of the main objectives amongst Romantic travellers, who wish to experience nature in its extremity, mountaineering is also associated with the emergence of the British Empire. Mid-Victorian Britain is characterised by its expansionist expeditions across Africa and other outward places; as a result, the Romantic elements in British travel literature are immediately incorporated into the self-aggrandizing views of the imperial system. As Robertson notes, the hard task of climbing an inaccessible mountain was in alignment with the difficult process of conquering new territories (128). In other words, to climb a mountain located in a foreign land was linked by the Mid-Victorian traveller to the imperial process of battling against the wild elements of nature and domesticating the natives. Nevertheless, Lowe does not go as far as to imply imperial appropriation of Norway, being more interested in the actual impact of her trip on the gender dynamics of her own country. In the same wolf-episode, the writer seems to be aware of her extremely radical views on the subject of female travelling; after having presented herself as a modern Amazon, who defies both men’s prejudices and nature’s hazards, she addresses the dangerous nature of her voyage in order to shed light, for the first time, on her feminine aspect as a travel writer:

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Part IV Chapter Two for though the peasants vowed no wolf would attack a human being in summer, the idea of them being all about, gave a disagreeably zoological sensation to the stranger; and —who knows — they might not make an exception to their rule in favour of ladies. (46)

Addressing the vulnerability of her position as a female traveller is not a sign of inconsistency. In this instance, Lowe appears to comply with the convention of female “unprotectedness”, alluding to her inability to cope with the dangers involved in her excursion across Sognefjord. In doing so, she adopts a different narrative position, abandoning the role of the powerful adventurer heroine and embracing a less dynamic perspective in travelling. Although Lowe’s insecurity does not jeopardise her effort to promote female travelling as a means of further emancipation of her sex from the dominant male’s oppression, the fact that wolves “might not make an exception to the rule in favour of ladies” alludes to her general inability to deal with constantly-emerging dangers. By the same token, there can be noticed a similar scene of female frailty during the writer’s climbing of the mountain, in which Lowe’s discourse is also imbued with certain degree of self-irony: “These doubts, the screams of an eagle, and the awful appearance of the mountain (curved in the centre, with overhanging rocks), made our hearts quail somewhat;” (46). The uncertainty experienced by the writer in this fragment is certainly opposed to her previous statement on female autonomy throughout the travelling process, according to which she depicted herself as a female penetrator into Norwegian wilderness. Furthermore, her engagement in difficult tasks such as reaching the top of a mountain calls for a male guide, a fact which is purposefully satirised by the writer, since the only available escort is a young boy, whose appearance is not very promising as regards the harsh conditions with which the two ladies will be met while ascending the Sogne-fjeld. When a “sturdier” guide is eventually found, both Lowe and her mother feel secure, pointing out that male presence is useful indeed under special circumstances: But, oh! "said my mother, " is that little ragged boy to be our only escort for ten miles? That will not do at all," After a great deal more patois, jumpings on and off, nods and smiles, another blue-and-silver peasant, with an uncommonly classical face, is found, and mamma is content. (76) With regard to the emancipation of Norwegian women, Lowe indicates that their lifestyle is extremely domestic, characterised by a spiritual attachment to their husbands:

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The women are certainly rather too domestic, and look upon their husbands with awe, as if they were another sort of creature: this may sound enchanting to the gentlemen but, being the general custom, it is not the least complimentary, and one wants a wife for a companion, not a head servant. (85)

The writer does not seem to favour domesticity, despite the fact that this value is extremely appreciated by her native country. Lowe diverges from Victorian male ideology, which is founded on the subjection of the female sex to the needs of the patriarchal system. If the writer desires to defend her status as a female traveller in the beginning of her travelogue, thus challenging male supremacy on the field, in this case she attempts to subvert the domestic sphere with which Victorian women are firmly associated. Due to the fact that Victorian society was more likely to sympathise with the weaknesses of women, and would render them more attractive to the average man when they were confined to their domestic world, women who acquired intellectual or practical strength risked jeopardising their female status (Reed 53) as has already been demonstrated. Consequently Lowe does not approve of a characteristic which is held responsible for the passivity of her own gender. In this excerpt, it is evident that domesticity is deemed by the writer as synonymous with passivity. Refusing to conform to the gender conventions related to her sex, Lowe does not hesitate to represent Norwegian women as domestic slaves, lacking any willingness to transform their lot and demand more participation in public affairs. The considerable advancements of Norwegian women’s position throughout the nineteenth-century resulted from the increasing need of Norwegians to acquire full sovereignty and excel at a cultural and economic level. This was tied with the forging of their national identity. Because of the thriving nationalist movement, women were seen as a major social force for the country’s empowerment and their potential eventually surpassed the borders of their domestic existence. As a matter of fact, Derry contends that the position of Norwegian women constituted a point of admiration for the majority of the Europeans; as Derry puts it, Norwegian women’s “advance towards legal equality of status and political emancipation had been accompanied by the growth of a liberal attitude regarding suitable types of employment and social activity” (301). Additionally, female emancipation was widely regarded as one of the fundamental steps for the country’s independence from the Swedish rule during the nationalist phase of the country (starting in 1815 and reaching its culminating point in 1905, with the country’s being granted full sovereignty). According to Greg Hurrel, towards the turn of the nineteenth century, an “increasing desire [had been observed]

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in women for equal rights, conditions, and influence in society at large” (1) and the transition of Norwegian women from the domestic into the public world was deemed as a decisive step for the country’s further prosperity and questioning of the Swedish yoke. Women’s introduction to the labour market precipitated their dynamic participation in the politics of their country through the granting of female suffrage in 1913 (the second country to take such a revolutionary measure, since it was preceded by Finland). Although Lowe writes her travel narrative many years before these developments take place, it is crucial to highlight that “Norwegian women succeeded many years in advance of most other European women (even those of Britain, who had lived in urbanised and industrialised conditions suited to female enfranchisement from a much earlier date), largely due to their non-militant, cooperative methods” (Hurrel 2). Although Lowe does not overlook the backward role ascribed to her sex, referring to her own position as a traveller as completely incompatible with her gender, here she tends to adopt a patronising attitude towards Norwegian members of her sex, depicting them as purely domestic. Bearing in mind the poor progress of the female cause in mid-Victorian society, one cannot help wondering about the reason for which Lowe decides to criticise Norwegian women for being oppressed by their husbands. The answer lies in the fact that as regards the status of Victorian women, Fjågesund and Symes have pointed out, despite the obvious inequalities between the two sexes in England, the position of British women was paradoxically praised both by male and female travellers upon their encounter with other nations. In particular, British writers described the status of “the middle-class Victorian woman as a model to be emulated” and precisely this removal of the female element from the public affairs was considered to be indicative of their status, differentiating them from working-class women (221). A careful look at Lowe’s text also reveals her anxiety to elaborate on the issue of marriage in Victorian society by employing the Norwegian context as an excuse. The writer is apparently concerned with the idea of companionship in marriage that was brought to the fore during the 1850s. Jane Rendall points out that, prior to that period, Victorians laid emphasis on the attributes of sympathy, affection, complementarity and companionship in the relationships between the two sexes (4), as crucial for the foundation of a happy marital life, without excluding monetary gain between both parties. It is possible that Lowe is strongly influenced by the debate initiated after the publication of an article entitled “prostitution”, and written by W. R. Greg in 1850. In it, the author made a “shocking” comparison between prostitution and the Victorian conception

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of marriage. Referring to the impact of this article on Victorian consciousness, Kate Washington illustrates the ambivalent nature of marriage as a social institution: marriages of convenience constituted the only means of establishing sexual relations or achieving social ascension (54). At the same time, the economic character of the marriage contract did not accord with the Victorian claim on morality and sentimentality. From that perspective, the idea of companionship was attributed secondary importance, a fact which is also revealed in Lowe’s reference to Norwegian domesticity, although she does not draw a parallel with prostitution in an explicit manner. The domestic character of Norwegian women’s life is also emphasised by the writer on another occasion, when Lowe has an interesting meeting with a Norwegian female playwright in Bergen: One very interesting acquaintance was a remarkably handsome, clever woman, who had written some of the most successful pieces of the Norwegian stage, and the charms of whose conversation would even have made a "reception" in Edinburgh lively. (84)

Lowe is anxious to befriend a Norwegian woman in order to focus more satisfactorily on the situation of her sex in the country visited. The fact that this woman happens to be a person with similar intellectual aspirations to those of Lowe corroborates the writer’s condemnation of female domesticity as the key feature of women’s life. The Norwegian woman’s capacity of a playwright enables Lowe to reflect on her own position as a female travel writer and speak of other women who are in a similar position in a more “backward” country like Norway. In her effort to redefine her own identity, Lowe presents an indigenous woman and the hardships that she faces throughout her interaction with her conservative milieu. This becomes more obvious when the writer stops her narration to relate that woman’s experience and the hypocrisy of the manners and mores in Norway: She poured out her whole heart to me, deeply expressing the complete isolation in which she was placed, no one around having the slightest sympathy with genius, while the little peculiarities which always accompany it, were choice pieces of gossip for her lady neighbours, who, she said, had no ideas beyond having their husbands' coffee, &c. ready at a fixed hour; but the great crime which put the finishing stroke to the frowns of all foreheads was, that the wife of a Probst (or Dean), a man so high in the church, should write for the stage, though her husband highly approved of it, and the pieces contained all that was calculated to improve the mind and heart. (84)

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One is struck by Lowe’s keen interest in the young woman’s story. Having been raised in a society which subjects non-conforming women to severe criticism, the writer identifies with all the points raised by the woman in relation to the people’s inconsistent behaviour; on the one hand, this playwright, despite her sex, is met with significant success, given the actual reception of her works by all the citizens in Christiania. In spite of the considerable success of her works, this woman needs to deal with the constantly negative reactions against her attempt to achieve recognition in a field not belonging to the only sphere meant for women, the domestic. What this excerpt reveals is that the female playwright suffers severe criticism by her own sex. In addition, the very fact that her husband is a Dean is another reason why she is subjected to negative criticism; the association between religion and patriarchy is made more than obvious (“the finishing stroke to the frowns”). As to Lowe’s identification with this Norwegian woman author, Ware raises another issue in relation to female travellers’ befriending indigenous women. As stressed by Ware, Western women often attack oppressive indigenous customs in order to tackle issues which suppress female identity in the visited context. Thus they acquire their own political voice which is “forged in relations with other women” (33). Another episode is narrated by the writer, namely her paying a visit to the daughters of a Norwegian family. Being in close connection with the young women, Lowe seizes the opportunity to formulate certain ideas about young women’s position: accompanied by the eldest daughter, whose solid information and varying conversation proved her good education, and that, though she was shut up in the wilds of Norway, she had more extended ideas than many a worldly miss. Her curiosity to know about young ladies in England was extreme, so was her surprise at hearing how few helped their mothers in the household concerns, but would rather stoop for hours a day over an embroideryframe, counting and unpicking the stitches in a Berlin poodle-dog's eye. (56)

Lowe’s communication with the young daughters of a middle-class Norwegian family gives rise to several issues embedded in the female cause. First of all, she draws a comparison between her own middle-class status and its equivalent within the framework of the Norwegian society. Seeing the girls always busy with household chores and in close contact with their housemaids, Lowe informs the girls about the different social standards in Britain, according to which a woman’s advanced social status is usually associated with the highest degree of idleness; once again Lowe

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refers to the situation in her own country, through the projection of Norwegian women’s simplicity. At the same time, she highlights the fact, that, notwithstanding their confinement “in the wilds of Norway”, Norwegian girls combine beauty with wit, posing questions about their British “sisters”. Through these references, Lowe criticizes her fellow Victorian women that come from the higher social classes. Based on this portrayal of the Norwegian girls, one could deduce the following: just like many travellers in the country, Lowe is impressed by “the particular closeness between women and servants and the general ease with which the Norwegian middle-class engaged in household concerns” (Fjågesund and Symes 225). Clearly, class hierarchy is not so well established in Norway as in Victorian Britain, therefore Norwegian women do not hesitate to perform daily household tasks in order to avoid being idle within the domestic sphere. In contrast to the simplicity of Norwegian women’s domestic life, Lowe implies that hierarchy dominates every aspect of Victorian society, rendering the domestic sphere a mere continuation of the existing social order outside “the home”. However, the writer’s interaction with the Norwgian girls also gives rise to a Romantic depiction of them, combining qualities which are completely antithetical to each other: if beauty constitutes the most agreeable attribute of Victorian women and wit a distasteful one, then Norwegian women appear to possess a successful combination of the two qualities, throwing light on the future potential of women in Norwegian society; the writer’s previous depiction of Norwegian females as domestic slaves is slightly contrasted with their new portrayal as creative women having “more extended ideas” than other British young women. Given the above representation of Norwegian females, one could suppose that Lowe’s discourse forms an indirect attack on the prevailing apathy of Victorian middle-class women, who are absorbed in issues that are not conducive to emancipating practices. However, one could also notice the similarity of Lowe’s female discourse to Metcalfe’s depiction of Norwegian women as masculine, selfreliant and outspoken. Thus, both travel writers throw an approving glance at the native women’s stock manly attitude. The writer, however, holds an ambivalent stance as regards Norwegian women’s expressions of sexuality, or at least, what appears to diverge significantly from the Victorian decorum. The writer’s attitude towards this topic is filled with contradictions in various descriptions of Norwegian women and their interaction with men, as is evident in the following lines: “those remained who were bound to Bergen; among them a pair of lovers, who had caught the tasteless German way of cooing and kissing in public” (79). Lowe does not approve of manifestations of sexual

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affection performed in public, referring to the inappropriate character of erotic demonstrations of any kind. The writer’s attitude towards women’s explicit sexuality is also explained by the common Victorian belief that sexual intercourse was only allowed for procreation, thus “restraining human sexuality and limiting women’s sexual functions” (Vicinus141). In that respect, the Norwegian couple is presented by the writer as an aesthetically reproachful spectacle, symbolising the degeneration which might be observed even in the most “far off” places like Norway. Yet, more positive scene of implicit sexuality is provided by Lowe later on, while describing the close contact between two folk dancers of the opposite sex: Sliding along, her hair often waving from beneath her head-dress, the girl follows her partner round the room till she catches his extended hand; they then join in the lively “polztanz” together; separating afterwards, except by the one hand, she turns beneath his raised arm with a charming movement, and then goes off with him again. (47)

In this scene, the writer is not bothered with the close contact of the female body with the male touch. It thus appears that female conduct is contingent on contextualised circumstances. The earlier example of explicit female sexuality, which was completely unpardonable according to Lowe, is certainly not the same as a scene of implicit sexuality, which is also permeated by several Romantic nuances about Norwegian folk music. Indeed, as Barton points out, “Scandinavian peasant music in its authentic, premodern form has a strange and distinctly exotic sound” for British travellers (97). Hence, he erotic is substituted by the exotic, and Victorian decorum cannot be fully applicable to a situation which is alien to British culture. As far as dthe dress code is concerned, it constitutes one of the few areas in which women can act securely without questioning male authority on the field of travel literature. Female travellers can either evaluate native women’s dress for being aligned with their gender’s demands or have their personal experience on the subject. In her travelogue, Lowe refers to an episode in which she is invited by an old lady to dress up in the traditional costume of the Dovre region: It was our first specimen of uncommon costume, and as such minutely inspected and sketched on the spot; which so delighted her that the following day, when I was sitting quietly mending my clothes, she pounced upon me, took me off to an enormous room where the family wardrobe was kept, and, selecting the best of everything, dressed me up as a Dovrefjeld peasant for the day. (44)

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As Foster and Mills point out, disguise appears to play an important role in female travelling. Such an attempt would possibly put male travellers’ masculinity at risk, considering their constant emphasis on their self-concept of adventure hero. On the contrary, Lowe describes Norwegian dressing in detail. Her act could be interpreted as an attempt to approach Norwegian women. In doing so, she resorts to a strategy commonly encountered in female travelogues, in which, “women often took on native dress as an act of reciprocity or at least of cultural curiosity” (257). Lowe practices this strategy on one occasion, when her desire to experience Norwegian culture is expressed through her being dressed as a Norwegian peasant. Dressing, nonetheless, might have another significant dimension in travelogues written by women. Female travellers are aware of restrictions imposed on their gender; yet it is imperative that they put them aside in order to deal with the physical obstacles that they encounter in their trip. This is particularly obvious when Lowe directly addresses other women who would dare to travel to Norway in order to highlight the point that practicalities should matter more than strict moral codes attached to women’s dressing: so that, ladies, I must impress upon you, however romantic you be, you must wear short petticoats in Norway, or they will be fringed in the dampest manner, and see your high boots rubbed with cream every morning to keep out the watery consequences of walking ashore through several waves. (75)

Lowe’s non-conforming attitude towards Victorian constraints imposed on her gender goes beyond the appropriation of the role of the adventure hero. If gender awareness plays a significant role in Lowe’s travelogue, she certainly questions Victorian canons of femininity by encouraging women to acquaint themselves with their new role as travellers. Gender negotiation is considered to be a vital factor for women’s overall survival in areas that are unknown to them. One of the most important features of the travelogue is the fact that Lowe provides the reader with a thorough depiction of the Norwegian nation and, at the same time, she attempts to draw a comparison between the Norwegians and the neighbouring countries (Sweden and Denmark). In the beginning of her narrative, the writer clearly states her purpose for embarking on a journey to Norway: and, confiding in that simple promise, we prepare to leave for the wildest part of Scandinavia. If, reader, you also like an unsophisticated country,

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Looking at the introductory part of Lowe’s travel narrative, one can notice that the main reasons for which the writer selects Norway as her travel destination is the wild beauty of the country as well as its unsophisticated character, completely relieved from the vices of the industrialised world. Lowe emphasises the essential role of Norwegian peasantry in the reconstruction of Norway as an Arcadian locus. The unsophisticated character of the Norwegian peasantry possesses Romantic nuances of an Arcadian race inhabiting a remote land untouched by the corruptive influence of modernity. Given the fascination of mid-Victorians with destinations not burdened with the Greco-Roman canon, James Buzard comments on their keen interest in the unspoiled character of “uncivilised” places: travel, in sum, has become an ameliorative vacation, which like the emerging nineteenth-century concept of culture, promises us a time of imaginary space out of ordinary life for the free realization of our otherwise thwarted potential. (102)

As has already been illustrated, both the Norwegian savage landscape and the country’s innocent inhabitants stimulated the imagination of the Victorian writers, encouraging them to contemplate a kind of lifestyle that echoed Britain’s distant past in a Romantic manner. This tendency is particularly evident in Lowe’s travelogue, in which Norwegians are constantly praised for their simplicity and hospitality, taken to be signs of an inferior culture to the British one, yet a much happier one. The depiction of the Norwegian nation as members of a pastoral society, that welcome every foreigner who encounters them, is provided by the writer in the following extract: The people in their carriages all bowed as they passed, which we thought was to our companion, but he said it was the usual courtesy to ladies, whether known or not; and we found all over the country even the most ragged brats snatched off their caps when addressing us. All ranks lifted their hats on entering a room, were it but a kitchen. (30)

The above portrayal of Norwegian peasantry should be seen in firm association with Rousseau’s ideas about the noble savage. Lowe appears to rejoice over the uncorrupt spirit of the peasants, which has remained

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untouched by the negative influences of industrial materialism. The manners and mores in this remote part of Europe are totally unaffected by social hierarchy and strict conventions, attributed to Victorian society. Interestingly enough, Metcalfe also wishes to emphasise the unspoiled manners and mores of the Norwegian pesanatry when he states that “the good folks are simple-minded and sincere” and that they, precisely like their forefathers, are “fond of liberty” (13-14). It seems that both travellers are anxious to depict the country’s folkish element. Therefore, Lowe appears to be more concerned with the construction of a Norwegian identity through the depiction of Norwegian peasantry and the remoteness of the Nordic land. In her attempt to synthesise an Arcadian image of Norway, she highlights the three core elements which Herder identified as fundamental in the shaping of a national identity: peasantry, landscape and nature. Katla Kjartansdóttir stresses that “nature, language, and nation were linked”, according to Herder’s theory, “in almost biological ways and thus the heart of every nation was mainly to be found among fishermen and peasants that were working and living in a constant relation to nature” (273). If peasantry constitutes the real spirit of the Norwegian nation, then Lowe is well aware of the aforementioned link, as reflected in her constant references to the honest aspect of the peasants’ life. An indicative example of this tendency is the following: a rough peasant at work in the fields, and he instantly fitted out two firstrate carrioles, the women keeping up our spirits with brandvin and cream; and when two honest farmers cheerfully left their ploughing to accompany us, we felt that deep confidence in the people established, which never for a moment forsook us during the whole of our journey; and which would have made us follow a Norwegian guide round the world, had he said he knew the way. (36)

Based on this description, one of the main qualities characterising Norwegian peasantry is their honesty; their daily occupations with nature, being firmly connected to all its manifestations, render them cheerful and innocent. Another reference to Norwegian peasantry presents the reader with some additional attributes of the nation: there is no gentry in the country, and, except in the mining districts and widely-scattered towns, but one class of inhabitants, — the rural. The traveller must either then pass sulkily along, or associate with them, who, though simple, are thoroughly well-bred, and from whom the most refined person need not fear to receive the slightest rudeness. (43)

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Part IV Chapter Two The master was, that rare avis in Norway, a bachelor; the peasants, generally, only waiting for a house, to marry immediately, when they are called a “husebonde”; from which our word husband (they say) is derived. (41)

Throughout her interaction with the natives, Lowe once again marvels at their simplicity, which is successfully combined with the highest degree of politeness, even in the most sequestered spot of this Scandinavian land. These qualities, along with the notion of hospitality, are seen as endemic in the Northern territories (Fjågesund and Symes 2003). The writer echoes mid-Victorian views about the Norse race as descending directly from the Viking warriors, who possess amazing strength, heroic spirit and a spiritual dimension. It is not a mere coincidence that Metcalfe touches on the same combination of strength and simplicity with which Norwegians and their Viking ancestors were endowed. Similarly to Metcalfe, Lowe intends to lay emphasis on the attractive primitiveness by which Northern cultures are characterised. In addition to the typical qualities of the Norse race, Lowe is also interested in the classless aspect of the country, lacking the strict social hierarchy with which mid-Victorian society was interwoven. As the author points out, there is no gentry in Norway, a fact which appears inconceivable in the eyes of a Victorian citizen, who is frequently imbued with a class-specific lifestyle. According to Granqvist, Victorians were always eager to identify class-distinction in the foreign lands they visited. On the other hand, the social equality that Scandinavians enjoyed was treated as an important piece of evidence for the Nordic countries’ unsophisticated and simplistic aspect (200). In Lowe’s travelogue, however, this is rarely encountered. This writer appears to embrace a liberal approach to the country visited both as a woman and a British citizen, providing her readers with a more objective portrayal of the Norwegians, as she does not necessarily seek to treat them as a barbarous race which needs a British voice to reconstruct its own identity. As a matter of fact, she does not hesitate to befriend them and, unlike other travellers of her time, to immerse in their culture through her frequent intercourse with the poor peasants of rural Norway in order to acquire a more thorough understanding of the country visited: It was so pleasant associating with this innocent family, who had taken us into their confidence without a thought, without a question; the atmosphere around them was so pure to breathe, and being pressed to stay was so charming, that we imprudently deferred our departure till well-nigh evening, when, making an effort, anxious to secure the fine weather for the dangerous mountain-pass, we set off in a car on a stony road, feeling

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deeply the parting with beings so congenial, and so impossible ever to revisit. (57)

On the basis of the above fragment, one could become aware of Lowe’s deviation from other Victorian travellers, whose presentation of the Northerners usually coincided with the theory of climate, advocated by Rousseau and Montesquieu; nevertheless, Lowe’s narrative reflects the transition from the dystopian image of Scandinavia to the Arcadian utopia of the nineteenth century. In the 1850s, a resurgence of interest is observed in the works of Victorian scholars who treated the Scandinavian countries as storehouses of the Old Northern antiquity to which the Anglo-Saxon roots of the British culture were firmly connected. As has been demonstrated, Laing strongly believes in the essential role of the sagas to the understanding of the Old Norse culture1, and Metcalfe goes as far as to suggest that the very survival of Norway’s inhabitants relies on its epics. Contrary to these male writers, Lowe does not attach great importance to the literary accomplishments of the Nordic race. If sagas were the main cultural contribution of Iceland to world literature, Norway’s main strength was its people, being so similar in appearance to the dynamic and good-natured image of their Viking ancestors. Regarding the contribution of the Norwegian people to the constant projection of Norway as an Arcadian world, foreign travellers’ close contact with peasants became “the main attraction of travelling in Norway” (Klitgaard Povlsen 21). An Arcadian depiction of the Norse race is traced in Lowe’s direct allusion to the Viking world and itsimportant role in the formation of the Norwegian identity: How superior the old Norwegian way was of piratically taking off some stranger bride, as King Haco did the Greek princess Ida. We were now in his territory; here his galley sails had filled with the wind which was to waft them to the fair Ida's isle, while " bauta-stone " after "bauta-stone" along the shore, bespoke his victories till all other Vikings had sunk beneath the wave. Now we are no longer inland. (79-80)

Lowe’s mention of King Haakon Haakonarson (spelled Haco in her text) is not coincidental; the writer wishes to lay emphasis on the symbolic function of this king as the epitome of Norwegian strength, as well as to compare it with its forlorn state in the 1850s, when the country had been reduced to a protectorate of the Swedish kingdom. As Sverre Bagge 1

In his own words: “a knowledge of the Saga mythology is almost as necessary as that of the Greek to understand the classics” (53).

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suggests, Haakon Haakonarson was frequently used both in British and Norwegian texts as a symbol of the bygone glory of Norway during the Middle Ages, since his reign was conducive to the construction of the Norwegian Empire that incorporated Iceland and parts of Scotland (11). What is clear is that the writer is not only willing to focus on Norwegian peasantry in the nineteenth-century but also on the mighty instances of Norwegian history in order to restore its status as an independent state. Nevertheless, Lowe should not be regarded as the only writer who adopted a sympathetic stance towards the Norwegians and their struggle for full sovereignty. Norwegians appealed to Victorian imagination as a nation with distant cultural ties with Britain. At the same time, their acquaintance with the British culture, a sign of which was the good command of the English language, was greatly appreciated by the midVictorians. Lowe is certainly not exception to the rule, as she is anxious to describe the high esteem of the Norwegians for the British nation, as indicated in the following excerpt: Stopping at Toftemoen to rest for the night, and see our jolly Madeira farmer and a most insinuating gentleman came forward spoke English and half a dozen other languages, said it gave him the most rapturous pleasure to be able to converse in their own tongue with two ladies, and requested as the greatest favour, to be told the hour they continued onwards the following morning, that he might profit by the opportunity of doubling and tripling the pleasure of his journey by accompanying them. (50)

Obviously, the Norwegian gentleman is delighted to meet the two English ladies, as he considers the meeting as a unique opportunity to practice his English and converse with two ladies from a distant country. On the one hand, the writer intends to stress the isolated position of Norway, disabling the communication of her inhabitants with other nations. On the other hand, Lowe focuses on the positive image that Norwegians bear in their minds for British travellers. As Fjågesund and Symes point out, “the ability and willingness of the Norwegians to speak English was much commended and fed into a larger British fantasy about their reverence for British culture as a whole” (260). Although this reference to an English-speaking gentleman contains some expansionist nuances, as it attributes an international status to the British identity, Lowe’s interest in Norwegian reactions to her British identity does not reflect any superiority on her part; the writer continuously mentions that her main goal is to project Norwegian hospitality instead of reinforcing the idea of Englishness in a northern periphery.

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Despite the fact that Lowe’s view of the Norwegians is the least patronising in comparison to other travelogues, the writer narrates an incident which foregrounds the cultural expansion of Britain beyond the borders of the colonial world. In particular, she encounters a Norwegian lady who is curious about the refined customs of Victorian society: The lady was intensely curious about the various parts of Britain and the ways of the people, knowing far less of them than of the rest of the world; England particularly, which seemed to be quite the model country, and it was the dearest wish of her and her husband to make a journey there, for which they hoped to find time the next autumn. France, or the French, do not interest the Norwegians at all; after London comes Hamburg, deservedly too, for its majestic beauty; also every article of dress and luxury is to be had there of the best, and far more reasonably than in Paris, where? from the vanity of the French, anything " the fashion" always commands an exorbitant price. (87)

Eager to demonstrate the British influence on Norwegian culture, the writer refers to Britain as the model country that the natives wish to emulate. At the same time, the French impact on the Norwegians is presented as of secondary importance and the superiority of the British culture over the French is highlighted through the absolute statement that “France or the French, do not interest the Norwegians at all”. Lowe’s statement points to the transportability of the British values beyond the framework of the British Empire with the aim of promoting Englishness as an internationally recognised value. Indeed, examining the idea of British ethnicity, Young maintains that “nineteenth-century Englishness was defined less as a set of internal characteristics attached to a particular place, than as a transportable set of values which could be transplanted and recreated anywhere in the world” (232). In addition to the more stereotypical virtues of the Norwegians, which are frequently seen in nineteenth-century travelogues, such as politeness, hospitality, honesty, innocence and patriotism, another merit of the Norse race is their love for art; this constitutes a rather unique aspect of Lowe’s travelogue, considering the common allegation of Victorian writers that the Scandinavian countries were culturally lethargic and entirely devoid of taste. Contrary to these disdainful comments on the stagnant cultural condition in the country, Lowe highlights the art-loving tendencies of every Norwegian, regardless of social rank as well as a keen interest in literature: On the table was an illustrated edition of Longfellow's poems, the gift of an English clergyman who had once enjoyed their hospitality. The

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As has already been stated, Lowe is aware of the Herderian model of nation formation, a process which is based on a country’s people, language and landscape. Her interest in Norwegian peasantry as a key element of Norwegian identity is coupled with her fascination with the Norwegian language, as is the case with Laing, Metcalfe, Baring Gould, and Oswald. Even though this fascination could be explained by the general spirit of Northernism, Lowe’s focus on Norwegian language is a crucial feature of her travel narrative. One should not overlook the fact that other British travellers happened to be Scandinavian scholars and their enthusiasm for the Norse culture coincided with their efforts to derive data for the substantiation of their research projects; yet Lowe’s interest in the language is completely spontaneous, regarded by the writer as an indispensable means for understanding the culture and its citizens. The travelogue abounds with allusions to the writer’s own effort to master the language or find similarities between the two languages. In combination with Norwegian folk elements, Lowe attempts to acquaint her reader with the Norwegian civilisation, embracing Herder’s belief that “the true soul of every nation was to be found in its folk tales and legends” (Urry 3). Lowe’s faith in Norway’s uniqueness in terms of language and the human element is seen in the following excerpts: During the dance, of course many a loving word is exchanged, and the tender feelings awakened by the girls, who are often exceedingly pretty, in the hearts of the handsome young fellows, have found a lasting expression in beautiful songs, that live in the mouth of the people, and are composed in a language which is almost pure old Norske, and abounds in delicate expressions and phrases. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that these songs have an irresistible charm for every one who is acquainted with this language. (60) This is the Norwegian peasants' way of spending Sunday afternoon, when they can manage it. Other evenings, the tired labourers would cluster round the hearth, and listen to some musical sprite among them playing the national airs on flute or violin, joining in by voice with the more familiar ones, and singing the fine old melody, "Sons of Norway," with heartfelt enthusiasm. The first verse will be a specimen of the Norske language. (47)

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By looking at these quotes, it is noticeable that Lowe has gathered all the essential components of Norwegian cultural identity, seeking to give her readers a proper image of rural Norway. Desiring to highlight the romantic version of the Norse lifestyle, the writer alludes to Norwegian folk music, which unites all the qualities which were introduced by the reader in the previous instances of the travelogue. In order to portray the Romantic dimension of Norwegian culture, Lowe chooses a popular nineteenth-century folk song called “Sons of Norway” (”Sønner av Norge”) which used to be regarded as Norway’s national song before the writing of today’s national anthem of Norway, written by Henrik Anker Bjerregaard in 1864 (whose title is “Ja, vi elsker dette landet” and is translated as “Yes, we love this country”). This episode acquires a highly symbolic function in the travelogue, given its considerable contribution to the empowerment of Norwegian national consciousness. As modern descendants of the Vikings, Norwegians are not oblivious of their rich cultural heritage, seizing every opportunity to manifest their patriotism in simple folk songs recounting the country’s lost mightiness. The wounded national feeling of the Norwegians under the Swedish rule is vividly described by Lowe; yet a significant feature of her travel narrative, as suggested in this scene, is the use of the term “Norske (Norwegian) language” and her leaving the verses of this national song completely untranslated in order for the reader to grasp the patriotic spirit of another country. With regard to the language issue in Norway, Fjågesund and Symes observe that “few Britons were able to differentiate between the DanoNorwegian used in the urban areas (Bokmål) and the rural dialects (Nynorsk) deriving from Old Norse” (259) despite the heated debate of the language issue in Norway from the very beginning of its nationalist period (1815) until its independence. In fact, most British travellers were reluctant to reflect on language particularities within the Scandinavian framework, using them exclusively for the projection of the Germanic roots of Anglo-Saxon Britain. The very fact that Lowe refers to an independent language is particularly meaningful for the strengthening of Norwegian cultural awareness in her travel narrative, doing justice to the Norwegian cause for full sovereignty. As has already been indicated, Norwegians tried to restore their national identity by reducing the impact of Danish influence on their cultural expression after their liberation of the Danish yoke. The separatist tendencies which continued after the country’s incorporation into the Swedish kingdom were mainly expressed in the acquisition of a new language. According to Einar Haugen, this desire to obliterate Danish influences led to the adoption of landsmål (meaning

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language of the land), based on the Norwegian dialects which existed in the country’s rural districts (3). A creation of a Norwegian orthographical system by a Norwegian linguist, Ivar Aasen, this dialect contributed to the distinction of the language from the other Scandinavian languages (mainly Danish and Swedish) giving a new impetus to the struggle for the formation of a separate nation. Derry maintains that “the fact that landsmål had continued to gain ground in Norway in face of the obvious disadvantages, economic as well as social, of bilingualism for a small people is indicative of the rapid growth of separatist nationalism” (268) throughout the nineteenth century. The absence of a common language with the indigenous people is usually seen by Victorian travellers as their own failure to identify with the country visited, both culturally and ideologically. In fact, language barriers can be conducive to serious misunderstandings between the two parties. Being particularly non-conforming to conventional tendencies, the writer desires to acquire a practical knowledge of the language, a process which is met with several difficulties that challenge her patience and ability to use even the basics of the language, as implied in the following excerpt: It is necessary to work hard at the Norwegian language before darting into the middle of the country, and we stayed more than a week at Christiania on purpose; not to master it grammatically, as an English savant was trying, but to pick up the principal words, and try to catch how the natives strung them together. Determined to put in practice whatever we knew, we set off at seven a.m. to Eidsvold, on the Miosen Lake, by the only piece of railway in Norway; but, alas! just as we were trying to think what the Norske for ‘Guard!’'. (31)

On another occasion, Lowe makes another important statement, pointing out that her journey to Norway would be less agreeable if she did not have to engage in the process of learning the language in order to communicate with the natives on more familiar terms. The element of irony is prevalent in her effort to familiarise herself with the language: What a pleasant thing it is not to know Norwegian thoroughly or else how uninteresting to have nothing to do but order what one wants, without the thousand little explanations and mistakes, blandishments and strokingdown of the peasantry, which make one feel quite friendly with them. (41)

In other words, the author stresses the fundamental role of a country’s language in order to have easier access to the people’s spirit, that is, its Volksseele. Lowe raises a point which Metcalfe and other Victorian travellers make in their narratives: in order to comprehend a nation, it is

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pivotal to learn the basics of its language, an attitude which is typically Herderian. Lowe’s travelogue abounds in particularities. The unconventionality of the narrative lies in the deconstruction of gender stereotypes fostered within the patriarchal world. The author does not only question the widely held view that women are incapable of undertaking a journey to a foreign territory without being attached to a male companion; she also paves the way for other women travellers’ abandonment of their private sphere in order to acquire experiences and take on roles that were reserved for men. Lowe dallies with all discriminations associated with the female sex, always comparing and contrasting herself with male travel writers with the aim of shedding light on Victorian women’s unfulfilled potential. Finally, with regard to the reconstruction of Norwegian national identity, Lowe succeeds in conveying the spiritual uproar of the natives by throwing light on the strenuous struggle of the Norwegians to achieve national recognition on the basis of the dominant Herderian theory on language, folk culture and landscape. Her effort to portray the Arcadian aspect of Old Norse culture is certainly associated with Britain’s own nation-building endeavours through the Northernist theory of AngloScandinavian connection. The originality in Lowe’ approach to Norway is observed in her emphasis on the national identity of the country visited without evoking the process of othering, frequently traced in nineteenthcentury British travel literature.

PART V: ICELANDIC UTOPIA

CHAPTER ONE SABINE BARING-GOULD: ICELAND ITS SCENES AND SAGAS

The Reverend Sabine Baring Gould (1834-1924) was a mid-Victorian British traveller, novelist, painter and Scandinavian scholar. He was named after his uncle Edward Sabine1, a famous Arctic explorer who became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1818 and took part in Edward Parry’s Arctic expedition in search of the Northern passage (Kirk-Smith 5). Sabine Baring Gould received private tuition because his family frequently travelled around the world. Ordained a curate in 1864 at age 30, he served in several parishes in Devonshire. His work includes different types of literary genres: collections of folk songs from Devon and Cornwall such as Songs and Ballads of the West (1889-91), A Garland of Country Songs (1895), English Folk Songs for Schools (1907), popular ghost stories (The Lives of the Saints, 1872) and folkloric studies about lycanthropy such as The Book of Werewolves (1865). He wrote more than 30 novels, some of which were based on Viking imagery such as Siegfried: A Romance founded on Wagner’s Operas (1904), The Icelander’s Sword (1893), short stories, poetry such as The Silver Store (1868), The Turk and the Tory (1876) sermons (Sermons to Children (1879), The Mystery of Suffering (1877). Moreover, he translated Icelandic sagas (Grettir the Outlaw, 1890) and German stories (Ernestine, 1879) into English. He also produced various travelogues from his journeys in Western and Northern Europe such as In Troubadour Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc (1890), Iceland its Scenes and Sagas (1862), Germany: Present and Past (1879). Aside from his collections of folk songs and extensive studies on superstition, he also served as the Secretary of Dartmoor Exploration Committee and in that capacity he organised several archaeological digs in Grimspound, a site located in Dartmoor (Butler 136-37). 1

General Sir Edward Sabine (1788-1883) was an Irish explorer, astronomer, geophysicist and scientific adviser to British admiralty.

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Raised in a family of frequent travellers and explorers, imbued with the theories about the Northern Passage, and endowed with a flair for languages, hagiography and music, Baring Gould was inevitably intrigued by the Northern Utopia which was well established as a travel concept in mid-Victorian Britain, and the gradual change in the image of Iceland which, according to Sumarliði Isleifsson, developed into “the Hellas of the North” (156). The ideological construction of this island by Baring Gould is made obvious in his travel account. Having visited Iceland in the summer of 1861, he is anxious to identify in contemporary Icelandic landscape and people essential Viking traits which are extensively pictured in the medieval saga tradition of the Nordic island. The discovery of the Germanic roots of the Britons in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and the subsequent emergence of racial theories connected to the construction of Britishness have certainly influenced the writer, who was anxious to witness the distant past of his native country. Baring Gould attempted to do so through his assumption of a twofold role: on the one hand, he assumes the role of the traveller and on the other hand, he functions in the capacity of the story teller, attempting to convey the spirit of the old saga world to his company of fellow travellers. This dual role is omnipresent in his travelogue and is also made explicit by Baring Gould; the writer himself interrupts the depiction of his “adventurous ride” in Iceland through the narration of sagas, in an effort to link the country’s illustrious past with factual information on its present state. This tendency can be traced in his numerous references to sagas such as The Outlaws Isle, Thorgils Nursling, and The Red Rovers, translated from the rich medieval literary heritage of the island. Baring Gould’s attitude is typical of a mid-Victorian travel writer seeking to justify the Anglo-Norse cultural connection. Similarly to Metcalfe and Lowe, Baring Gould identifies in the country’s landscape vestiges of the Old Norse culture. Yet unlike these two travel writers, Baring Gould does not seek to reconstruct Scandinavian identity through his interaction with the country’s peasantry but he mainly delves into the island’s past literary production and history. In that sense, he is more in tune with Laing’s antiquarian outlook on Scandinavia. By setting his focus on the Viking ancestors of the Icelanders, Baring Gould complies with the increasing Victorian faith in Britain’s Scandinavian ancestry. In the light of this nation-building theory, Baring Gould wishes to focus on the Icelandic Eddaic tradition, convinced as he is that the island’s literary tradition should be the point of reference both for the country’s proper introduction to the Victorian reader and for its ideological reconstruction

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as the core of the Nordic civilisation. The author’s purpose for writing his travelogue on Iceland is clearly stated in the preface of his book: I purposed examining scenes famous in Saga, and filling a portfolio with water-colour sketches” […] “The reader must bear this in mind, otherwise he may be disappointed at finding in these pages little new matter of scientific interest. (xiii)

Drawing upon this statement of purpose, one realises that the writer’s interest in the island lies in the country’s landscapes associated with the old saga tradition. This prefatory statement accounts for the author’s aforementioned twofold role as a story teller and traveller. Aside from his two capacities, he embarks on his journey to Iceland as a painter in order to provide his readers with accurate water-colour sketches. Similarly, the writer entitles his travel narrative in a way which is indicative of his aims: the title Iceland Scenes and Sagas obviously points to Baring Gould’s literary and pictorial ambitions with regard to his travel destination. The contemporary image of Iceland is in close association with its scenes and sagas, both conveyed by the writer through his narrative voice and artistic skills. It is worth mentioning that Baring Gould’s wish to use his drawing skills to accompany his narration with the appropriate sketches is a common technique in nineteenth-century travelogues when technological advancement (mainly photography) was not yet disseminated. The pictorial presentation of the various scenes encountered in the writer’s travelogue is also made for practical reasons. As Mills has already highlighted, nineteenth-century travellers were preoccupied with the general accusation that their travelogues were mere products of falsification and therefore, “they adopted strategies to counter this, such as including maps, photographs and even testimonials” (113), with the aim of documenting their travel experiences and safeguarding authenticity. Even though Baring Gould is undoubtedly aware of the possibility that he may be accused of exaggeration in his descriptions of the wild Icelandic beauty, he claims that his book will provide his readers with little new matter of scientific interest. In other words, he aims at distancing himself from other travel writers who ventured into the Icelandic “wilderness” as explorers, providers of authoritative sources of scientific knowledge and adventure heroes (Pearson and Pope 10), subverting the main eighteenth (as well as nineteenth) –century masculine attributes of male travellers. In that light, Baring Gould questions the strict perception of male writing as a mere reproduction of masculinity. In particular, he adopts a narrative voice which is placed in the middle: he does not project himself as the typical male, who puts his life at risk in order to tame the wild elements of the

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“terra incognita”. His principal intention is to throw light on the historic significance of the saga landscapes he comes across, supplementing them with aesthetic and literary reproductions of the sites that he visits, a fact which enhances the originality of his travel account. What is more, the preface of his travel narrative signals the Victorian breach from eighteenth-century tradition; in other words, the author views the travel destination as a source of artistic inspiration. Baring Gould’s attitude thus overlaps with this shift from the scientific ideals of the Grand Tour to a profound spiritual connection of the traveller to the place visited, treating the process of travelling as artistic-literary inspiration. In Baring Gould’s case, this connection is noticed through his introductory emphasis on the historical dimension of the island, and his labelling of the ideal target reader as the antiquarian who wishes to immerse himself into the medieval saga tradition in Iceland: “the antiquarian will be glad to obtain an insight into the habits and customs of Icelanders in the tenth and eleventh centuries” (xiii). In that way, the author who wants to make it clear that his travelogue is not meant for the average Victorian reader, desiring to read about whichever foreign country, but is rather directed to readership that is already familiar with the mid-nineteenth century concept of Iceland as the Nordic Hellas, that is, a Nordic culture which equaled, and was possibly superior to, the Greco-Roman civilisation. Due to the writer’s extensive stress on the Icelandic literary production of the Middle Ages, C. Bickford Dickinsson refers to the travelogue as a “remarkable holiday trip to Iceland in 1861, which proved to be a saga of itself” (39), in order to elucidate the writer’s aim to travel to a saga stead, and link its barren landscapes with the stories narrated in the sages, thus depicting his journey more as a pilgrimage to the cradle of Northern Europe. Thus, his attitude is related to the common presentation of journeys as pilgrimages in the medieval travel framework; according to Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, “the pilgrimage was the dominant medieval framework for longdistance, non-utilitarian travel” (24), the latter being what eighteenthcentury travels mainly stood for: exploration, commercial undertakings or scientific research. Baring Gould’s elitist approach to travel literature indicates the fact that Northernist travellers, as well as their readership, needed to be well equipped with the necessary cultural background of the North. In that respect, his erudition reminds the reader of Metcalfe’s familiarisation with the Nordic cultural context reflected in his fluency in Icelandic as well as in his fascination with the Scandinavian folklore and the sagas. In addition to the view of the travel destination as a journey to the past through the sagas, and to the writer’s assumption of a narrative role not

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akin to the adventurous type, the originality of Baring Gould’s travel narrative lies in its intertextuality. Rejecting the strictly authoritative stance that male travellers tend to adopt in their accounts, the author of this travelogue does not hesitate to provide his readers with the list of all available travel texts written about Iceland up to his time (ranging from 1772 to 1868), including texts in other languages besides English such as Ida Pfeiffer’s influential travelogue Reise nach dem Skand, Norden, Carl Vogt’s Nordenfahrt von Dr. Bema (both in German), Olafsen and Povelsen’s Reise igjennem Island (in Danish) . The author’s reference to other travelogues, regardless of gender and country of origin, is of major significance. For one thing, Baring- Gould’s mention of other texts evidences the reliance of English travel literature on translations from other texts. Therefore, he challenges the supposed British monopoly on the field of travel literature, and the stock assumption that British travellers were the first venturing into the unknown and the unexplored, a selfaggrandising attitude which is frequently observed in nineteenth-century travel literature and presumably reflects a masculine approach to the travel destination. Obviously, the author’s narrative approach challenges the stock idea that “nineteenth-century travel writers often used sexual imagery to create and sustain the heroic stature of many male explorers and travelers who wrote of conquering and penetrating dangerous, unknown cities” (Blunt 28). This adventure hero position, commonly witnessed in male writing, is rare in Baring Gould’s text. For another thing, the writer’s reference to a woman writer (Ida Pfeiffer) corresponds with the increasing presence of female writing in the field of travel literature after the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a phenomenon which shows that women were more and more allowed to “pry into” male territories such as travels. In addition, one could draw a parallel between his narratorial position and that of Bunbury and Lowe who fashion themselves as adventure heroines; male travellers do not always seek to stress the masculinist aspect in their voyages. In that sense, stereotypical narrative positions can also be challenged by male travellers, as indicatd in Baring Gould’s approach to travelling. Despite its unconventional narrative voice, there are several instances in Iceland Its Scenes and Sagas that point to Baring Gould´s intention to “other” the country visited, an attitude which obviously does not depart from the average mid-Victorian writer’s treatment of foreign cultures and peoples. As Laing and Metcalfe have already noted, mid-Victorian travel literature is beset with preoccupations about the role of race and the rising

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Nothernist allegations that encouraged Victorian writers to attach extreme importance to the old northern values, that is, “imperial power, mercantile prosperity, technological progress, social stability and justice” (Wawn 40). The alleged racial connection between the Britons and the Icelanders, firmly held by Northernist writers such as Laing, Metcalfe and Stephens, is also brought to the foreground in the travelogue in question. A Northern scholar himself, Baring-Gould is eager to trace plausible similarities between Victorian Britain and contemporary Iceland. Yet the degenerate aspect of nineteenth-century Iceland disrupts the writer’s aim, a fact which is visible both in his portrayal of the Icelanders and in his description of the barrenness of the Icelandic land. Regarding the physical features of the Icelandic population, Baring-Gould emphasises the sturdy and pleasant appearance of the Icelanders and their phlegmatic disposition, thus invoking the physical attributes associated with the Nordic people, and their laziness, a supposed inherent property of Arctic populations: The natives of Iceland are tall and slender, remarkable for Charac- the brightness of their complexion, and the profusion of their hair. This is generally light brown, but occasionally red or black. The hair of the children is white, but it darkens with age. The eyes are, in almost all cases, blue or grey: those of the women are bright and beautiful. The girls have graceful figures, which appear to advantage, as they hold themselves very upright, both when walking and sitting. Their features are not regular, but soft and pleasing. In character, the people are phlegmatic, conservative to a fault, and desperately indolent. They have a peculiar knack of doing what has to be done in the clumsiest manner imaginable. (xxxvii)

Baring-Gould clearly seeks to link the physical characteristics of the local people to their Viking ancestors, through his references to their fair complexion and powerful features. Moreover, the auhor’s discourse is interspersed with the Teutonist spirit, the mid-Victorian racial theory which sought to unify Germanic people with respect to their racial rather than cultural heritage. Based on this theory, the “indisputable” qualities of the Nordic race were brought to the foreground in order to highlight Nordic supremacy. In contrast to Herder’s theory on the Volksgeist, according to which language and folk culture are conducive to the nationbuilding process of a country, the Nordicist theory supports a more raceoriented outlook on the definition of a nation. As Grant and Fairfield Osborn have noted, it is crucial to consider national amalgamation “by the physical and psychical (sic) characters of the inhabitants of Europe instead of by their political groupings or by their spoken language” (3). Taking this theory into consideration, one might easily draw the link between Baring-Gould’s emphasis on the Nordic aspect of the Icelanders and the

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ideal Aryan features that Teutonism insisted upon; according to Grant and Osborn by contrast to the low stature of the Southern races, a member of the Nordic race is “the white men par excellence, characterized by certain unique specializations, namely wavy brown or blond hair and blue, gray or light brown eyes, fair skin […] associated with a great stature and a long skull” (79). Drawing upon this description, Baring-Gould firmly believes in the Nordic connection between the Britons and the Icelanders at a racial level, despite the ironic comments at the end of this fragment, which also indicate the writer’s desire to present contemporary Icelanders as a desperately indolent and clumsy people, and to emphasise their backward character. This attitude proves that the author does not avoid “othering” the natives, a fact which allows us to conclude that he occasionally assumes the role of the imperial beholder in his contact with the natives. When he deems that their poverty, isolation or submissiveness do not accord with the idealistic image of the Vikings as entertained by the Victorians, he immediately alludes to the Icelandic people’s subaltern status. One should also juxtapose Baring Gould’s early concerns about the issue of race with the previous traveller’s extensive focus on the Volksgeist of Sweden and Norway, touching upon issues such as language, literature and folk beliefs rather than indulging into a racial discourse. A similar concern over the issue of race is also seen in the introductory part of the account, when the author wishes to racially define the Icelandic people. Interested in the racial delineation of the Icelanders as he is, Baring-Gould points to the Celtic and Viking roots of the Icelandic nation that set it apart from other Scandinavian countries with purely “Germanic” blood”. He states that: After the settlement by the Norse, the island was visited by Scotch and Irish, who occasionally chose it for a place of abode. Gaelic and Erse prisoners were taken by the Vikings, and brought as thralls to the new country, so that a certain infusion of foreign blood remains in Iceland. This accounts for the introduction of such names as Njal, Kormak, Kjartan, and Erlendr, or “the Irishman”. (xxxix)

In this extract, the author refers to the first phases of the colonisation of the island by Irish and Viking (Norwegian) settlers. Baring-Gould’s presentation of the Icelanders as a “mongrel nation” of Viking and Celtic descent is of great significance, given the anti-Celtic spirit that prevailed in Victorian Britain and the theories of racial purity emerging throughout the nineteenth century. The Anglo-Saxon hypothesis which brought together the English and the Scandinavians on multiple levels was mainly built upon this Saxon-Celt antithesis.

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Considering the aforementioned assumptions, Baring-Gould constructs his discourse on the Icelanders by applying cultural and racial criteria. On the one hand, the Icelandic nation is praised for its culture, as it has excelled in the field of letters in spite of the country’s climatic adversities which triggered the issue of the country’s cultural inferiority in the past. In other words, he subverts the theory of climate to its core by reverting the country’s northern geographical condition into a positive attribute. On the other hand, the “hybrid” nation of the Icelanders, constitutes a fusion of the “noblest” (Nordic) and “lowest” (Celt) races, accounting for the contradictory elements intertwined with their national identity; Icelanders are of great stature and physical beauty, phlegmatic as their British fellow Saxons, but they are also accused of idleness because of their remote Celtic background, an accusation which is indisputably based on the view of the Icelanders as a racially mixed nation. It appears that the question of racial purity affects the writer’s judgment of the islanders, given the importance bestowed on that issue in nineteenth-century texts. Going back to the ideas about race formulated by Grant and Osborn, the “higher” races must prevent hybridity because racial mixture could contaminate the superior qualities of the Nordic race, a concern which led to the eugenics movement in anthropology and literature. Grant and Osborn postulate that the higher races “are highly unstable and when mixed with generalized or primitive characters tend to disappear […]; the result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the more ancient, generalized and lower type” (13). Although this is not explicitly stated by Baring-Gould, it can be inferred in the contradictory view of the Icelanders as a primitive nation with magnificent literary skills or an extremely passive people who comes from a conquering race such as the Vikings. In addition to his presentation of the Icelanders as a racially mixed population, the writer resorts to another stock view of the Icelandic nation as a highly superstitious people, prone to idolatry and witchery, as the following sentence suggests: “The spot is shown where witches were burned; the last who suffered for this crime was Halldorr Finnbogason, in 1685” (68). Karen LanggǗrd maintains that the representation of other European countries as the Other underlies British self-image, which is presented as “unambiguously superior to other Europeans and to all other Others for that matter” (322). This British supremacy, according to LanggǗrd, is usually detected in the construction of the “pagan Other” and the concomitant contrast between paganism and civilisation. In the case of Iceland, it is inevitable that it is associated with witchery and the practicing of the dark arts, since the Arctic regions, characteristically labelled as the northern peripheries of Europe, were always taken to be

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with the Occult (Omberg 76). Baring-Gould’s reference to the existence of witches on the island is also connected to his overall plan to depict the country as a Northern Utopia, unspoiled by the evils of industrialisation. The projection of the country as a Pagan Other, despite its Protestant faith, ascribes to the island an exotic dimension inextricably related to its remote location and long distance from the main nineteenth-century centres of European civilisation. Sumarliði Isleifsson claims that the utopian (and dystopian) descriptions of eighteenth and nineteenth-century travel narratives overwhelmingly reproduced the image of Iceland as a savage Other because the country met the necessary criteria for this type of Othering; “distance-center- periphery is another crucial concept in this context and also closely related to the term island. Increased distance from the cultural centers of Europe entailed heightened […] mostly negative, exotic and otherness” (112). In their travelogues, Metcalfe and Laing are equally concerned with the existence of superstitions amongst the peasants as well as with the remaining vestiges of witchcraft in the rural areas. This is the reason why they provide their readership with extensive information on Norwegian witches (signekoner) and sorcerers (trollkarl) in support of the view that Scandinavian countries maintain their pagan beliefs as a result of their scarce ties with other nations; additionally, they frequently compare old women to practicioners of the black arts. The description of the country as the pagan, savage Other, dramatically contrasted to Baring-Gould’s attempt to present this Nordic nation as the land of the sagas, is also obvious in another extract of his travelogue in which the writer emphasises the Icelanders’ inclination to heathenism: “Christianity overthrew the worship of Odin, but, like the polypus, though cut to pieces, he revived in each morsel an entire Nick, to frequent the waters throughout the north of Europe” (148). One cannot overlook the strict Protestant background of the author, whose effort to link the Viking imagery of Eddaic literature to contemporary Iceland is in juxtaposition with his religious capacity on the island. Baring-Gould’s emphasis on the image of Odin implies that paganism has survived the christianisation of the natives. In spite of the demonisation of paganism in Victorian Britain, it should not be neglected that Baring-Gould’s allusion to the surviving elements of the old Viking lore is also provided as an attractive attribute of the country visited. The Icelandic Utopia, manifested in the nineteenthcentury, relied to a considerable extent on the old northern deities, and as Wawn underscores, “Oðinn produced a variety of responses […] the final Victorian poetic word properly belongs to the old north’s greatest pagan leader” (206-7). Therefore, despite its indisputable Othering of Iceland, Odinism is firmly associated with the writer’s attempt to revive the saga

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myths in its place of origin. Thus, his capacity as a British pastor is overshadowed by his roles as a northern scholar and story-teller, intending to convey an Icelandic Utopia to his readers. Another means through which Baring Gould’s text portrays Icelandic Utopia as savage is the comparison he draws between the geophysical peculiarities of the island (geysers) and the infernal world in Dante’s illustrious work. As remarked by the author: “this myth gives you a notion of the place: all is horrible and gloomy. You are reminded again and again of the scenes in Dante's Inferno. This land is magnificent too! for there still lingers majesty about the handiwork of the fallen Angel” (42). The depiction of the island as a hellish world is emblematic of premodern and eighteenth-century views of the North. Elaborating on the issue of early modern Utopia, Chordas refers to the element of grotesque in the delineation of Utopian zones, claiming that “the grotesque, exemplified in descriptions of bizarre creatures, is a feature common to premodern travel writing, the creation of an imaginary ‘other’ on the margins of the known” (40). Clearly, Chordas’ definition of Utopia as a locus which abounds with supernatural elements applies to the overall image of the Icelandic land as an earthly Hell, whose heathen inhabitants are not fully “domesticated”. At the same time though, Baring Gould, raised in a society that favoured both the materialistic and the functional aspect of life, also dismisses certain allegations, linked to Icelandic folk stories about the trolls: “in all probability, the Trolls of old Icelandic historical romance were nothing more than ruffians who lived in dens and caves of the earth, robbing bonders and preying on wayfarers” (89). Thus his travel narrative involves both eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century norms on the construction of the Other. Obviously, this links to the two contrasting attitudes analysed earlier in the text, that is, to Baring Gould’s belief in the savage and enlightened character of Icelandic culture. Regarding the depiction of the local people by Baring-Gould, one can witness the contradictory perspective from which the author tends to reflect on the islanders. Anxious to detect all elements of the ancient Vikings in the contemporary aspect of the natives, the writer provides the reader with details on the national character of this small nation pointing to both a utopian and dystopian dimension. It is noteworthy that, notwithstanding his infatuation with the Icelandic sagas, the author ascribes to the indigenous people characteristics which do not accord with the overall exaltation of the island as a Nordic Hellas, identifying them with either the concept of the noble savage or that of total savagery which reaches the proportions of barbarism. The following extract illustrates the

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writer’s view of the local people when he interacts with them to a greater extent than he wished: The town is full of idle men, who follow the stranger whithersoever he goes -provided he does not walk too fast for them. They hang about the stores as thickly and stupidly as flies round a sugar-barrel; they stream into the shops after me, throng so closely round me that I can hardly move, listen to what I say, eye me from head to foot, ask the price of every article of clothing I have on. (35).

The writer accuses the natives in more than one respect by characterising them as indolent, stupid, repulsive, and indiscreet. In other words, he uses adjectives which enhance their projection as a primitive nation. The author is evidently affected by the theory of climate, which, according to Waldemar Zacharasiewicz, was often invoked “to underscore definite prejudices” (39) about the capacities of the Nordic nations. Instead of employing the concept of the noble savage, the writer emphasises savagery to a significant extent, projecting the poverty-ridden crown in Reykjavik as a repulsive mass, posing a threat to his privacy and “noble” existence. Baring-Gould’s condescending attitude is reminiscent of what Blunt describes as “the popular distance between a ‘civilised’ traveler/ observer and ‘savage’ native” (66). Clearly, the writer’s discourse is nuanced with colonial traits; indeed the concept of the imperial beholder certainly comes to the foreground when the writer complains to his readers that the Icelanders flock around him to “eye him from head to foot”. However, what Baring-Gould depicts as indiscretion and barbarism on the natives’ part is linked to Ingrid Kuczinsky’s point that becoming an object for the gaze of the local inhabitants obviously “enhanced the selfperception” of the travellers “thereby the hierarchically structured distance between the traveler and the others was not endangered but maintained” (47). Pratt’s thesis on the conflict between the traveller and the travellee also applies to Baring-Gould’s interaction with the natives, perpetuating British cultural supremacy over the inferiority of the Other. As has already been stated, Sabine Baring-Gould attaches significant attention to the saga poetry of the country visited. The writer does not employ the medieval tradition of the Icelanders in order to shed light on the manners and mores of the contemporary Icelandic society. Instead of focusing on the present state of the island, Baring-Gould demonstrates a greater interest in the ancient Viking lore of the island, which is vividly depicted in the old Eddaic poetry. Unlike other travellers who prioritised the depiction of the local people as noble savages and used the sagas as the Icelandic people’s contribution to European civilisation, the author

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obviously feels that the utopian dimension of Iceland does not rest on its people. He views the indigenous population in a loose connection to their oral tradition by dissociating the contemporary Icelandic society from its culture. One can notice in his travelogue that the sagas tend to occupy a greater part in his narration than the presentation of the country’s political situation in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, as it has been explained, Baring-Gould’s insistence on the significance of the sagas, and his depreciating attitude towards nineteenth-century Iceland, emanate from the Icelanders’ own view of their country as a decadent nation in total despair, because of the traumatic past endeavours to break away from the Danish rule. Consequently, Baring-Gould’s emphasis on the past literary tradition of the Icelandic nation mainly overlaps with the Icelanders’ retrospective glance at their dynamic past; Gunnar Karlsson mentions the strenuous efforts of the Icelandic Literary Society founded in 1816 (Hið Íslenska Bókmenntafélag) “mainly with the purpose of publishing books, both medieval and modern, in Icelandic” (200). There is little doubt that Baring-Gould, a significant Scandinavian scholar, was fully aware of the increasingly popular Romantic Icelandic Movement and its leading figure, Jón Sigurðsson2, who was well-known to the British audience, as well, thanks to his strong ties with British intellectuals (mainly William Morris). Karlsson points out that Sigurðsson gave new impetus to the Icelanders’ demand for further autonomy by emphasising his country’s claim to independence on the basis of the medieval manuscripts that questioned the island’s annexation to the Danish Empire, he thus used “a medieval document as evidence of the political rights of Iceland” (210). Intrigued by the historical character of the sagas and the potential use of this historicity by the Icelanders in their struggle for an autonomous state, Baring-Gould incessantly refers to Icelandic literary tradition so as to illuminate the nationalist potential of the Icelanders in the nineteenth century. According to Karlsson, throughout the nineteenth-century, “there was no Danish speaking population in Iceland” and “Iceland had a good historical tradition for nurturing 19th-century nationalism” (36-37). The Icelandic claim to independence, made in conjunction with Icelandic medieval tradition, might account for Baring-Gould’s faith in the powerful function of the sagas as part of the country’s national awakening. The “indisputable” historical value of the sagas, as the earlier remnants of 2

Jón Sigurðsson (June 17, 1811 – December 7, 1879) was an Icelandic scholar, philosopher and politician.

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Icelandic history, is accentuated by the writer in the prefatory part of his travel account: They are mentioned also in songs and annals, the latter being the earliest written records which belong to the history of the island, while the former were more easily remembered, from the construction of the verse. Much passes for history in other lands on far slighter grounds, and many a story in Thucydides or Tacitus, or even in Clarendon or Hume, is believed on evidence not one-tenth part so trustworthy as that which supports the narratives of these Icelandic story-tellers of the eleventh century. That with occurrences of undoubted truth, and minute particularity as to time and place, as to dates and distance, are intermingled wild superstitions on several occasions, will startle no reader of the smallest judgment. (xv)

Aside from the historical dimension of the sagas, the setting of which offers significant information on the country’s medieval sociopolitical condition, it is clear that Baring-Gould wishes to present this saga land as a Northern Hellas. Hence his reference to Thucydides and Tacitus, a Greek and a Roman historian respectively, whose historical work was highly esteemed by the Greco-Roman and eighteenth-century classicism. The comparison drawn between the Icelandic chronicles and the ancient historical sources of internationally recognised historians reveals the confidence that Baring-Gould shows in the reliability of the sagas as the ultimate historical records of Northern civilisation. It also displays the importance he attaches to the authenticity of the sagas as historical sources, considering the significance of Thucydides as a historiographer for the Victorians. As Alexandra Lianeri puts it, “what is the subject of modern histories of antiquity, when Thucydides is not only the key mediator of ancient historical data, but also the presumed father of history writing?” (4). Yet Baring-Gould evidently feels that ancient Greek hegemony in historiography can directly be challenged by the saga literature which may not be equally ancient but is certainly less affected by the detrimental effect of time: later on in his travel account, the author purposefully states that I have mentioned only a few instances out of many, to show the reader the authority we have for regarding these stories as historical. But these are not the only testimonies to the truth of the narrative; there are geographical details in the Saga which will bear the closest scrutiny. (274)

Clearly, the writer’s attitude typifies nineteenth-century travellers’ view of Iceland in contrast to eighteenth-century travelogues. Isleifsson underlines this shift from the dystopian to the utopian conceptualisation of

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the Iceland because of the need to incorporate culturally the country into the nation-building movements of Western countries as well as “the strong demand for Nordic cultural heritage in the 19th century” (Isleifsson 156). In that respect, Baring-Gould’s fascination with the sagas is not only related to their recognition as an indispensable piece of evidence about the island’s status as a separate cultural entity. Sagas are also employed by the author as a core element inextricably linked to the Volksgeist, the Herderian concept of nationhood. According to Herder’s view, “folklore, myths, folksongs, dances, rituals, customs are vital clues to a nation’s ‘collective personality’, its political sense of affinity” (Barnard 150). From this perspective, the forging of the Icelandic nation is contingent on its oral tradition, the sagas, and its dissemination across generations so as to strengthen the national feeling. The author’s tendency to attach such an important role to the sagas as national symbols must be seen in the light of the National Romantic movements in the early nineteenth century. Bernd Henningsen’s argument that “all identity constructors of Romanticism sought the “Volksseele” (people’s soul) in traditional mythology, history, the oral narratives of the peoples and in literature” (100) could not be more relevant than in the case of the Icelanders, who attempted to put the Danish rule into question through a cultural revolution. The sagas are not only affiliated to the idea of national awakening but they are also treated by the writer as the underlying factor of Icelandic patriotism under a threat of a potential Danification. In his travelogue, Baring-Gould relates an episode which reflects Icelandic patriotism in relation to the saga tradition: I bought here some MSS. of considerable interest from a native who was reduced to great poverty, and only parted reluctantly with the volumes. “These Sagas,” said he, “are our joy; without them our long winters would be blanks. You may have these books, but, believe me, it is prava necessitas alone which forces me to part with them.” As he spoke, the tears came into his eyes, poor fellow! ”. (225)

What strikes the author’s (as well as the reader’s) attention is the reluctance with which the poor Icelander parts with the books despite his impoverished state. Wishing to intertwine Icelandic patriotism with the sagas, Baring Gould portrays the Icelander as a proud man whose tormented existence depends on his country’s past. Living in a desolate island, frequently tried by natural disasters, the Icelander’s sole joy are the sagas which narrate the distant, positive past. Eager to portray the pride of the Icelandic nation in its cultural heritage, the writer transforms a simple transaction between the Icelander and himself into a symbolic action, in which he portrays himself as the tourist who appropriates and objectifies

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the most “sacred aspect” of Icelandic civilisation, reducing the native and his books to a mere commodity. The Icelander is presented as a metaphor for the island’s decadence. In addition to the historical and nation-building properties of the sagas, both of which are connected to the Herderian notion of the Volksseele, the writer seems to focus on the oral narratives of the Icelanders in order to stress his own role as a story-teller. As has already been claimed, the writer does not adopt a conventionally masculine attitude towards his voyage to the unknown country, that is, the role of the adventure hero. Given his capacity as an historian, Scandinavian scholar and translator, Baring-Gould is eager to assume the role of the omniscient narrator, attempting to bridge the cultural gap between Iceland and the Western world. For this reason he tends to juxtapose himself with his fellow travellers, Mr Briggs and an American traveller, both described in materialistic terms. The sagas provide him with the necessary opportunity to excel, not as a daring traveller but as a Northern scholar who is capable of transmitting the Icelandic spirit to his compatriots, thus adopting an empowered position in his travel narrative: ‘I shall be glad to comply with your request’ I answered, ‘as I wish much to introduce you to my hero Grettir, and it is necessarily that you should know something about him before visiting the scenes of his great deeds. Tell us first where do you find any records of him? In the Chretla a Saga composed, or rather, I should say, committed to writing, in the thirteenth century’. (8)

Besides Baring-Gould’s emphasis on his status as a well-informed traveller, the author wishes to draw the distinction between the role of the traveller and the tourist, a difference frequently stressed in the travelogues from mid-Victorian travel literature onwards, as also evidenced in Lowe’s narrative in which she represents her countrymen as invaders rather than travellers interested in the country visited. Wawn observes that “for a century and more European travel had been a serious business. It involved exhaustive preparatory reading; travellers needed to be well versed on all the famous sites and […] feel all the right feelings at each location” (284). Baring Gould’s erudition in relation to Iceland’s medieval literature, and the ignorance of his fellow travellers imply this polarity between the traveller (embodied by the author himself) and the tourists (his fellows), who cannot feel the spiritual dimension of a voyage to this ancient Viking land. Baring-Gould also chooses story-telling as a narrative position because this narrative style coincides with the epic character of the saga poetry. According to Lars Lönnroth, Vesteinn Olason, and Anders Piltz:

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Storytelling in the form of mythical-heroic sagas was a customary form of entertainment at festive occasions to medieval Iceland, and that priests as well as farmers could be expected to perform at such occasions. It would also appear that these narratives typically dealt with Viking adventures, were composed in a mixture of prose and poetry, and that it was a matter of controversy within the audience whether or not the stories contained any historical truth. (497)

Given this statement, one could understand that the travel writer purposefully opts for this narratorial position because he wishes to identify with the main conventions attached to saga poetry, that is, the constant blending of prose with poetry, reality with fiction. In doing so, he draws an analogy between his own writing and the ancient manuscripts, a tendency which highlights once again his “omniscience”. Apart from his empowered placement in his travel account as a storyteller, the author centres his attention on the sagas because of the midnineteenth century trend in British literature, imbued with the Viking imagery and the spirit of the dominating Northernist hypothesis on the Anglo-Icelandic connection. It must be noted that the author’s work, employed as the stepping stone for late-Victorians who undertook the same trip to Iceland, is in close connection to the Northern tradition established by Sir Walter Scott. The work of this early nineteenth -century writer firstly set the trend for a more systematic research on the importance of the sagas in the forging of Britain as a Germanic nation. Wawn notices that Scott “offered British readers their first opportunity to engage with the world of Viking-age sea-kings” (61). In the travelogue Iceland its Scenes and Sagas, this mid-Victorian fascination with the old Viking lore is detected in Baring-Gould’s choice to structure his account both as a historical novel and a modern narrative of the island, hence the writer’s tendency to combine the fictional with the realistic in the narration of sagas with a simultaneous description of his own experiences during his stay on the island. Evidently, Northernist antiquarians, such as the author of the travelogue in question, treated the writing of sagas in modern English as a step towards a continuation of the old Eddaic tradition, signalling the role of Britain as the contemporary cradle of Nordic civilisation after the decadence of its Icelandic precursor. Baring-Gould dwells extensively upon the issue of language, drawing a link between the sagas, the Old Norse language and modern English language. His approach to language is certainly related to his general attempt to draw the reader’s attention to the Anglo-Icelandic kinship in terms of history, folklore and language revolving around the Herderian

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concept of the Volksgeist. His understanding of the language issue in Iceland is firmly associated with a people’s political and national culture. Having preserved its linguistic purity, excluding the Danish influence to a considerable extent, Icelandic language was venerated by Victorian philologists such as Baring Gould and Metcalfe. As has already been argued, Baring-Gould attaches great significance to the distinct features of the Icelandic culture when it comes to language, history and literature because Icelanders are likely to forge a strong national identity, meeting the necessary requirements set by the Herderian model of nationhood. The originality in Baring-Gould’s travel account lies in his status as a translator and speaker of the Icelandic language in the same way that Metcalfe is relatively fluent in Norwegian in the previous chapter. Being familiar with the Icelandic language, Baring-Gould does not feel so alien to the Icelandic people, providing the reader with saga specimens and conversing with them in a number of occasions, in spite of the fact that he does not feel particularly confident about his proficiency in the Icelandic language, as the following extract suggests: I give these specimens of the Sagas to the world with great diffidence, as I am by no means proficient in the Icelandic tongue. I have worked at it for three or four years, and have arrived at the conclusion that both language and literature require the devotion of a lifetime for their proper mastery. The language is full of obscure idioms, and to these there is no tolerable dictionary. (xvi)

In the travel account Iceland its Scenes and Sagas, Baring-Gould also chooses to trace the Anglo-Saxon linguistic past in the runic inscriptions found in Old Icelandic churches. Being a meticulous Scandinavian scholar and having taken part in several archeological excavations in his native country, the author is anxious to touch upon the Northern antiquities, and in particular on their main piece of evidence, the Viking Runes. There is, in fact, an incident in his narrative which suggests that the author is in continuous search of Runes in order to corroborate the reputation of Iceland as a historical storehouse. As described by Baring-Gould: “the church of Grenjatharstathr — pronounce that who can! is particularly interesting. There are Runes in the graveyard which I copied, rubbing them with a German sausage, as I was unprovided with heel- ball” (194). The author’s interest in the runic inscriptions can be attributed to the midVictorian group of scholars who sought to verify and keep record of Icelandic (and Anglo-Saxon) history by setting their focus on the Runes as the sole remnant of the ancient Viking civilisation. According to Barton, “Nordic antiquity exercised a powerful enchantment” mainly because this

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antiquity was placed “beyond the bounds of the Graeco-Roman canon” (3). Taking into consideration the nation-building properties that Herder tended to ascribe to language, one might comprehend why the discovery of the runic alphabet is met with such enthusiasm by Northern scholars, wishing to distance themselves from the rigid neoclassical spirit of the late eighteenth-century. As a consequence, the language issue, and in particular the stones carved with the runic alphabet, changed the long-lasting impression that the North was the epitome of barbarism, being devoid of any evidence which could indicate its contribution to European civilisation. The discovery of Northern antiquities related to the ancient Viking language also contributed to the change in the mapping of the North, because the linguistic theories that emerged from these systematic studies led to a decline of the concept of the wide North associated with the lingering ideas of “Renaissance Humanism, inspired by a distaste for Gothic barbarism and by a reverence for classical Antiquity” (Thom 212). Baring-Gould’s firm belief in the essential contribution of the Old Norse literature and language to the cultural amalgamation of the Germanic world comes again to the fore in another extract of his travelogue. Upon entering an Icelandic Church, he cannot hold his indignation when he finds a Latin inscription at the front door, asking himself: “When will the stupid affectation of putting Latin inscriptions in churches cease? The living vernacular is so infinitely superior to the stilted dead Latin” (32). Staunchly opposed to a possible Romanisation of the Icelanders at a cultural level, the author criticises the use of Latin in a country which is poorly related to the Graeco-Roman culture. This hostile attitude towards the use of Latin goes beyond the strict linguistic borders, since Baring-Gould attacks the preponderant use of Latin, within the European religious context for reasons that are not purely linguistic. Firstly, Latin was and continues to be the liturgical language of Catholic Europe. As observed by Colley, religion was “yoked” to the patriotic identity of the Britons as an expression of hostility towards the “evil” Catholicism, mainly embodied by the French (44). In that light, a Latin inscription in such an unfamiliar (to Catholic Rome) setting awakens the anti-Catholic feelings of the writer, who contemplates this incident both from a religious and a nationalist perspective. As Young notes, one should not forget that mid-Victorians often praised the masculine, powerful Protestantism over the weak, feminine Catholicism, highlighting the Anglo-Saxons’ ability to conquer other nations and impose their cultural characteristics on other peoples (65). Given Icelanders’ Germanic descent, the use of Latin, associated with Catholicism, could result in a potential feminization of their own culture.

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Secondly, there is no doubt that Baring-Gould reacts negatively to the use of Latin in Iceland because he strongly believes in the superiority of this Old Norse language, still spoken on the island, over a “dead” language like Latin. Isleiffson explains that “there arose a demand for Iceland: it was thought that the country preserved a language very similar to the ancient Gothic language” (151), signalling a turn of the intellectual interest from the classic South to the higher North. The view of the North as morally superior to the corrupt South emerged as a concept at the close of the eighteenth century. At that point, the majority of Germanic nations, previously accused of barbarism because they were “incompatible” with the cultural criteria of the Graeco-Roman aestheticism, seized the opportunity to make their own claim to the cultural significance of the North relying on Iceland as the geographical core of their allegations. Another reason for which Latin language is met with the hostility of the writer is purely racial. As has been stated earlier in the text, every aspect of the Nordic spirit, that is, language, history and race, played a major part in the substantiation of Nordicist racial theories. Grant and Osborn argue that, erroneously, “a section of the population of a large nation gathers around language, reinforced by religion, as an expression of individuality” (30). Based on this theory, along with religion, language can exercise considerable influence on a people’s national identity. In other words, Latin could pose a threat to the remarkable unity of the Icelanders, leading them to disintegration because of their exposure to foreign linguistic influences through the adoption of the Latin vernacular in Icelandic ecclesiastic tradition. Besides the fact that the shared historical bonds between Britain and Iceland are reflected in their languages (Germanic) and their literary traditions, the writer identifies with the Icelandic culture in another, quite original way, while conversing with a native in Icelandic: -“Hvat heitith ther?” (What is your name?) -“Sabine Jatvartharson” (Sabine Edward's son), I replied, for Icelanders have no surnames, and are called So-and- so's son, after their father. My guide was named Grimr, his father Ami; consequently he went by the name of Grimr Amason, but his son would be Grimsson. (339)

Drawing upon this excerpt, it is clear that Baring-Gould opts for an Icelandic version of his English name in order to highlight the AngloIcelandic connection. Thus, he attempts to assimilate with the native population in order to acquire the ultimate cultural experience. Foster and Mills emphasise a paradox in the attitude of travellers, claiming that

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one of the interesting features of colonial masculinity in particular is the way that is often operates through the taking of a disguise […] in order to assert one’s superiority over another nation one must take one their clothing culture so thoroughly that you can pass as a ‘native yourself’. (257)

Baring-Gould uses an analogous strategy to that of disguise; yet instead of using clothing to experience the Other’s culture and reassert his own superiority, the writer “disguises” himself by speaking the national language of the country visited. What is more, he speaks Icelandic to highlight the relation between Britain and Iceland as distant relatives, interrelated by the Old Norse tradition, a core element of which is the ancient Viking language. In that respect, his “disguise” is mainly dictated by his attempt to justify the Northern unity that he propagates through his study of the sagas. In conclusion, Sabine Baring-Gould’s travelogue is beset with several contradictions with respect to the presentation of Iceland in the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the author is eager to portray the Icelanders as an enlightened nation which has managed to preserve its cultural heritage under politically complex circumstances. The perspective from which he conceptualises the island reproduces the Northern hypothesis that thrived amongst Victorian intellectual circles. Baring-Gould’s focus on the Icelandic medieval literature undoubtedly helps us achieve a better understanding of the country’s distinct national identity, forged throughout the years of its dependency on Denmark. At the same time, the author’s saga-oriented approach gives a clear idea of the Victorians’ infatuation with Viking imagery, and the gradual placement of Iceland in the European map as a Nordic utopia. On the other hand, the writer does not depart totally from the well established patterns of British travel literature considering the projection of the North as a world of savagery. His appraisal of the Icelanders’ Nordic features and sturdy complexion as well as of their contemporary “weak” image under the rule of the Danish kingdom and the allusion to their overall primitiveness as a pagan, savage Other indicate the confusing views that Victorian writers often held in relation to Scandinavia. As regards the writer’s acquaintance with the Icelandic language and literature, his erudition partially bridges the gap between the British reader and the Icelandic native, given that he does not treat the country as a terra incognita. However, he does not pay the necessary attention to the Icelanders’ contemporary struggle to achieve further autonomy; indeed in his account contemporary Iceland is tinged with a static existence, and

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nineteenth-century Icelanders are severely criticised for the backward character of their society. The Icelandic Utopia is based on the writer’s retrospective glance at the country visited, a fact which is certainly linked to his idealisation of the country’s distant past, overlapping with the origins of British identity.

CHAPTER TWO ELIZABETH J. OSWALD: BY FELL AND FJORD OR SCENES AND STUDIES IN ICELAND

Elizabeth Jane Oswald (1830-1905) was a British writer born to the Scottish General Sir John Oswald of Dunnikeir, Kircaldy and to Amelia Murray. Oswald is mostly remembered for her work The Dragon of the North: A Tale of the Normans in Italy, published in 1888, and her travelogue By Fell and Fjord; Or, Scenes and Studies in Iceland published in 1882. The second travel narrative, which also constitutes the subject of this text, was produced after the writer’s consecutive trips to Iceland in the summers of 1875, 1878 and 1879 respectively. Even though her travelogue presents her as a female solitary traveller on a remote island, she was always accompanied by other women travellers; in her first and ultimate trips to Iceland, she was escorted by Miss Menzies, a friend of hers who is rarely mentioned in the author’s account, whereas in her penultimate journey to the island she travelled along with Emily Cathart. In her last trip to the island, apart from her female companion, she travelled with a group of Italian tourists, who are sporadically referred to in her narrative, as well as with Sigrida, an Icelandic woman that she befriended in her second trip and with whom she had developed a strong bond, as demonstrated by the writer’s constant remarks on her Icelandic friend. As an Edwardian lady, Oswald is strongly influenced by the spirit of old northern antiquarians in Victorian Britain. The very title of her narrative indicates the purpose of her setting out on a journey to this sequestered corner of Europe: Oswald is not only intrigued by Icelandic “fells and fjords”, that is, the geological attractions with which the island is endowed. She is equally fascinated by the sagas and the reproduction of Viking imagery in her studying of Icelandic society in the nineteenth century. She identifies as the main purpose of her travel to the island the utopian (pastoral) aspect of the country as well as its unchanged character (peaceful and simple), although she unhesitantly refers to her visit to the saga sites as a parallel aim:

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Part V Chapter Two it is the historical background that gives such interest to travel in this pastoral land, peaceful and simple as all was here, the association was with fierce passions, and heroic virtues, and noble endurance. For here was the dwelling of Njal, the hero of the grandest saga — a remarkable character indeed in these fierce times. (172)

According to this passage, Oswald wishes to historicise the country in an attempt to link the heroic events of the Icelandic past with the heavenly and essentially unspoiled image of the small island, far removed from the political developments that shook continental Europe. What also strikes the reader is Oswald’s enthrallment with the Eddaic tradition that was held in reverence by a great number of Victorian travel writers, as expressed through her reference to Njál’s saga, the thirteenth-century historical narrative that recounts the story of Njál Þorgeirsson, an Icelandic lawyer and sage, who is involved in a family feud which ends up in a bloodshed. This saga had a strong impact on the Victorian view of the Icelandic North, and as Wawn suggests, “for William Morris and other Victorian lovers of Njál’s saga, it [Iceland] was a place of pilgrimage” (38). Clearly, Oswald’s travel purpose adheres to the typical attempt of Victorian Northernists like Baring-Gould and Metcalfe to connect the nineteenthcentury conditions on the island with the saga texts. The question which arises, therefore, is why should Oswald’s texts be examined after Baring-Gould’s travelogue, since many other travel writers of her time had undertaken the same journey prior to her arrival in Iceland. The answer is simple: she is the first woman to visit Iceland1. Her travelogue is characterised by a significant degree of conciseness, providing the reader with valuable information on the country’s past and contemporary accomplishments. Instead of limiting her glance to the medieval literary production of the Icelanders and their Viking ancestry, the writer is also eager to describe the social conditions of contemporary Iceland, its historical background and her friendship with several islanders, a fact which renders her travelogue particularly original and impregnated with aspects hardly encountered in other travel texts of the Victorian age. Moreover, unlike other travel writers who sought to interpret the country’s merits on account of its bellicose Viking past by highlighting the masculinity of the Old Norse culture, she extensively addresses the issue of womanhood by focusing on saga heroines and Viking love stories, as well as on the domestic, but considerably independent, disposition of Icelandic women. As to this important feature of her travel narrative, that 1

Ethel Brilliana Tweedie, Disney Leith and other Victorian women took a journey to the island several decades after the publication of Oswald’s travelogue.

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is, the frequent reference to the issue of womanhood, Wawn aptly claims that “her identification with the old north is very personal […] the book’s most distinctive emphasis is on the role of women in medieval and modern Icelandic society” (306). Coupled with her fluency in Modern and Old Icelandic, as revealed in her translations of the Icelandic ballads into English, Oswald is an exceptional case amongst both male and female travellers, whose erudition allows her to contemplate the island from a broader, and far less prejudiced, perspective. Furthermore, a striking characteristic of her narration is the sensitivity that she expresses towards everything that concerns Icelandic culture. Having spent a significant amount of time on the island, she speaks unhesitatingly without the fear of transgressing the gender barriers imposed on her sex. Even though the majority of Victorian women travellers are concerned with, and elaborate on, the role that they adopt in the countries through which they travel, thus emphasising their subversive behaviour as opposed to conventional middle-class Victorian women (Bohls 3), Oswald does not experience the same insecurity. Far from seeking to justify her presence on the remote island, the author overtly critiques other travelogues on Iceland written by her male contemporaries and past writers: However that may be, such broad assertions, based on small premises, are too common in books about Iceland, perhaps because so few foreigners understand the language, — and without at least some knowledge of that, it is impossible to judge of the social character of the people. (118)

Drawing on this statement, one can notice that Oswald does not attempt to defend her role as a woman, who, instead of delving into her domestic obligations, embarks on a journey to one of the most desolate places in Europe; she rather deplores earlier attempts of British travellers to speak of the country without being acquainted with its language, which is regarded by Oswald as the main means of comprehending the social (and therefore national) character of its people. In that way, she does not comply with many women travellers who, according to Foster and Mills, devoted a part of their work on domestic aspects of foreign life as a means of “avoiding accusations of entering the public space of male textuality” (8); instead she dismisses this literary femininity ascribed to her sex by the patriarchal society, referring to the prejudiced manner in which British “tourists” (as opposed to travellers) tended to comment on Icelandic society. In particular, the writer harshly reproves generalisations frequently reproduced in Victorian travel literature on Iceland, stating that:

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Part V Chapter Two This would seem too obvious to be worth mentioning, but for the remarks sometimes published by hasty tourists, who scamper through the country for a few weeks or days, and talk of the people as if they knew all about them without understanding a word they say. The Icelanders, as a race, have the complexity of an old civilisation, and differ widely from each other, as we do. Some are brilliant, others are dull. (118)

Evidently, Oswald’s alerting comments on the common tendency of British travellers, who ascribe to other nations’ specific characteristics leading to their Othering and cultural denigration, revolve around the disparity between the role of the traveller and the tourist, as has been demonstrated in the case of Lowe’s and Baring-Gould’s accounts. This contrast between the traveller and the tourist is made even more explicit by the writer further on, when she ridicules mass tourism through her following statement on British tourists as caricatures, subject to native peoples’ satire: “indeed they are sometimes irreverent enough to amuse each other at the expense of that august being, the Great British Tourist himself” (119). What is particularly significant, however, is that she explicitly categorises most Victorian travellers, who are not endowed with the same degree of erudition in Icelandic culture or who journey on the island for pleasure’s sake, as the “Great British Tourists” whose outlook is not only simplistic but also harmful to the travel destination’s portrayal in the Victorian readership. Thus she does not hesitate to refer to Richard Francis Burton’s2 travelogue Ultima Thule; or a Summer in Iceland which is beset with inaccuracies as to the national character of the Icelanders during his trip in 1875, the year which chronologically coinciding with Oswald’s first trip to the island: After many lively evenings, with no lack of laughter, and persiflage and interesting conversation, we were surprised to read in some books of travel that the Icelanders, whose society we had found so pleasant, were a gloomy, melancholy race, who could not understand a joke. Captain Burton, for instance, whose book came out shortly after our return home, informed us that "chaff" is unknown in Iceland, and gives terrible offence. (118)

Oswald’s attempt to question the validity of another British traveller of the opposite sex (and of a particularly high status), reveals her nonconformist attitude towards the process of travelling and women travellers’ literary 2

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890) was a British geographer, explorer, writer and ethnologist as well as a member of the Royal Geographical Society.

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authority. Her reference to this male traveller’s work as offensive to the manners and mores of the country visited does not only reveal her sensitisation to the issue of reliability, which is, according to her, closely linked to the avoidance of generalisations in the depiction of the local people, but also reveals her empowered role as an author who is equal to every man who has attempted the same journey. Her lengthy residence in Iceland on three different occasions, as well as the fact that she befriends several Icelanders during her trips, renders her travelogue more reliable to the modern reader, while at the same time her work puts into question the monopoly of travelling by male travel writers. This reminds us of Mills’ argument that female tradition of writing was often associated with falsehood and exaggeration (61). As has already been demonstrated, Lowe was equally concerned with the reliability of her travel account, and she was subject to severe criticism upon the publication of her account. Oswald evidently reverses this stereotype by presenting a contemporary travel narrative as a product of a man’s misconceptions about a people with which he is hardly acquainted, a fact which challenges male authority in travelling. Simultaneously, Oswald assumes an empowered position amongst her other Victorian travellers by presenting her text as the epitome of objectivity compared with the previous travel texts written by men, despite her status as an “ordinary” middle-class Victorian woman. Likewise, the writer criticises the common tendency amongst male writers to present their journeys to the northern peripheries as heroic quests that women should under no circumstances dare to undertake. The author subverts this recurrent pattern of masculine discourses by presenting her trip to Iceland as a journey which, despite the fact that the country visited belonged to the peripheral world, did not pose such a threat to the existence of the traveller. Hence her comment on the travel facilities of late Victorian and Edwardian era, which do not permit the presentation of a trip to Europe as a mission into wilderness: As to possible dangers in riding across Iceland, Henderson, whose book, though somewhat out of date, gives more real information than all the others I have seen put together, is on this point an alarmist; mountain perils were more dreaded then than in our days of Alpine clubs and rough travel. (139)

Oswald overtly questions the link that male travellers tended to draw between the savagery of Icelandic landscapes and their heroic masculinity; in a period in which more and more people engaged in activities such as mountaineering, a consequence of which was the foundation of the Alpine

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Club3 in Britain, Oswald believes that mass tourism is an indisputable fact, which reveals the mainstream character of the trips around Europe and the inapplicability of the heroic element to this new reality in tourism. In that respect, Oswald holds that masculinity cannot be defined through the process of travelling anymore, and the concerns expressed in previous travelogues cannot stimulate the late nineteenth-century reader’s imagination as in the past decades. For this reason, Oswald refers to Henderson4, the illustrious Scottish traveller, whom she regards as the least prone to reproduce masculine patterns linked to Icelandic nature, in spite of the significant amount of time that had elapsed since the publication of his travel narrative. With her above statement, Oswald wishes to shed light on two stereotypes related to her gender. On the one hand, she attempts to defy the patriarchal belief that “simply venturing into uninhabited territories is dangerous for females” and that “mountains and deserts are two environments […] alien to females” (Foster et al. 258). At the same time, Oswald criticises the heroic dimension that male authors ascribe to their writing by projecting the mainstream character of nineteenth-century travelling. Her attitude reflects the point that Dorothy Middleton had made when claiming that from about 1870 onwards more women than ever before or perhaps since undertook journeys to remote and savage countries […] they were mostly middle-aged and often in poor health, their moral and educational standards were extremely high and they left behind them a formidable array of travel books. (3)

Considering her age at the time of her first trip to the island (she was 45 years old) and her remarkable erudition, Oswald’s profile applies to the above description. Given all the above, Oswald’s narrative revolves around the idea of womanhood. There are several occasions suggesting that, despite her fascination with the medieval Icelandic literature, the writer desires to foreground cases in which Viking women surpassed men in terms of valor and historical importance. Similary to Baring-Gould, she resorts to storytelling in her travel narrative, In doing so, she attempts to illustrate dynamic features of Viking women. In an extract she refers to Aud, a 3

The Alpine Club was a society of mountaineers founded in London in 1857. Ebenezer Henderson (1784-1858) wrote the famous travel text Iceland, or the Journal of a Residence in that Island in 1818 and was often referred to as a valuable authority of information by his contemporaries and later travellers. 4

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Norwegian Viking woman, who played an active role in the conquest of the island along with her husband, a mighty chieftain: This district round Hvammfjord was first settled by a woman, Aud the Deeply Wealthy, whose stately figure has been handed down to us in a lifelike word-picture. She was the daughter, the wife, and the mother of sea-kings, and used to sailing in ships. She came from Norway with her husband Olaf the White, who warred in the west Viking took Dublin and much of Ireland, till at last he was killed there. (96)

In the above excerpt, the phrase “she was the daughter, the wife, and the mother of sea-kings” certainly alludes to the main social roles that women could assume as daughters, wives and mothers, both in Iceland and Britain. Yet Oswald’s comment does not seek to focus solely on these conventional roles; she wishes to draw the reader’s attention to the Icelandic woman’s ability to raise sea kings, thanks to her dynamic personality, a comment expressing that the heroism which is so extensively revered by male authors should be attributed to the role of motherhood. The very fact that Oswald uses Old Norse literature to derive information about the liberal position of women during the Viking era, and draw a comparison with Victorian women’s social role, is made explicit in the author’s statement on the significance of the sagas as a means of exploring gender relations in past and present Europe. Addressing the issue of Icelandic women’s attachment to their husbands and husbands, Oswald makes the following remark: One notable point on this whole literature is the light it throws on the position of women in the North. Originally, here as elsewhere, the woman was the ward of her father or husband or brother. The daughter was indeed the property of her father, often his most precious possession, but there is no trace of purchase of the woman from her father by the bridegroom, as in most early societies. (49)

Obviously, the author is concerned with a broader view of femininity and she does not only address women’s condition within the Viking context, as can be suggested in the words “here as elsewhere, the woman was the ward of her father or husband or brother” in an attempt to criticise female “slavery” as an indisputable condition in primitive and contemporary societies. Attempting to draw a link between gender relations in the Viking period and the present state of women’s position in Victorian Britain, Oswald purposefully states that Viking women were married out of love and were not entirely treated as commodities, unlike Victorian society which overwhelmingly treated marriage as “an economic and social

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contract that was often seen as a crucial building block of the Victorian polity” (Washington 54). Thus, Oswald clearly believes that Britain is far more backward in gender relations than in pre-Christian Scandinavia, and uses Old Norse literature as significant evidence to substantiate her claim. The writer’s emphasis on the presence of the female element can also be traced in another excerpt, in which Oswald refers to the excavations on the Orkneys and the evidence they provided as to the importance of women in Viking society: The Vikings have left many such tokens of their presence in the recently excavated Maes-Howe in Orkney. One Rune tells how “Ingeborg the Fair” rested there after long wanderings; another tells of some one “in search of the fairest of women.” (190)

Taking the above excerpt into consideration, it can be claimed that Oswald’s reading of Viking history and literature is consistently gendered, and instead of focusing on the heroic accomplishments of the Viking warriors of the sagas, she prefers to stress the exploits of Viking female chieftains or narrate love stories described in Old Norse literature. In this way, she certainly satisfies the role of the sentimental traveller that has previously been analysed whereas she also deviates from the male canon, which purposefully overlooks aspects of womanhood not akin to the stereotypical pattern of female domesticity. The extent to which womanhood affects Oswald’s narrative style, prompting her to adorn her discourse with sentimental elements, can easily be seen in the author’s successful association of the Viking imagery with contemporary aspects of femininity, as when she describes how the daughters of an Icelandic landowner resemble the Icelandic heroines of the sagas: Let us imagine a quieter scene by this river about a hundred years later. It is not the time of the althing but the two daughters of the rich bonde who owns the land here are washing their linen just where the river breaks out of the chasm; and no prettier place could be chosen for lassies to wash and chat. The Sturlunga Saga tells how both were called Thora, and gives their conversation. (49)

By the same token, Oswald successfully connects Icelandic women’s liberal position in the nineteenth century with the relative freedom that their female ancestors enjoyed during the Viking times. With the aim of attacking domestic slavery to its core, Oswald raises another issue, that of free agency, which constitutes a unique phenomenon in modern Icelandic society and it was also attested in the Icelandic sagas. As the author mentions:

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After a woman had been once married, whether she was a widow or divorced, she became a free agent. The married woman was, from the earliest times, the true household leader, the queen or companion of her lord. The sagas tell of the same freedom of the wife in her own sphere, and association with her husband's life and pursuits, which is the ideal of wedded life now in this country. She was not, like the Greek wife, doomed to a narrow life in her own side of the house apart from the interests of the men; still less was she like the plaything of the Eastern harem. (50)

What is of particular interest is Oswald’s aim to juxtapose the liberal status of Icelandic women at present and in the past with the submissive role to which women of other cultures, mainly Southern and Levantine, were still confined. Her purpose is twofold: firstly, she reveals an even deeper clash between the North and the South, the former constituting a symbol of freedom while the latter epitomising corruption and stagnation. Secondly, Oswald’s comment points to her general view of Scandinavia as a utopian locus in which gender relations are revalorised and often reverted. Focusing on the saga texts, Oswald evidently believes that the Victorians should emulate the social practices of the Vikings instead of concentrating on the heroic element of the Old Norse texts. Moreover, the writer seems to stress the significance of the role of the solitary traveller. Her discourse is reminiscent of this Rousseauesque construct, stressing the need to break away from civilisation and wander in solitude through the unknown land. This desire to isolate herself from the rest of the world clearly shows that Oswald is considerably influenced by the Romantic spirit in travel literature. In particular, “one of the clichés of travelling during the Romantic era was the traveller’s obsession with “personal solitude and loneliness […] the Romantic hero is frequently an exiled, solitary wanderer, pictured in a vast and threatening landscape” (Fjågesund and Symes 307). The author appears to be aware of the fact that, in order to have the most of her travel experience, she needs to keep a safe distance from other people and indulge in a peregrination throughout the savage grandeur of Iceland. At the same time, her ability to travel unescorted and far away from urban centres strengthens her argument that women travellers are equally capable of surviving in an unknown territory as every man. In that respect, her attitude resembles that of Lowe, who overemphasises her status as a solitary traveller. 5 This is the reason why 5

Lowe tells her female readers that “as you must be a little initiated into the style of country by this time, you will not be more nervous than we were, in penetrating into wilds where English ladies had never been heard of, and only one Norwegian lady had once given the inhabitants an idea of the refined feminine world beyond” (49).

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she rejoices over the fact that, during her trip to Iceland, she hardly sees any tourists or natives: “it seemed wonderful that we should have it all to ourselves — wonderful that there should be no house for miles and miles round, but the tiny parsonage” (31). A similar remark is made by the writer in another instance, in which she rejoices over the fact that, while visiting a cave, she finds the carved names of several male travellers. What strikes the reader is the author’s interest in describing herself as the first woman to have ventured into the spot, again addressing the issues of solitary travelling and gender: At the far end of this cave, in a hollow rock, we found seals, and coins, and carved names left by former travellers, some of them dating from early in the century. We added our names, as we were the first ladies who had been in the caverns,—not that there is any special difficulty about going there, but that hardly any ladies do travel in Iceland. (74)

The fact that “hardly any ladies do travel in Iceland” indicates the writer’s desire to portray herself as a pioneering figure, who has ventured out into a desolate country. What is more, in her comment Oswald introduces to the reader the idea of the unexplored, clearly inviting other women travellers to undertake a similar trip. The scarcity of travellers in the Icelandic mountains alludes to Oswald’s solitary status, and her ability to survive under difficult circumstances while it also foregrounds the capacity of her sex to deal with the most demanding travel conditions. Therefore, one could claim that this comment conceals an engendered meaning, given the author’s effort to question male hegemony in travelling, encourage other women to abandon their household and engage in trips which could be rewarding, and subvert the concept of the adventure hero, stating that her journey, despite the rarity of the travel destination, is by no means perilous because, as suggested by Oswald, there is no “special difficulty about going there”. Although Oswald attempts to deconstruct the male ideology of travel and exploration this is not to say that she does not discard altogether the role of the adventure hero for her sex. In fact, there are several episodes in Oswald’s narrative which seek to describe the author and her female companion in a heroic manner. On one occasion, Oswald clearly reflects on her journey as an adventurous deed, when the natives marvel at her courage, as well as that of Miss Menzies, for aiming to participate in mountaineering activities which are in opposition to their gender. Interestingly enough, the author compares herself to Mr Watts, an English explorer in Iceland, by noting that “the people at the farms seemed delighted to have us, and could not make enough of us, especially ‘Vatna

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Jokull’, as Mr Watts was called, from the scene of his exploits. Miss Menzies and I were considered very adventurous also, for ladies” (128). Oswald is also interested in recording the reactions of Icelandic women towards her-namely that they are in awe of her-as she narrates the places in Iceland through which she passed during her voyage, an episode which juxtaposes the author’s dynamic image to the domestic image of native women: “the ladies at Reykjavik shook their heads, and spoke of the wild rivers we had to cross; people were drowned in them every year” (139). In fact, in spite of Oswald’s frequent declarations that her journey in this country is far from dangerous and that women would not find it hard to cope with the hazardous character of such a trip, a significant part of her travel account abounds with descriptions of the difficulties which she needs to cope with in order to have the most of her ride to the far North. In an extract from her travelogue, Oswald purposefully mentions that “at the neighbouring farm, where we halted to rest, we were told that the road further on had become almost impassable from the rain. Nevertheless we pushed on, diverging from the usual track to visit a very curious extinct crater called Tintron” (29). Once again, as in the aforementioned episode with the Icelandic women, the native people’s reactions to the perilous character of the author’s journey substantiate Oswald’s view of herself as an adventuress whereas gender barriers are removed, revealing Oswald’s purpose to present women as equally able to travel to sequestered places as men. This attitude evokes Graham Dawson’s argument that female travellers overwhelmingly “reject female interiority” and embrace the male world of action which puts the male traveller’s character to a constant test (63). This can be seen in another excerpt of the travelogue, in which Oswald obviously stresses the uncomfortable character of her voyage: The bogs also were very difficult on the narrow neck of land where we were; and last, not least, we had not been able to reprovision ourselves at Bordeyrei, and it is hardly safe to depend too much on birds or fish taken by the way. So we turned regretfully south, looking wistfully at the mountains, with an unappeased craving to explore them. (89)

Inevitably, the author’s discourse is also beset with comments related to female decorum. Owing to her self-projection as an adventure heroine in her account, a narrative position which clashes with the gender conventions of female passivity and prudery, Oswald is well aware of the repercussions that such a nonconforming attitude could imply for her sex. This is why she manifests, as many other women travel writers of her era did, “a great concern in their texts about the necessity of dressing and

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behaving correctly” (Foster and Mills 8). When she stays overnight at an Icelandic church, she is anxious to comply with female decorum, noting that: “I spring up dressed—for we do not undress in a church, though we change clothes for the night” (77-8). Another image of womanhood encountered in Oswald’s text is that of female domesticity, which is not approvingly mentioned by the author, given her radical opinion on the role of female sex in British society. Even though the writer does not accuse directly Icelandic women of being overly domestic in their manners, she cannot conceal her astonishment at the devotion that native women show to their domestic concerns. In the author’s own words: At Reykjavik the ladies dined with us, but almost everywhere up the country they served the dinner, and only the women who were guests sat down with the men. This old Scandinavian custom goes much against the grain of courteous Englishmen, who sometimes quite fidget the society by springing up to prevent some fair Enid from fetching and carrying the dishes for them. But I am bound to say the ladies do not wait respectfully they join in the conversation, and give their orders, and are considered the givers of the feast. (115)

Oswald’s disappointment about the complacent life of Icelandic women is clearly discerned in the excerpt. The author is highly surprised by the fact that only “the women who were guests” were allowed to remain in a “public area”. However, the writer positively remarks that Icelandic women, despite their domestic existence, do not exhibit the degree of submissiveness which characterises Victorian womanhood, since they express their minds without being asked. The analysis of women’s role in Icelandic society, as seen by Oswald, could be linked to the way in which she uses the female symbols of the sagas to derive scenes of female emancipation; notwithstanding their restricted social position, Icelandic women are endowed with an inherently independent spirit, which equals their Viking background. In short, Oswald’s originality rests on the interesting link that she draws between contemporary aspects of Icelandic womanhood and the scenes in the sagas in which the female element comes to the foreground. Meanwhile, the narrative positions that she constantly alternates in her text reveal do not only signal her identification with the Icelandic setting but also stress her desire to bridge the conflicting aspects of a woman traveller’s threefold identity as a traveller, an author and a woman. Striving to make her voice be heard, Oswald draws on images of the sagas which form the basis of her approach to gender.

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With regard to the significance of the sagas in Oswald’s travel account, it should be pointed out that the Scottish author identifies the study and exploration of the saga sites as a key aim of her voyage to the island. In compliance with the travel canon, she makes that purpose quite explicit through the choice of the title By Fell and Fjord; Or, Scenes and Studies in Iceland, a title suggesting the writer’s wish to highlight the country’s saga tradition (“studies”) and geological peculiarities (“by fell and fjord”). In addition to the choice of such an emblematic title, Oswald expresses her desire to pay tribute to the remarkable medieval literature of the island in the prefatory part of her narrative, underlining her infatuation with the “old literature”: Every year a few people go now to Iceland for their summer holidays; they are generally drawn there by one of three attractions — the fishing, the geology, or the old literature. It was the literature that brought me — the vivid Sagas which set the men and women of the past before us as if we had known them ourselves, '' offering the truth of them". (1)

Oswald aims at focusing on the saga tradition of the island, contrary to other travellers who opt for the fishing or geological benefits of the country. Apart from her stress on the sagas, it is equally worth noting that Oswald does not regard her travel purpose as particularly pioneering, given her comment on the three reasons for which travellers choose the island for their summer vacation. Certainly, by belonging to the category of tourists interested in the Icelandic literary accomplishments, the author ascribes to herself a special status, not pertaining to the more materialistic view of the island that the geological or fishing pursuits of other travellers imply. Oswald’s northernist approach to Iceland is evoked in various instances in the travelogue. On one occasion, the author marvels at the survival of the Old Norse tongue on the island, the inhabitants of which still speak and cultivate it, contrary to other Nordic regions, such as Norway, in which the language has undergone significant changes or has become extinct. While enumerating the various attractions of the island, Oswald identifies the language of the Icelandic nation, uncontaminated by foreign influences, as one of its key features: Then there is the language, a dead one now in its old Norwegian home, but the living speech in Iceland still, giving the island the sort of interest for the student of old Norse that classical scholars would feel if some lonely island could be found where the Greek of Pericles or the Latin of Augustus was still the common speech. All this had for years invested Iceland in my

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Another key feature in Oswald’s text, which evidences the NorthSouth polarity triggered by the discovery of the Old Norse literature of the sagas, is made explicit in the author’s statement about the merits of the Northern peoples, forged in their constant struggle with the savage elements of nature. Oswald illustrates this point in a excerpt from her travelogue in which she explicitly contrasts the virtues of the Northerners as noble savages and the indolence of the Southerners, by addressing the theory of climate from a nineteenth-century perspective: Those first settlers who chose the land were men indeed — they feared none of these things if they had but liberty; and the stories of their voyages and wars, their home- life and conversations, show them as above all strong — skorungr -they are constantly styled, a word meaning stirring, dominant, or high-spirited. Defying the rude weather, the wild country, and each other, they lived their lives thoroughly, even brilliantly and gaily; they could not afford, like the people of the South, to rest and dream, and thus tend to become indolent and corrupt. (2)

Yet Oswald’s comment on the North-South polarity is made on the basis of her sufficient acquaintance with the saga texts; obviously, the saga texts do not only evidence the significance of Northern antiquity and its equal status to the one of the Greco-Roman culture but also serves as an indisputable proof of the Vikings’ superior manners and mores, emanating from their frequent battle with the savage aspect of nature. In addition, on another occasion the author admits to the fact that the majority of the impressions she accumulates throughout her journey are strongly influenced by this spirit of the saga literature, a statement that shows the extent to which the literary tradition of the country impacts on its romancing by Oswald. The nostalgic and literatary perspective from which Oswald scrutinises the Icelandic nation is immediately felt in the following remark: As the Icelandic literature influenced many of my impressions of the country, it is time, before going on with the story of our journey, to give a slight sketch of its nature and history, — a sketch which, however inadequate, shall not be a mere list of books, as I shall dwell chiefly on those works which I have read in the original, and am, therefore, best able to appreciate. (34)

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Apart from the author’s strong literary focus, a thing which is made explicit in all topics addressed by Oswald in her journey such as gender, Icelandic language, nation, history and folklore, the study of the sagas and the visit to the saga sites are constantly acknowledged by the author as underlying factors of British nationhood. In other words, in order for a British citizen to become fully aware of his/her national identity and origins, it is essential to become acquainted with the Old Norse literature. As Oswald claims: All who go to Iceland should really know something of it ; for it gives the strange little country, even in modern days, a peculiar interest to the English traveller, explaining, above all, the true character of our Scandinavian ancestors who have made Great Britain what it is. For from them we inherit our political freedom; like them we excel in literature; and we are the true heirs of their empire of the sea. (36)

Oswald raises a very crucial point, addressing the need for all travellers in Iceland to familiarise themselves with the literary context that renders the island so special. However, the author also makes another interesting remark, claiming that the Britons owe their formation as a nation, as well as their distinction as a politically free people to their Scandinavian ancestors. Especially when it comes to the issue of political freedom, Oswald’s argument could be seen in relation to Greenway’s thesis that “the Norseman became the central figure in major social myth of Enlightenment origins -the myth of northern freedom- and developed from this into a minor literary myth of the golden age” (84). At the same time, Oswald refers to the colonial achievements of the Vikings without failing to mention the literary accomplishments of modern Britain. All these comments, nevertheless, are made in the light of the early nineteenthcentury nationalist theories. It is clear that Oswald, like Laing, Metcalfe and Sabine-Baring Gould, connects the Old Norse culture with the exploits of the Victorians in the nineteenth century, an attempt which obviously implies a further northern unity. Furthermore, the author does not hesitate to evoke the polarity between the literature of the North and the South. Addressing this issue which was firstly triggered by the discoveries of the sagas in early nineteenth century and the debate on the provenance of Beowulf, the oldest epic in AngloSaxon literature, the author points to the Old Norse literature as superior to that of Southern cultures because of its simplicity, high morals and historical reliability contending that

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Part V Chapter Two In one respect the sagas differ much from the early literature of the rest of Europe—they are singularly pure, remarkably free from grossness or coarseness of all kinds. Their authors seem to take no pleasure in a bad story; the morality is high, save on the two points of man slaying and drink. (39)

Oswald’s thesis on Old Norse literature is not only reminiscent of the Anglo-Saxon discourse on the supremacy of the saga literary tradition over the classical epic works of a distant, sterile, and frequently “intimidating” past; the sagas also pose a challenge to the cultural hegemony of the South, providing the reader with a new antiquity that retained a realistic, and not a mythical, background. To better understand the attempt of Northernist travellers such as Oswald to defy the cultural hegemony of the Southern cultures, it is worth noticing the similarities between Oswald’s thesis and Metcalfe’s opinion on the importance of epic narratives such as Beowulf for the national awareness of the Britons: “‘Beowulf’ the oldest heroic, or some will have it mythic- perhaps it will be the best to call it mytho-heroic poem in any German language, and which has been pronounced to be older than Homer” (Metcalfe 284). On the whole, it might be affirmed that the writer’s interest in the sagas is not confined to the mere admiration of their literary merits. Oswald appears to frequently address several other issues which are connected to the idea of Britishness and the cultural supremacy of the North. A closer look at her travelogue reveals that the author identifies the sagas as the key point of reference of her travelogue as well as the main theme which underlies the reconstruction of the Icelandic identity. Moreover, the sagas subvert the monopoly of the Greco-Roman culture in the formation of European literature, offering a fresh field of research and scientific debate through the discovery of the Viking context thoroughly narrated in the Old Norse texts. A Scottish-born traveller, Elizabeth Oswald, like many other British travellers, had to reconcile her British identity with her Celtic roots. This split identity is commonly seen in British travelogues and certainly reflects the complex process of defining Britishness as a notion encompassing all peripheries of the British Kingdom. Although Oswald does not address the issue of Scottishness as frequently as other travellers, like Laing, Scotland is inevitably brought to the foreground in the writer’s discourse about the Anglo-Scandinavian relations. In an attempt to bridge the gap between her Celtic and British background, the writer refers to the cultural contribution of both races to the amalgamation of contemporary Britain, unlike Laing who dwells solely on the historical-literary connection between Scotland and the North; when referring to the cultural similarities observed during

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her Icelandic tour, she refers to the racial infusion of the Celts (Scots) with the Teutons (Angles and Scandinavians) in Grimur’s saga6: This family legend has a touch of Southern folk-lore about it which reminds us that many of the colonists, like the Lady Aud, the Deeply Wealthy, came round by Orkney or Ireland, bringing with them their names and traditions; bringing also, it is more than likely, an infusion of the poetic Celtic temperament to blend with the realistic Teuton mind. (45)

In this excerpt, Oswald seizes the opportunity to exhibit the merits of each race by presenting the Celts as possessing a poetic temperament and the Teutons as having a more pragmatic disposition. Despite the fact that racial admixture was unfavourably seen by mid- and late-Victorians, influenced by the theories on heredity and mongrel nations, Oswald does not adhere to this principle by referring to the harmonious coexistence of Celtic and Germanic attributes in the national (and physical) amalgamation of the Icelanders. By defying this demonisation of racial admixture, Oswald opposes to the typical racial discourse of her time, according to which higher races are highly unstable and when mixed with generalized or primitive characters tend to disappear. Whether we like to admit it or not, the result of the mixture of two races, in the long run, gives us a race reverting to the more ancient, generalized and lower type. (Grant 13)

On the contrary, Oswald subverts the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis about Celtic racial inferiority by using the development of the Icelanders into a highly enlightened nation as indisputable proof. Certainly, the presentation of the Icelanders as a racially mixed nation, through the veins of which the Teutonic and Celtic blood equally flows, shows the author’s effort to defend the status of the Celtic race against allegations about racial inferiority. It is equally significant to identify another instance of Celtic-Norse connection found in Oswald’s travel account. On one occasion, Oswald purposefully stresses the strong resemblance which an Icelandic boatman bears to the Irish race, the common features of which reveal a racial connection between the Irish Celts and the Norse settlers on the island. Regarding the racial features of the Icelander which “betray” the racial intercourse between the Celts and the Norse, Oswald remarks that 6

Grímur Kamban is the Norwegian Viking whose adventures are minutely recounted in the Old Norse text Færevinga Saga.

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Part V Chapter Two The boat was a large open one with two masts, with a crew of six. One of these men we could have declared was Irish, but he was a born Icelander. He had the short round face, regular features, black hair, and blue eyes with long black lashes, which form the most accepted type of Irish good looks. (133-4)

Oswald’s comment on the mixed racial background of the island’s inhabitants is of paramount importance for two reasons. First, the portrayal of the Icelanders as a racially mixed nation, which could unfavourably be seen by the Victorians, is positively mentioned by the writer as significant evidence on the country’s successful combination of different racial qualities. Second, although the formation of the Icelandic culture is not a strictly Teutonic enterprise the Celtic element occupies a prevalent position in such an amalgamation. Aside from her comment on the racial composition of the native population in Iceland, used to dismiss the anti-Celtic spirit in Victorian Britain, Oswald purposefully addresses another recurrent theme thoroughly ingrained in English nation-building discourse, that is, the national myth about the birth of the English nation based on the stories about King Alfred. As has already been argued, King Alfred’s myth gradually replaced the Arthurian legend in the nineteenth century because of its Saxon focus and its limited references to the Celtic origins of English culture (Young 15-6). Interestingly enough, Oswald utilises the same myth to speak of Scottish in particular (and Celtic in general) participation in the construction of the sagas and Old Norse civilisation at large. As the author argues: these poems originated chiefly among the Norse settlers in Ireland, Scotland, and the Western Isles; that they were chiefly composed about the time of Alfred, in the very high tide of the Viking expeditions, and first recited at the feasts or night-watches by sea or land of these wandering warriors. (46)

Embracing a more incorporative view of the North, the writer evidently alludes to the historical ties that all British ethnicities shared with Iceland and the Viking warriors. In this way, she strengthens the argument on the cultural interaction between Iceland and the Celtic part of Britain. Moreover, the marginal position of the Celts as alien to the AngloScandinavian connection is put into question by the author in her attempt to incorporate Scotland into the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis. This is also made explicit in another passage, in which the writer stresses the linguistic similarities between Icelandic and modern English, although her primary

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concern is to emphasise the Old Norse vocabulary still used in the Scottish variant. More precisely, the writer notes that: The general tone of voice is soft and refined. The language, at a distance, sounds like well-spoken but rather slurred English; while many old words still used in Scotland, which have dropped out of modern English, strike familiarly on the Scottish ear. People who are intimate say thee and thou, as in Shetland. Acquaintances who wish to become intimate, "drink thou" to each other, and are then considered sworn friends. Icelandic is very rich in all but modern scientific terms, which, however, can easily be supplied by the formation of compound words. (119)

In this passage what strikes the reader is Oswald’s effort to draw a strong linguistic link between Scotland and Iceland. At the same time, the linguistic similarities between England and Old Norse culture are described as considerably minor, a fact which empowers the Scottish role in the northern union celebrated by the author in her text. The very fact that Scottish bears strong resemblance to Icelandic is used by Oswald to further substantiate the Scotto-Scandinavian connection at several levels; apart from the strictly linguistic perspective, Oswald presumably adheres to a racial connection between the two nations, considering the Victorian tendency to encourage “an identification between language and race” (Young 44). Apparently, Oswald does not cease to identify language with national identity in a period during which the biological discoveries reinforce an anthropological approach to race based on the scientific applications of craniology, phrenology and other branches of anthropology which were used to corroborate claims on a nation’s racial supremacy. In a similar vein, Laing addresses language and history7 as considerable pieces of evidence to substantiate his theory on Scando-Celtic connection in order to highlight the important position of Scotland as an independent political entity. Besides the historical or racial ties shared between Scotland and Iceland, the author emphasises the friendly attitude of the Icelanders towards Scotland as a separate nation of the British Isles. While cutting through the Icelandic valleys, the writer traces significant similarities between the Scottish and the Icelandic landscapes: Next day we rode over the low mountain-pass which separates the Hvalfjord from the Borgarfjord district, the pass over which poor Helga had toiled with her children. The wind was still furious, but we faced it, which would not have been possible the day before. The valleys on the 7

He compares Swedish to Lowland Scots and he constantly refers to the commercial ties between Scotland and the North.

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Part V Chapter Two other side were all covered with fine grass. Several lakes lie among them, lashed this day into waves of steely blue—the last one, Skoradalvatn, was edged by welcome birch-trees, and recalled a Scotch Highland loch. (67)

Considering the alleged connection between landscapes and a country’s national character which eighteenth-century climate theories keenly drew, the writer’s comment certainly foregrounds the Scottish-Icelandic relation to another level, bringing together the two national identities based on the dramatic aspect of the island’s landscape. In that respect, Scottishness is not only related to the Icelandic culture in terms of history and culture, but also to scenes related to nature. One of the factors which contribute to the originality of Oswald’s travelogue is the presentation of the Icelanders. Contrary to Baring-Gould who either ignored or severely criticised the islanders as being significantly backward, Oswald wishes to adopt a more objective attitude towards the natives, considering the fact that instead of beholding them from a distance, like Baring-Gould, she manages to communicate with them in their language in pursuit of a more direct relationship with the descendants of the ancient Vikings. For this reason, she provides the reader with a thorough and quite objective description of manners and mores on the island. Firstly, Oswald’s discourse draws on the concept of the noble savage, depicting the Icelanders as a brave nation, struggling for their existence amidst the several wild elements of nature. As the writer keenly observes, the Icelanders They love their island, but it seems wonderful that they dare to stay in that volcanic waste, north of the forests, north of the corn, where only the hardy grasses clothe a fraction of the soil, — a little handful of people in constant battle with the elements. How can they face the separation of that stormy sea, the solitude of the winter, the darkness, the cruel frosts, the terrible tempests? (2)

Based on this passage, Oswald appears to point to a projection of the natives as modern heroes, being highly patriotic despite the savage face of Icelandic nature which poses a threat to their very existence. Her reference to the “little handful of people in constant battle with the elements” associates the islanders with the savage grandeur of their country, while the unfriendly face of the North is purposefully opposed to the picturesque (and rather saturated) condition of the landscapes in Southern Europe. A further comment on the national character of the Icelanders is made by Oswald in relation to the hospitality she receives throughout her journey. In spite of the common tendency amongst Victorian and

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Edwardian travellers to treat hospitality as a sign servitude pertaining to inferior cultures, Oswald deviates from the canon, commenting positively on the hospitable attitude of the indigenous peoples and attributing this trait to the uncorrupt aspect of the Icelandic society: The next agreeable trait which met us was the hospitality. We were asked everywhere to coffee, to dinner, to tea, both by people to whom we had introductions and others, and we were never a day on our own resources all the first week we spent at Reykjavik. But such things belong to preguidebook days, and will vanish before the advance of the tourist. (12)

By taking a closer look at Oswald’s comment, I deduce the following points: for one thing, she desires to depart from the overwhelmingly scornful attitude of the average Victorian traveller towards other peoples. The myth of cultural inferiority is inverted by the author, seeking to introduce to her text the idea that Icelandic peasantry leads an Arcadian life, whereas the Britons are so far removed from their original, natural existence by plunging deeper and deeper into the vices of modern civilisation. For another thing, Oswald does not hesitate to assume the role of the anti-tourist, alarming the reader about the “fatal” consequences of the advent of tourism. The anti-tourist comments with which she adorns her discourse indicate her eagerness that the island and its population remain untouched by the obliterating effect of industrialisation. Evidently, her attitude reminds us of Lyman Tower Sargent’s thesis that “some [utopias] deliberately restrict change within the utopia on the assumption that something should not be changed without perfect consideration” (104). Hence Oswald’s interest to record the high morality of Icelandic peasantry, stating that “we met with much real hospitality, and with kindness that could not be paid for, even when we gave money. Often in good houses they took nothing” (121). Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Oswald treats the travel destination as a place which needs to be protected from the degenerate habits of the technologically advanced world, having once again a utopian view of the country: “so let us hope that Iceland may improve by developing, not by changing, and that our feverish civilisation may never destroy the charm of this rough and simple land” (113). Besides their portrayal as noble savages and Arcadian people, free from the vices of Western Europe, the Icelanders are equally praised for their educational advances. Drawing on the remarkable literacy rate on the island, despite its isolated position, Oswald yearns to document such an extraordinary phenomenon with the aim of dispelling the previous allegations of British travellers about the primitiveness of Icelandic society

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and presenting the Icelandic people as an enlightened nation. In an attempt to satirise earlier travelogues which sought to focus on the supernatural (and overwhelmingly dystopian) image of the island, Oswald argues that: Iceland, as everyone knows, was first peopled, not by savages, but by a race already advanced in civilisation, and not as most colonies, by the mere overflow of the population of the mother country, but by the most able and spirited of the Northmen, who would not endure the feudal innovations of Harald Fair-hair, the first king over all Norway. (34)

The writer argues that the Icelanders possess a culture which is by no means inferior to the ones developed by more prominent civilisations such as those of the South. In addition, instead of stressing the “barbarism” of the Icelandic people, Oswald alludes to their noble origins, hailing from the ancient “Northmen”. Her insistence on the “noble” Nordic race reflects the influence she has received from theories such as the Teutonic and the Anglo-Saxon, which account for her exaltation of the Icelanders’ racial background. The use of the term “Northmen” is also of particular significance because it is frequently employed in Anglo-Saxon texts which sought to promote the idea of an inclusive North, consisting of racially advanced nations. Moreover, there is another instance in Oswald’s travel account in which the author’s discourse is related to the racial background of the Icelanders, clearly denoting their positive racial qualities, also noticed in their physical attributes: In appearance the Icelander is generally thoroughly intelligent- looking, whether handsome or the reverse. He often has the breadth of face and frame characteristic of seafaring people, and something of the awkward gait of a sailor ashore; no one on the island is drilled, except a man here and there who has served in the Danish army, and in these specimens one can see what fine men they often are when set up. (245)

Aside from the racial comments of the writer, such as one can also discern the utopian approach adopted by Oswald in her description of the Icelandic peasantry, especially with regard to the existence of the “bonde” (Norwegian or Icelandic farmers). The author evidently marvels at the self-reliant and strong appearance of these people, who are in close communion with nature, when stating that: every bonde had an equal voice with all the rest at the althing. In Norway the king himself appeared there like any other odal proprietor, and had to

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sway the assembly by his own eloquence, or, as sometimes happened, to see his plans defeated by the free speech of some unknown peasant. (36)

Oswald’s reference to the particular social class in Iceland is far from coincidental, as she seems to be equally enthralled with rural people as any other Victorian writer who is convinced that these people can only reach a significant degree of independence. Once again Oswald appears to prefer the social equality which Icelanders enjoy over the rigid hierarchical system of Victorian society. Hence her comment on the complete lack of corruption in Icelandic society, stemming from the fact that these people’s national character has been shaped more by the elements of nature and less by institutions leading to the spiritual “contamination” of the human beings, such as trade: “as refreshing as the uncontaminated air, is the absence of that money-winning, money-loving care which weighs upon our people. An Icelander may be a sharp hand at a bargain, but he is soon content with his position” (113). Faithful to the Herderian notion of the Volksgeist, Oswald also calls the reader’s attention to the folk stories which adorn the Icelandic landscape. Notwithstanding the fact that the Victorians tended to consider the folk elements of other cultures as evidence of their backwardness, Oswald departs from this position, by adopting a clearly Herderian view of Icelandic folk tradition that is reflected in the following comment of his: it is still whispered that those who go up the right way, and in the right frame of mind, may meet the elf-folk. Anything seemed possible, as we picked our way after dark over the rocks, guided chiefly by the glitter of the little river. And indeed it is not surprising that the old superstitions should still linger in these solitudes where man is so insignificant and nature so powerful. (100)

Despite the exotic dimension of such a reference to the lingering impact of the folk stories on the superstitious character of the natives, Oswald uses the folk stories about the existence of supernatural entities on the island as an indispensable part of the country’s cultural background, with no intention of othering the country visited. Oswald appears to speak of the Icelandic folklore from a strictly Herderian perspective, adhering to Herder’s strong belief in the consideration of factors such as language, the oral and written literary tradition as fundamental symbols of a country’s nationhood. Here Oswald does not depart from her overall attempt to romanticise the country. Yet she attempts to do so without denigrating the Icelandic nation. Thus instead of treating Iceland as the far North which “epitomised wilderness and distance and provided space for the image of

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fabulous and mythical places and people” (Kliemann-Geisinger 83), a strictly eighteenth-century dystopian view of the North, Oswald exoticises the country without demonising its inhabitants. In addition, she calls the reader’s attention to the significance of superstitions in the forging of a national identity, which reminds us of Herder’s emphasis on the “nonrational moulding agents such as myths, legends, or even sheer prejudices, and, very much in opposition to the cosmopolitan thinking of the Enlightenment” (150). Another key feature of Oswald’s travel text is her interest in the remarkable literacy rate on the island despite its remote position, a point which is also made by Baring-Gould. By focusing on the dissemination of education and on the significant achievements of the Icelanders in the field of literature, the author underscores their function as an enlightened nation; the social equality which characterises Icelandic society and adds to the Arcadian dimension of the country relies precisely on this educational development amongst Icelanders and as approvingly noted by Oswald: Education is universal in Iceland. It is part of the business of the clergy to see that everyone is taught at least to read and write. And parents are bound either to teach their children themselves, or to send them to school in the winter, should there be one near enough. (120)

Based on the writer’s positive remark, it might be claimed that Oswald treats all aspects of Icelandic society as considerable components of its function as a pastoral world. Thus, she overtly adheres to the rather limited category of Victorian travellers in Scandinavia, such as Baring-Gould, who sincerely attempted to convey to their readership not another image of Otherness through the partial denigration of the country but the fundamental elements of Icelandic society such as its population and the significant progress seen on the island since the Middle Ages. Similarly, the author again dismisses past allegations on Icelandic backwardness by observing that the island’s past corroborates the view that the country “bred up a race of independent, free, and happy people in these old days; happy, indeed, if we contrast their lives with those of the people in the rest of Europe in the early middle ages” (36). By taking a closer look at the Icelandic past as narrated in the sagas, Oswald feels that the country’s achievements are incomparable to such an extent, that every other country in the Middle Ages would seem primitive; this should again be seen as another endeavour of the writer to depict the Icelanders and their culture as a part of a flourishing rather than a decadent society. Oswald’s comments also show the glorification of the Nordic independence as a recurrent

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theme in travel literature on Scandinavia. Due to his sturdy appearance and attachment to nature, “the Norseman became the central figure in major social myth of Enlightenment origins -the myth of northern freedom- and developed from this into a minor literary myth of the golden age” (Greenway 84). Hence the portrayal of the Icelanders as a freedom-loving nation. What is more, Oswald’s unprejudiced and highly sentimental approach to the Icelanders can be proven by the intimate relationships with the natives that she forges during her consecutive trips to the island. Contrary to other Victorian travellers that opted for the position of the imperial beholder and largely reproduced the polarity between the traveller and the tourist, the latter being a distant, inferior and even threatening entity, Oswald describes in her travel account several instances in which she actively engages in several cultural events. On one occasion, she lays emphasis on the folk music of the island, which might be regarded as another major component of the Herderian tradition on national identity. In particular, Oswald remarks that The evening was cheered with part-singing of Icelandic, Swedish, and Danish songs, to which Thorgrimur contributed a deep bass, and a small boy a silvery treble. Music lies deep in the Icelanders, and the misfortunes of two hundred years have not stamped it out, though the howls of old bodies in churches would sometimes make one think so. The art is reviving. Beautiful voices are common, perhaps from the purity of the air, and the people have the Teutonic gift of harmony, and easily learn partsinging. (154)

In the extract one can discern the author’s constantly nostalgic voice when reflecting on several manifestations of the Icelandic Volksgeist; evidently, Oswald believes in the connection between history and music, an association that reminds us of the link that Herder frequently drew between history and all the national symbols of a national identity, such as language, oral tradition, literature and folk music. In that respect, Oswald’s attitude points to Barton’s argument on the significance of the Scandinavian folk (97). However, the above passage does not seek to exoticise the nation in question but rather shed more light on the manners and mores of Icelandic peasantry so as to further support the idea of the country as a utopian locus. It is also worth clarifying the use of the word “Teutonic” and its actual impact on the overall presentation of the Icelanders as Northmen. As can be noticed in Oswald’s discourse, although the author does not wish to impregnate her text with comments on the Teutonic race, the reader is struck by Oswald’s reference to the

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Teutonic harmony of the Icelanders, given the constant focus of racial theories on the harmonious aspect of the Teutonic race in contrast to other races, mainly Southern, which are characterised by inconsistent temperament. In spite of her Celtic background, the writer appears to be influenced by the theories of Anglo-Saxonism and Teutonism that fostered the image of the Icelanders as a fine example of Teutonic spirit. The racial dimension of Oswald’s discourse can also be viewed in another instance, in which the writer describes the incompatibility of some Italian tourists, who sojourned on the island in the same period as the author. As Oswald ironically mentions: We had doubted whether these young fellows from the garden of the world would care for the stern barren North; but they were delighted with everything, and charmed the people wherever they went. Here our routes diverged, as we still kept near the northern coast, and they turned southwards, where they found good sport and much to amuse them, as they told us on the voyage home. (229)

In this episode, Oswald’s statement reflects the change in the perception of the North and the South as regions that epitomised masculinity and corruption respectively. If the North came to represent reason, stability and profundity, the South epitomised superficiality and saturation (Isleifsson 119). This certainly applies to the Italian tourists and the way in which they are seen by Oswald, who is eager to contrast their extrovert nature with the Doric aspect of Icelandic nature and people, a clash which can also be interpreted in the light of the racial theories that fostered such a conflict and viewed the North as a Germanic field. In other words, Oswald treats the North and the South as two distinct systems which function in isolation and are opposed to each other. The fact that the North is a Germanic/Anglo-Saxon property and it pertains to Britain’s nation-building project of the nineteenth century is made explicit by the writer in another passage, in which Oswald refers to the Britons as the continuators of the Old Norse culture in the modern times, thus alluding to the identification of nineteenth-century notion of Britishness with the Germanic North: “In some sort we may look upon ourselves as their representatives in the modern world; we have inherited, with a strain of their race, their spirit of enterprise and their love of the sea” (280). Even though Oswald’s statement suggests a certain appropriation of the North by the Britons, who depicted themselves as modern Vikings, it also proves the impact that the renewal of the Anglo-Scandinavian bonds had on the construction of Britishness. Taking this into consideration, Oswald evidently embraces the view that Icelanders and Britons epitomised the

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unchanged past and the promising future of the Viking culture respectively. Finally, as is the case in all the previous travelogues, language occupies a significant position in the travelogue and it is clearly associated with the national character of the Icelanders. In addition, the role of language impacts considerably on the racial awareness of the Britons, who immediately associated their culture with nations that seemed to be characterised by similar linguistic features, that is, the Scandinavians and the Germans. Due to her fluency in modern and Old Icelandic, and because of her old antiquarian background, Oswald is extremely keen on setting the focus on the Icelandic language on various occasions. Her interest in the Icelandic language stems from her infatuation with the Old Viking culture, and according to the author one must be well acquainted with the language in order to have easier access to the saga manuscripts: “It is worth while learning Icelandic, if merely to read these fine poems, as only they can be read, in the original” (47). Since Icelandic language was the only means of acquiring information about the Old Norse culture, Oswald acknowledges the importance of learning the language so that Victorian readers can familiarise themselves with the original spirit of the Viking society. In the light of this perception of Iceland as the cradle of Northern culture and the Icelanders as descendants of the Germanic mother culture that had flourished in Iceland, Oswald attempts to provide the reader with a utopian image of the island, drawing upon fundamental elements of the country’s national identity such as language, literature, peasantry and folklore. This is the reason why the Icelanders are frequently conceptualised by Oswald in relation to their civilisation and much less in conjunction with the impressions that she may accumulate during her trip with the aim of producing a travelogue based on the true national character of the natives and not on the superficial remarks of the passing traveller. Being aware of the injurious effect that a travelogue beset with misconceptions could have on the image of the country in the Victorian reader’s eyes, Oswald seems to be particularly sensitive to the depiction of the “travellees”. Her attitude indicates her aspiration to identify with the Icelandic civilisation. After having addressed the major issues in Oswald’s text By Fell and Fjord, it can be deduced that the text is impregnated with various elements which render it quite complex, compared with other travelogues produced on the island. The importance of Oswald’s text in the construction of a nineteenth-century Icelandic utopia is obvious, considering the various

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topics addressed by the author. If one attempts to sum up the qualities of the writer’s travel account, these would be: 1) her loyalty to the basic principles of northernist hypothesis as formulated by Anglo-Saxon theorists; 2) the use of the sagas as the main source of information around which the issues of Icelandic nationhood as well as British national identity revolve 3) the prioritisation of the female element over the masculine in the engendered interpretation of the literary production of the island; 4) the inversion of the North-South polarity and the transformation of Iceland into the cradle of Nordic culture; 5) the racial awareness of the Scots and the Britons in relation to the actual racial amalgamations on the island; and 6) the rejection of the dystopian travel canon of the eighteenth century concerning the island and the adoption of a utopian, sentimental approach to the Icelandic setting. Admittedly, Oswald’s text does not provide the reader with a single version of Icelandic utopia but rather explores all aspects that contribute to the projection of the country as an Arcadian locus, by revisiting and deconstructing eighteenth-century concepts of travel literature such as the ideas on the noble savage, the theory of climate, and the wide North. Finally, Oswald’s account does not attempt to “other” the Icelandic nation by presenting the natives as entirely alien to the Britons either culturally or idiosyncratically: the writer appears to be fully committed to providing her readers with a genuine sketch of the Icelandic manners and mores by drawing constant links between the nineteenth-century conditions on the island and the illustrious past of the Vikings as depicted in the medieval documents of the island.

PART VI: DANISH UTOPIA

CHAPTER ONE HORACE MARRYAT: A RESIDENCE IN JUTLAND, THE DANISH ISLES, AND COPENHAGEN

Horace Marryat (1818-1887) is a British travel writer, whose father Joseph Marryat was a member of the British Parliament. His brother Frederick Marryat was more acclaimed as a famous novelist and naval officer, for having written children’s books and historical novels emulating the style of Sir Walter Scott. Horace Marryat travelled to Denmark in 1860 where he wrote the travel account A Residence in Jutland, The Danish Isles, and Copenhagen. In 1862 he produced another travelogue, One Year in Sweden including a Visit to the Isle of Götland, in which he described his travel experiences in another Scandinavian country. Being a member of the upper class, he adopts a standpoint typical of his social rank, wishing not to include many descriptions about Danish peasantry, unlike other Victorian travel writers, such as Laing, Metcalfe, Baring-Gould and Lowe, who eagerly stressed the attractive image of Scandinavian peasants by alluding to the concept of the noble savage. On the contrary, Marryat’s travel account involves significant information on the cultural life of the Danish capital, providing the reader with detailed descriptions of the most well-known museums in Copenhagen and introducing various Danish artists and members of the royal family. In contrast with Lowe and Metcalfe, who tended to bestow a life-time importance on their trips to the northern peripheries, being exposed to scenes and people that were alien to the Victorian lifestyle, Marryat does not wish to undertake the role of the adventure hero, as he does not describe his journey as a hazardous errand to the unknown; his journey hardly impacts on his overall amalgamation as a personality. In this sense, Marryat acquires the peculiar status of the traveller- tourist, two notions which nowadays might be used interchangeably, but were distinct in the mid-nineteenth century. On the one hand, he scarcely identifies with the Danish culture and landscape, depicting the pictures he comes across in a rather detached manner, an attitude which usually characterises tourists,

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that is, travellers who do not see the “purgatorial” dimension of their trip to foreign territories and who tend to hold a material relationship with the country and its people. On the other hand, his role as a meticulous traveller relies on his minute observations on Danish history and culture as well as on the very choice of Denmark as his place of focus in a period marked by the increasing fascination of the Victorians with Norway and Iceland as the northern peripheries where the ancient Viking world could still be witnessed. Given the tendency of mid-Victorian writers such as BaringGould, Oswald and Metcalfe to undertake journeys to the aforementioned countries in order to experience the myth of Ultima Thule and restore the Anglo-Saxon roots of the country at an intellectual level, likewise Marryat stresses the historical features of a country culturally related to the old Norse world. The historical background of Marryat’s text is the eve of the country’s war with Prussia and Austria, countries which constituted the German core in Europe- a war which resulted in Denmark’s loss of Schleswig-Holstein (Slesvig Holsten in Danish), a region forming the country’s bridge to Europe.The Schleswig-Holstein Question preoccupied the national awakening of both Germany and Denmark after the Napoleonic Wars, crystallising the ancient antagonism between the two nations in their effort to leave their own cultural and political mark in the region. Knud Jespersen illustrates the nascent patriotism in Denmark after the national defeat to the Germans, claiming that “the type of Danishness which developed through the nineteenth century was a kind of reflected Danishness, which arose as a contrasting image to the enemies from outside” (208). Even though the country’s territorial shrinking, and subsequent nationalism resulted from the Danish -German antagonism, the scathing of the national feeling took place much earlier, during the Napoleonic Wars, where the country’s main enemy was Britain. Because of the country’s alliance with France, British war expeditions against Denmark led to the humiliation of the latter nation, when “Copenhagen was heavily bombarded, suffering extensive destruction and loss of life […] taking the whole Danish fleet with them” (Derry 21). Acknowledging the importance of these historical events in the shaping of Danish-British relations, Marryat refers to the tragic impact of the British display of power in Copenhagen on the status of Denmark as a Baltic superpower: From this period all good feeling between the courts of England and Denmark ended, the bombardment of Copenhagen in later days tending little to restore the cordiality between the two countries, who for so many centuries had been bound together by the strongest ties of family alliance. (222)

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The Danish-British conflict after the alliance of the Danes with the French government might explain the Victorian writers’ general reluctance to treat this Northern country as an Arcadian society. Barton illuminates the problematic relation between the British travellers and Denmark, affirming that the war against Denmark in 1807-1814 “effectively barred Britons from the Danish domains” (175), resulting in the projection of Denmark as a despotic country and the British nation’s foe. These historical events discourage a romanticisation of the Danish nation, since “the romantic vision of a Northern Arcadia was beclouded after the country’s precipitation into the Napoleonic maelstrom” (Barton175). The peaceful character of a territory certainly enhances its portrayal as an Arcadian locus, thus Denmark was unlikely to fare well for that role. With regard to the issue of poverty, Marryat emphasises the welfare state of Denmark, visible in Danish people’s appearance and absence of beggary: ‘The people are well clothed and well lodged; we have met with no poverty, no beggars, as yet.’ ‘As regards that’, he replied, ‘you are quite right; for every one man who dies from starvation, if such a thing ever does occur, ninety-nine die from overeating themselves.’ And I believe he was correct in his assertion, for the Jutlanders have a sleek and well-to-do appearance. (77)

Moreover, contrary to other Arctic regions which contributed to the romanticisation of the North, depicting it as a savage world whose inhabitants were forced to engage in an everyday struggle against the forces of Nature (mountains, geysers, frost), Denmark could not be regarded from that idealistic perspective, because, as Derry points out, it was “less handicapped by Nature and was from very early times more fully inhabited than her Scandinavian neighbours” (4). Owing to the prevalent role of the theory of climate all along the eighteenth century and onwards, the Nordic populations were ascribed national characteristics according to the sequestered locations they inhabited. The Danish cultural and geopolitical attachment to Continental Europe could not enable travel writers to apply this theory to the country’s representation in the eyes of the Victorian readers. Given the country’s participation in the Napoleonic Wars on the French side, its “closest connection with Europe at large” (Derry 215) compared with every other Northern territory, its cultural attachment to Germany and its exercise of power over Norway (until 1815) and Iceland, Denmark was often treated as a “tyrannical” power which did not accord with the overall depiction of the North as a peaceful and quite static zone, alien to the war-like character of other Western nations, Britain included.

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In addition to its imperial character prior to the loss of Norway and Schleswig-Holstein, the depiction of Denmark in association with the Viking world was disabled by its geographical location -the country’s proximity to Continental Europe hindered its portrayal as a sequestered, savage locus. Hendriette Kliemann-Geisinger emphasises the unclear position of Denmark in the European map, since it was incorporated into both the North and the South after its nineteenth-century amalgamation. As Kliemann-Geisinger puts it, “Denmark bridges the gap between the North and the South. It is either counted as a part of Scandinavia or of the Continent, which means Germany, depending on the particular political interests” (82). Having assumed an intermediary role in the mapping of the North and the South, Denmark is pictured by Marryat both as a Nordic country and a former ruler of the Scandinavian states, a fact which shows us the complexity of Denmark’s “placement” on the European map both culturally and geopolitically. The process of Othering might be regarded as an embedded value of nineteenth-century travel literature, not only confined to the colonised world but also evident in the peripheries of the rising British Empire. Most mid-nineteenth-century travelogues are permeated by the racial theories of Teutonism and Anglo-Saxonism as well as suggest a systematic endeavour to consolidate British supremacy in its colonised territories around the world. Marryat’s attitude towards the Danish nation obviously expresses his desire to resort to an imperial discourse when referring to the destruction of the Danish capital by the British at the peak of the Napoleonic wars: Continuing our course, we arrive at the University: a hideous, monstrous building, whose ugliness is only surpassed by that of the adjoining church of Our Lady (the Frue Kirke), a building unworthy to contain those exquisite productions of Thordvalsen, his Christ, the Apostles, and the Kneeling Angel, - chefs d’oeuvre I will not insult, by describing within their prison. To this merited abuse the Danes will reply, ‘Why did you bombard the old church?’ I admit there is some logic in this; but the kindest act we could now perform to their capital would be to return and knock over the new one and the University into the bargain. (150)

Drawing upon this extract, one can discern the author’s irony targeted at the Danes who accuse the British of interventionism and subsequent atrocities at the time of the country’s conflict with Britain. Having produced a sentiment of humiliation amongst the Danes, the bombardment of a church in the centre of the capital is viewed as the attempt of the British army to scathe the population’s national identity and overall status

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as a former Baltic power. On the contrary, Marryat’s discourse is interspersed with a significant degree of arrogance, taking for granted this atrocious display of British power over the city’s inhabitants. In relation to the extensive use of othering practices, Graham Huggan makes an important point referring to the utilisation of Orientalism as a “codeword for virtually any kind of Othering process that involves the mapping of dominating practices of knowledge/power onto peoples seen, however temporarily or strategically, as culturally ‘marginal,’ economically “undeveloped,” or psychologically “weak.”(125-126). The delineation of Denmark as a marginalised country, that is, a periphery likely to be manipulated by the British expansionism, underlies the view of the imperial beholder. Marryat chooses an authoritative voice to speak of the Danish-British conflict, overlooking the actual detrimental effect of the human casualties on the self-realisation of the Danes. Marryat’s extensive references to past events are made to emphasise the notion of Britishness instead of highlighting the culture he has been assigned to portray in his travelogue. In other words, although Marryat’s original aim is to portray the virtues and the defects of the Danish nation, there are several references to the Anglo-Danish war which suggest that he is equally, if not more, interested in describing the military accomplishments of his own nation, thus projecting Britishness as a notion of utmost importance. Marryat’s empowered placement in his own narrative is also evident in another fragment of the travel account, in which the author lays more emphasis on the aesthetic ugliness of the buildings than on the disastrous conflagrations caused by the British war expedition against Napoleon’s allies: we now pass through the old market (Gammeltorv), where once stood the small but quaint Raadhus1 destroyed in one of the numerous conflagrations from which the town has suffered. In the centre stands a fountain in metal, which no longer plays, and though allegorical- I forget the subject- is neither imposing nor beautiful. (122)

Given the writer’s description of the place, which is reminiscent of the British aggression in Northern Europe, it is clear that Marryat aims at dissociating the destructive signs of the British invasion from the actual British perpetrators. Stressing the disagreeable image of Danish constructions after the bombardments, the writer appears to stress more the aesthetic condition of the buildings than to blame the negative British effect on the site. Apparently, the author attempts to displace the guilt in 1

City Hall (in Danish)

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the excessive power display of the British imperial spirit. In that respect, the perpetrator (the British traveller) becomes the victim of the “aesthetic” outcome of the war and the real victim (Denmark) turns into the aesthetic violator, thus being treated as an expendable part of the imperial business. The self-aggrandising methods of the imperial system are also visible in the following extracts of Marryat’s travel account, in which British intervention is presented as a natural consequence, in view of the Danish alliance with the French side: Under the then existing circumstances, I cannot see how the English Government could have acted otherwise. It was a painful necessity. They had received from the most reliable sources certain information that the Emperor Napoleon, about to occupy Holstein with his army, would, if once master of Zealand, seize the Danish fleet and employ it against our country. I have no national prejudice on the subject: on the contrary, residing in the city itself, with “pleine et entière jouissance’ of a canon-ball- triste souvenir-inserted in the very masonry of the house we inhabit, I almost feel as though bombarded myself. (155)

Marryat’s imperial gaze recalls Mills’ point that male travel writing is chiefly associated with the reproduction of colonial discourse and that colonialism was a male preserve because “men were assumed to possess such characteristics as activity, energy, independence and intellectual prowess to be used in public life and the wide world” (70). In the light of this argument, Marryat is equally likely, as a male traveller, to adopt an imperialist stance towards the country visited because of the social expectations that dictated that authoritative attitude. If one attempts to compare his view of the war events with Lady Wilde’s opinion on the same issue while travelling in the region, Mills’ argument is obviously corroborated, as Wilde immediately empathises with the indignation of the natives stating that “the English were for a long time very unpopular in Denmark, as the Danes could not easily forgive or forget the devastations and insults of Nelson and Wellington” (41). Mills also refers to the role of the sentimental traveller, often assumed by women who are more likely to form nexuses with the local people and the landscape itself (75). Looking at the two extracts, one can become acquainted with the contradictory spirit of British travellers in the nineteenth century, especially when it comes to the change of narrative voices in the text. On the one hand, Marryat presents the disastrous activities of the British army as the inevitable mission of a powerful nation to consolidate its power at the expense of the natives. His imperial

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standpoint towards the tragic events recalls Said’s stress on the firmly-held conviction of the colonisers that “since colonies fall within the orbit of British dominance, that dominance is a sort of norm, and thus conserved along with the colonies” (88). In Marryat’s travelogue, British expansionism is disguised in the “painful necessity” of appropriating a country’s infrastructure in support of the imperial needs, reminding us of the omnipresent pattern of the colonisers’ “errand into the wilderness” (Said 65) in various texts which are nuanced with the spirit of imperialism, in spite of the cultural bonds that Denmark and Britain shared. On the other hand, the sentimental narrative voice that the writer attempts to adopt in his effort to appear sympathetic towards the Danes seems to be rather awkward; Marryat’s reference to the “inevitable” usurpation of the Danish fleet in view of the imminent French threat is in contrast with his statement that he identifies with the tragic fate of the Danish inhabitants while staying at a hotel which bears the marks of the invasion. Thus, the failure of sliding from an authoritative to a sentimental narrative style is quite evident. Besides Marryat’s patronising glance at the Danish nation as an inferior country to the powerful British Empire, he seems to rely on the theory of Saxonism which constituted the basis of the emerging concept of Britishness in the 1850s. As Young notes, a Saxon must be “independent, energetic, self-reliant, masculine and liberty-loving” (45). The masculine spirit permeating imperial discourse is evident in Marryat’s depiction of the Danes as effeminized beings, whose country is easily penetrated and appropriated by the masculine Anglo-Saxons. In addition to the exaltation of the British might, the writer refers to the emperor Napoleon as a crucial menace to the integrity of the British Empire. As Colley argues, the Anglo-French antipathy was fused with the nation-building effort of imperial Britain. In other words, Catholic French expansionism did not only pose a significant threat to the existence of the Protestant British Empire; it also assisted in the amalgamation of British national identity, which was built upon hostility against every sign of French presence. In the travelogue, the reader is struck with the use of French words by the writer, such as “pleine et entière jouissance” and “triste” in a chapter devoted to the demonstration of the British superiority to the French forces in the Napoleonic Wars, given the writer’s statement about the dangerous French, that signals the insecurity experienced by the writer at the sight of French cultural (and geopolitical) expansion in Scandinavia. What is more, the writer refers to the destruction of a famous Danish castle by the Swedes during the Napoleonic Wars, an episode which is supportive of Swedish penetration into the Danish territory. In this excerpt,

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however, Marryat overstresses the French part in the destruction of the Danish historical heritage, mentioning Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, the French general who became the king of Sweden-Norway in 1819, as the main cause of Denmark’s political eclipse, overlooking the fact that he acted as an ally of the British army: The castle, one of the most ancient in Jutland, called in earlier days Örnsborg or Eagle Castle, was built by our restless acquaintance bad King Abel: it is now a blackened ruin, having fallen, like most of the palaces in Denmark, a victim of the scourge of fire during the occupation of Bernadotte. (59)

This description obviously shows the writer’s hatred towards the French in a period during which Francophobia was incessantly expressed by British travellers, despite the significant lapse of time between the Napoleonic Wars and the Victorian period. Apparently, the author does not pay significant attention to the Danish-Swedish conflict that emerged during the Napoleonic Wars and haunted the relation of the two countries ever since, despite their common Viking background. Marryat draws the reader’s attention to the incessant rivalry between the Swedes and the Danes, a characteristic that is deeply interwoven with the concept of Danishness. The Danish-Swedish conflict challenges the country’s panScandinavian spirit, given the visible similarities that both countries shared on multiple levels, such as common history (Kalmar Union and Viking past), religion (Protestantism) and language (both languages deriving from Old Norse). For Jespersen, Denmark’s rivalry with Sweden “had proved painful and expensive. A lot of the Norwegian border territory and the Scanian provinces had been lost. The Danish dream of mastery over the Baltic had been crushed” (20). Denmark’s transformation into a midget state, deprived of its former territories, is presented by the writer as a minor conflict between two peripheries which share the same characteristics. Apart from the reconstruction of the Danish nation as a weak Other, which can be easily “manipulated” by the interventionism of the powerful British Empire, the process of othering also extends to the country’s historical self-presentation, as evidenced by the following two excerpts: Let us now return to the Bourse [Stock Exchange in Danish]. Stop first and admire its graceful twisted spire, unique in Europe. Tradition relates how Christian brought over-some say the four dragons, others the stone ornamental copings of the building, from Calmar: but the tradition is apt to embellish, and I am always skeptical as regards Danish legends about Swedish affairs, and vice versa. (136)

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The writer approaches the Danish-Swedish conflict in a rather detached manner whereas, at the same time, he mocks the efforts of the Danes to utilise this ongoing rivalry as part of their nation-building process. Marryat confesses that he is skeptical regarding Danish legends, while in the second extract, he ridicules the national insecurity experienced by the Danes due to the constant invasion of the country by their Swedish neighbours. The writer’s ironic stance towards the Danish interpretation of historical events, always negatively biased against the Swedes, certainly entails some truth. Nevertheless, judging from his previous concern for the French expansion northwards, a fact closely related to Britain’s own geopolitical status as a European superpower, one may wonder why Marryat wishes to undermine the depiction of Danish history by the native historians, while he places himself as the “omniscient” British narrator who can qualify for the same role. Concerning the notion of Danishness, Jespersen argues that “the type of Danishness which developed through the nineteenth century was a kind of reflected Danishness, which arose as a contrasting image to the enemies from outside” (208). Defined as such, Danish identity relied on the Danish nation’s antagonism with other nations, as a mixture of defeatism and a feeling of pride for the country’s past imperial glory reflected in several national symbols. According to Inge Adriansen, the Danish nationalist movement of the nineteenth century was manifested as a response to the catastrophes in the political field and in the active use of national symbols (129). Based on that definition, the nation-building strategy, followed by the Danish nation, was contingent on the description of Danishness within the borders of the country after Denmark’s territorial shrinking. As Stephanie Buus notes, Denmark pursued “an introvert strategy of national reconsolidation that would later become a popular motto2 after the definitive loss of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein in 1864” (287). Marryat finds it difficult to interpret this introvert process of national reconstruction because the forging of Britishness took place following the opposite process; as Colley points out, “increasingly as the wars went on, they [the British] defined themselves in contrast to the colonial peoples they conquered, people who were manifestly alien in terms of culture, religion and colour” (25), constantly renegotiating their identity in view of 2

“what has been lost without must be won within” (Werner 215).

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their excessive power over other nations. By contrast, the patriotic feeling of the Danes increased at the possible threat of territorial extinction, and certainly was not contingent on the emerging racial theories that prevailed in Britain, having been conquered as they were by Germans, Swedes or Britons, that is, nations which resembled the Danes on many levels. First of all, prior to the Schleswig-Holstein Question, Denmark was often treated as an extension of Germany, because, as pointed out by Heinrich Detering, it was assumed to be attached to Germany geographically, culturally and politically (58).The country’s independent status from Germany was brought to the foreground after the loss of the SchleswigHolstein, when the country’s cultural interaction with Germany was shuttered by the political developments in question. The pervasive influence of the Germans on the country, and the subsequent description of Denmark as a German periphery, might be explained by the existence of the Hanseatic League, the German Union of merchants that dominated the Scandinavian trade. The significance of the Hanse merchants in the cultural and political life of the Scandinavians, and chiefly in Denmark was vast, and as Derry states “by 1400 it had a membership of about seventy towns, with its headquarters in Lubeck […] and a special interest in the Baltic trade” (66). This is also evidenced by Marryat in his reference to the aristocratic character of the Hanseatic towns in Denmark, also reflected in the tombstones of the German merchants in contrast with the plainer aspect of the Danish epitaphia: “The ‘epitaphia’ of the burghers’ families are rich and splendid in the extreme, all hung round with quarterings and emblazonment. None more aristocratic than the ancient burghers of the Hanse Towns” (6). Wishing to express the anti-German feeling that dominated Denmark on the eve of the loss of Schleswig Holstein, Marryat dismisses the past cultural affiliation of the country with Germany, projecting the dissatisfaction of the Danish people when their King, Frederic IV’s choice of a Germanised version of his name: so they Germanised the name to suit the fashion of the time and called him Lichtenberg. The people, however, loved not this change, and declare that from that time the family never prospered, but gradually died out, and their palace is now become the chief hotel of the city. (76)

In this extract, Marryat makes a crucial point regarding the social hierarchy in Denmark. On the one hand, King Frederic IV, under the pressure of the German merchants who exercise their power on Danish commercial life and in conformity to the Germanophile Danish nobility, germanised his name, giving rise to the Danish people’s indignation, who

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saw this incident as important evidence of the rising German influence during the Hanseatic Years. On the other hand, the writer sheds light on the distance between the Danish upper-class members and the peasants in more than one respect (linguistic as well as political). According to Nils Hybel and Bjørn Poulsen, Germanic immigration to Denmark during the fifteenth century did not only contribute to the country’s overall growth and institutional progress; “the Hanseatic language, Low German, played an important part in the development of Danish, being both the source of the upper classes and a source of loanwords” (140) . Yet like Metcalfe, Baring-Gould and Oswald, Marryat highlights the significance of the issue of language in the nation-building process of a nation, since it is projected as a point of difference from the Other. Given the significant role of language within the British Empire, the writer criticises the Germanophile attitude of Danish nobility as a sign of weakness which might lead to Denmark’s cultural effacement by the more expansionist Germans. Thus, by juxtaposing the Danish people’s reluctance to accept the German cultural presence with the emulation of German elements by the Danish king Marryat attempts to widen the gap between contemporary Denmark and its German neighbour, ceding the country an independent status. In addition to the essential role of language in the shaping of Danishness, the author seems to be aware of the historical conflicts that took place between the German-speaking elite and middle-class Danes at the close of the eighteenth century. During the early stages of the Danish nationalist movement, the notion of the mother tongue was directly linked to the formation of the national feeling, but took on a political form, being the major issue of conflict in Copenhagen between the dominant Germanspeaking nobility and the rising middle class (Adriansen 131). As a result, the Danish language was deemed as an indispensable ingredient of Danishness and the use of German was demonised as an impediment to Danish people’s national awakening, a conclusion also drawn by Marryat in the extract in question. Unlike other Nordic countries, such as Finland with its bilingual status (French/ Swedish) and Norway (Dano-Norwegian and Norwegian dialects), Danish always enjoyed a significant status as a lingua franca amongst the Scandinavian lands (Bagge 10). The dissemination of the Danish language in all its territories (Iceland, Greenland, Faeroes and Norway), beyond the strict Danish borders, certainly strengthened the country’s self-reflection and contributed to the national reconsideration of Denmark after its tremendous losses in the political sphere. Young illustrates the significant role that Victorians attributed to language as a differentiating factor between the colonizers and the colonized, as well as

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between the English and their insular Others (Scots, Welsh and Irish) by stating that there was “the assumption that language was the best indication of the relation of one racial group to another ” (27). The very fact that the writer chooses to centre on the difference between Danish and German contributes even more to the description of the Danish people as a separate ethnic entity from the Germans, in a period during which Teutonism was gaining ground as a theory both in the Nordic countries and in Britain. Marryat seems to be well acquainted with the Germanic nationalist theories that emerged during the German national movement in early and mid-nineteenth century from the German philosophers of the University of Kiel in the region of Schleswig-Holstein, who, more or less, incorporated the Nordic world (as well as Britain) into the German culture based on Herder’s language theory (Sprachgeist) of the origins of civilisations, as the following extract suggests: “That the Danes bear no love to this Holstein College the following proverb will show: ‘To lie is always a science, as the devil said when he frequented the University of Kiel” (15). Marryat’s comment on the attempt of the Germans to hide their expansionism in the use of “Saxon” as an umbrella term for every nation culturally related to Germany recalls the well-established hypothesis of Herder that “all the languages of the world had developed from a very small group of cultures” (Gomard 199) scattered across the world. In the light of this theory, Gomard also refers to German scholars’ efforts, mainly those from the University of Kiel (such as Johann Christoph Adelung and the Brothers Grimm), to include the Nordic languages in Low German dialects (201), expanding even further the cultural appropriation of the North by the German Romantic Nationalism. Marryat’s approach to Danish language, and its relation to German, reflects a certain degree of hostility towards German expansionism. His hostile view of the potential appropriation of Denmark by the Germans could be attributed to the following factors. Firstly, as Wawn notices, amongst Northernist scholars as well as other prominent Victorian figures, “there was talk of support for Denmark in the Slesvig-Holsten conflicts being rewarded by the gift of some Danish-territory namely Iceland” (17), that is, the nineteenth-century cradle of Saxon civilisation according to the Viking scholars. Secondly, Victorian travellers such as Baring-Gould, Metcalfe and Oswald, yearned to evoke the Saxon roots of Britain on several occasions during their journey in the North. Given the increasing Teutonic theories about the Germanic appropriation of the North, Marryat expresses his rejection of the German origin of Britain, providing as indisputable evidence the contemporary image of Britain and excluding all

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likelihood that the British past could be associated with the German culture: still I own I have no patience with the Anglo-Saxon party, who wish to ignore the Northmen, and prove that the greatness of England is to be derived from a fallen German race. Who in their senses will for one moment allow that the maritime glory of our country, the dominion of the waves, could ever descend to us from German forefathers- a race incapable of crossing a duck-puddle without being sea-sick; or our love for colonization from a race who never possessed a single colony of their own? (229)

In this extract, Marryat attacks the tendency of certain British scholars, such as John Mitchell-Kemble, to support Grimm’s Teutonic origins of the British culture. British scholars like George Stephens and other Northernists were reluctant to adopt the term “Germanic” coined by their compatriots and Grimm; on the contrary, they opted for terms which did not legitimise German appropriation of the British culture, and the Viking lore, such as “Old Northern” (Wiley 237). Obviously, Marryat not only shows his concern for German expansionism towards the North through the Nordic nations’ inclusion into the German sphere of control but his discourse marks a shift from Teutonism to Anglo-Saxonism as well. In support of this juxtaposition with the German nation, Marryat refers to the well developed colonial system of Britain as well as the supremacy of the British Navy in the oceans. In identifying the colonial system and its powerful tool, the British fleet, as the main ingredients of mid nineteenthcentury Britishness, Marryat lays emphasis on the foundation of British patriotism; Colley sees in Britain the emergence of “a far more consciously and officially constructed patriotism which stressed attachment to the monarchy, the importance of empire, the value of military and naval achievement” (145), all successfully epitomised by the country’s devotion to the rising imperial system in the colonies. Given Britain’s constant focus on its masculine, military nature, Marryat refuses to link the British Empire to Germany, since the latter did not possess a well structured colonial system, unlike Denmark which, despite its small size, “possesses colonies of her own-two small West India islands, St Croix and St Thomas” (203). According to various Victorian travellers such as Laing, Metcalfe and Baring-Gould, the imperialist spirit underlay British culture because of its Viking heritage and, “it was those old northern values, after all, that, in the eyes of many Victorians, underpinned the best of Britain at home and abroad-imperial power, mercantile prosperity, technological progress” (Wawn 40). Therefore, the author is anxious to restore Britain’s

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link with the Northmen, that is, the Viking warriors who were also impregnated with the desire to conquer and colonise, as well as with their Scandinavian descendants. The writer reinforces the Anglo-Danish connection in other extracts which seek to stress the linguistic link between Old English and Danish in essential elements of Danish culture, such as its folk ballads and literature: It is impossible to go through your ABC without being struck by the analogy of Danish with our native tongue, and more so still when you devote yourself to the ballads and literature of the early centuries; and I am informed that the laws of King Valdemar have even more resemblance still. (227) One of the early chroniclers declares ‘the English language, as they spoke it in the time of Canute the Great, differs only a little from the Danish, because the Angles had come from Jutland, wherefore their language was called by the writer Cimbric, and this they spoke in the provinces which lay north of the Thames. (228)

In spite of the two countries’ complex relations at a political level, Marryat desires to project the remarkable similarities between the two cultures in order to refashion Denmark as Britain’s “cultural ally”; He thus embraces the mid nineteenth-century theory about the Danish origins of British culture, and refers to Jutland as well as to the several documents in the Middle Ages which give important evidence for the linguistic connection between the Anglo-Saxon world and Denmark. In fact, Marryat alludes to Stephens, one of the most influential personalities of the Northernist movement in Britain. Stephens’ old northernism excludes the German role in the northern unity of nations foreseeing “a rising tide of nineteenthcentury German imperialism in old northern scholarship and modern European diplomacy” (Wawn 218). In Stephens’ discourse, Jutland is described as the core of the northern cultural and racial continuum, a descendant of which is modern Britain. In that vein, the Scandinavian countries, mainly Denmark, resemble remarkably the Britons in various respects. Marryat’s genuine interest in the Northernist theory is also evident in two other instances in his travel account, in which he attempts to trace these linguistic similarities in contemporary aspects of British culture such as modern English: The Arsenal contains a large collection of guns, swords, cutlasses, halberds, etc. from the earliest ages, arranged in chronological order. The similarity of terms used in the two services cannot fail to interest the

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Part VI Chapter One Englishman: the jolle baad-jilly boat; aare-oars; at ro-to row; om bordoverboard; mast, etc. (157) Many of the earliest and most ancient Danish names are common in England, and are in all probability of Scandinavian origin. (186)

The author marvels at the common words which are still in both languages and corroborate Stephens’ theory about the old Northern unity between Britain and the Nordic countries, a connection which strengthens the status of the British culture as an ancient civilisation originating from the Old Norse culture of the Vikings. This discovery has significant implications for Britain’s self-realisation as a refined culture which can compete against the classic spirit of the Greco-Roman culture, projecting the Old Northern civilisation of the Vikings as an alternative. Nevertheless, Marryat is equally interested in putting this Northernist hypothesis to a test, anxious, as he is to draw his own conclusions through his interaction with the Danish population. Throughout his journey to various parts of Jutland, he continually mentions his strenuous effort to master the basics of Danish pronunciation. The following extracts indicate his rather “moderate” stance as regards Stephen’s theory about the origins of the English language: when later we visited Jutland, we were still more forcibly struck with the great similarity of the two languages; and recollect one thing- we none of us understand one word of North country patois […] unfortunately people are apt to exaggerate these resemblances. (228) A six months’ trial convinces me that Danish is not to be picked up so easily as French or German; in the first place, in the society and shops, all the world speak either English or the above-named languages. (227)

Marryat does not dispute the Northernist hypothesis on the origins of language, stating that he is also “struck with the great similarity between the two languages, possibly in terms of vocabulary. Yet his overall viewpoint of the matter seeks to reduce this connection by stating that the average British speaker can easily learn French, a language derived from Latin, or German, the language of the so-called (by Stephens) “furthest kin-land” of Britain. He goes as far as to imply that, despite this link, other Victorian scholars tend to exaggerate on the matter. The writer seems to be reluctant to familiarise himself with the Danish language, not only because of its relative difficulty compared with other languages, which are more widely spoken in Europe, but because of the multilingual background of the average Dane who is able to converse in English and in various other foreign languages. Marryat also admits his reluctance to delve into the

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Danish culture, humourously confessing that “for my own part, I abominate learning anything, and always did from my youth upwards. I like to pick up a language anyhow, and with as little a trouble as possible” (226). On the contrary, the general fluency of the Nordic peoples in the English language is viewed by British travellers, as Fjågesund and Symes argue, as a willingness to emulate the Britons, stimulating “British fantasy about their reverence for British culture as a whole” (260). Based on this argument, once can clearly notice Marryat’s enthusiasm upon his encounter with a Dane who, having mastered the English language, can help the writer formulate proper judgments about the “state of the country”: “we made acquaintance with a Dane, M. de___, who had been in England, spoke our language well, and had a long conversation about the state of the country.” (77). In this respect, the cultural interpretation of Denmark can only take place through the use of language mediators and this fact puts the validity of Marryat’s ideas about the country into question. Simultaneously, if, according to the author, the Danes are interested in mastering the English language, the anti-German feeling of the 1860s proves the Danish people’s view of German as the language of the oppressor: “all well-educated people are aware, that, when the devil does talk in Denmark, he never speaks anything but German, and that very bad German, too” (402). Indeed, according to Jespersen, the German threat gradually led the Danes to a demonisation of German culture and “a corresponding increase in enthusiasm for anything pan-Scandinavian or English” (200), coinciding with the efforts of Victorian scholars to restore the Northernist nexus amongst the Nordic countries against German expansionism. Marryat is interested in presenting the Danes in relation to the historical circumstances that marked Danish national identity as well as Danish-British relations. His approach to the Danish nation is governed by Herder’s theory about the nation-building ingredients mentioned earlier, the Northernist ideological construct introduced by Stephens, as well as the utopian and dystopian conception of the North that are widely encountered in British travelogues about the North. Concerning the dystopian aspects of Danish culture, Marryat refers to the close connection between Danish people and superstition of the most dangerous kind, alluding to eighteenth-century literature which fostered the mapping of the North as the peripheral world. As stated by the author, “superstition became more rife than ever, not only among the people, but equally with the clergy themselves, who were looked upon as practitioners of the black art, wizards, and necroromancers” (85). Admittedly, the

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author seeks to ascribe an exotic element to his travel destination, making use of the common dystopian element of religious savagery attached to the Arctic regions in eighteenth-century travel literature. That the occult has never ceased to be a recurrent point of discussion (and attraction) in European travel literature is certainly true, and Marryat’s emphasis on the subject can be well understood considering the steadily increasing fascination of the Victorians with the occult and the locations where this element was mostly present (Omberg 76). What strikes the reader’s attention, however, is the association of Denmark with the supernatural imagery attached to the Arctic regions. Being treated as the bridge between the North and Continental Europe, that is, located in the eighteenth-century boundary of civilisation and barbarism, Denmark can hardly be described as a territory belonging to the wide north, and Danish people as ardent practitioners of “necromancy”. Without any doubt, the demarcation of the North is not a matter of geographical location, and this is apparent in Denmark’s placement in both sides according to the power games in the area. Kliemann-Geisinger stresses the fact that, “if the political situation is diffuse and unclear, as in the case of the classification of Denmark during the nineteenth century, it also influences the definition of the Northern coordinates: mapping the North becomes impossible” (84). In that sense, Marryat’s accusation of the Danish nation as extremely superstitious, having never abandoned their heathen customs altogether, is a recurrent accusation and part of the British travellers’ agenda to present the North as an exotic Other in the heart of Europe. The writer’s reference to witchery in Denmark might be attributed to the fact that, as Brian Levack remarks, “Denmark was the first of the Scandinavian countries to engage in witch-hunting” because of frequent reports of witchcraft, without reaching the same degree of fanaticism as Britain (224). Aside from the Danish nation’s “attachment” to the practicing of witchcraft, the writer also refers to the absence of religious conflicts in the country after the introduction of Lutheranism. In accordance with the following passage, Protestantism has not impacted to such an extent on the national character of the Danes as on the British people’s national identity, considerable signs of which are the absence of religious conflicts and the general apathy of the Danes when it comes to religious matters: so when you are told to look upon the stoles, copes and mitres previous to the Reformation, hanging cheek by jowl with those of the present day, as here in the cathedral church of Aarhus, you must not be surprised or shocked, but merely look upon it as a proof of the apathy of the nation you are dwelling among, with a quiet surmise to yourself whether their easy way of taking matters for better or for worse is not, to say the least of it,

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less reprehensible than the fanatic passions which stirred the whirlwind, causing destruction, persecution, and misery, in our own native country. (86)

Looking at this extract, one might become aware of the essential role of religion in the national self-realisation of the Britons in contrast with the Danes, whose national identity is not equally built upon the notion of Protestantism. Analysing the theories of Herder and Rousseau on religion, Barnard argues that “both held that religion and nationality were not easily separable” deepening the sense of “collective identity” (40). Marryat´s conviction that religion constitutes a nation-building property overlaps with the philosophy of the above-mentioned theorists. Moreover, his stress on the religious apathy of the Danes obviously expresses Britain’s use of Protestantism as a unifying element both at an insular level (amongst English, Scots and Welsh) and within the colonial context. Besides being a unifying factor, religion is also linked to the patriotic identity of the Britons as an expression of hostility towards the “evil” Catholicism symbolised by the French (Colley 44). Contrary to the British context, the Danes could not treat religion as a differentiating factor in order to shape their own identity. According to Clive Archer and Pertti Joenniemi, Nordic peace is based on the fact that Scandinavian “countries had the Lutheran religion in common and their languages, excluding Finnish, were connected with Norwegian, Danish and Swedish being to a certain extent mutually intelligible” (2). This allowed British travellers to view Scandinavia as a whole rather than focus on each country as a different cultural unit. Taking this into account, it is natural that Scandinavian countries be regarded as static, compared to the constantly emerging conflicts between different imperial systems which tried to incorporate people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. In spite of their “loose” religious feelings, the Danes are characterised in the travelogue as a patriotic nation, steeped into its traditions and history. As has already been claimed, Danish people’s reaction to their country’s gradual transformation from a conquering power of the North into a midget state was essentially introvert: instead of deploring the tragic fate of their kingdom, they attempted to reconstruct their national identity relying on the country’s myths and legends, thus contributing to the spirit of Scandinavianism. Witnessing the resurgence of Danish nationalism, Marryat claims that: “The Danes are national in their feelings, and a thorough knowledge of the history and romance of their country is early instilled into their minds” (208). Since the writer’s residence in Denmark coincides with the flourishing state of the Danish nationalist movement, it is hardly surprising that Marryat chooses to emphasise Danish patriotism.

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Jespersen refers to the national awakening observed in that period, stating that “during this time Danish poets and authors produced a stream of important works in which they consciously turned their backs on the current hardships and focused on a distant golden age” (198) exalting Nordic antiquity. This indicates that Danish nationalism was a literary nationalism by contrast to the thriving expansionist movements in other countries, such as the German Unification movement (Die Reicheinigung des Deutschen Reiches), taking place in 1871 under Otto von Bismarck and the Second French Empire3 under the rule of Napoleon III, occurring during the mid-nineteenth century. According to Jespersen, Nikolaj Grudtvig’s contribution to the formation of the Danish spirit is of tremendous importance, since he was the one, who, during the most turbulent years of Danish history (Schleswigian War), managed “to convince the Danes that despite the crises and setbacks of the moment they still had a role to play in as a nation with a valuable cultural heritage” (199). The patriotic poems written during that period exalted the Scandinavianist spirit, which ideologically overlapped with Stephens’ theory of Northern Unity amongst Scandinavian countries and Britain. The use of national symbols from the Viking age was not a unique phenomenon in Denmark, given the other Nordic countries’ claim to their Viking roots and common skaldic heritage in the same period. Grundtvig’s meticulous effort to restore and promote the ancient past through folk elements was inspired by the Herderian theory of the Volksseele. Bernd Henningsen claims that “all identity constructors of Romanticism sought the ‘Volksseele’ (people’s soul) in traditional mythology, history, the oral narratives of the peoples and in literature” (100). This is particularly true in the case of Danish people, who cherished the Norse mythological symbols, as well as national heroes of the middle Ages, such as Holger Danske4 who was rendered the symbol of the Romantic nationalism in Denmark. Andriassen emphasises the resurgence of interest for Nordic mythology in Denmark, stating that it was reinforced by important archeological excavations in the country, bringing Viking remnants into light, which resulted in a strengthened bond between the distant past and the forging of Danishness. The Danish hero Holger Dansker might be compared to Frederick Barbarossa in Germany5; they both functioned as 3

“Second Empire Français” (in French) which was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870. 4 Ogier the Dane or Augier le Danois was a legendary figure of the epic narrative (chanson de geste) Doon de Mayence. 5 Frederick Barbarossa (1122 –1190) was a German Holy Roman Emperor and a nineteenth-century German symbol of national awakening.

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sleeping heroes who would awake to rescue their countries from foreign threatening forces (132-34). Acknowledging the attachment of Danish patriotism to Viking symbols, epitomised in the extensive projection of Holger Danske in Danish literature, Marryat underlines that: If in your early youth you have devoured the ‘Fabliaux et Contes’, ‘King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table’, and other legends of old Romance, you will recognise in Holger Dansk, or rather Augier le Danois, an old and favourite acquaintance…Endless are the traditions, numerous the ballads, of the exploits of this the favourite hero of Danish story: when invoked, after much pressing, and, I must own it, exacting first the promise of a good dinner and plenty to drink (278). Morgana the fay has never deserted entirely the country of her beloved: she still sports and exercises her witcheries to favoured mortals, when least expected, among the barren heaths and wide-spreading moors of the ancient provinces of Jutland. (279)

While earlier in the travelogue, the writer attempted to demonstrate the Anglo-Viking connection expressing his eagerness to project common linguistic roots between English and Danish, in this case he examines this cultural relation from another perspective: the forging of Britishness and Danishness in connection with common oral narratives that relate Denmark’s or Britain’s illustrious past. Wishing to compare this common tendency of the Danes and the Britons to invoke specific legendary heroes (Holger Danske in Denmark, the Arthurian legends in Britain) in moments of national crisis, Marryat alludes to the reverence that both the Danes and the Britons demonstrate for their myths and legends. Intrigued by this general fascination of Victorian Britain and its contemporary Denmark with sagas and folk culture, he attempts to connect the two mythical worlds because of the existence of some epic versions that included Holger Danske in the context of Avalon, awaken by Morgan le Fay, the famous Arthurian figure, wherefrom he sets out for France to save the country (Bodenstein 229). Marryat’s enthusiasm for the mid-nineteenth renaissance in Danish literature overlaps with the attempts of the above-mentioned Nikolaj Grundtvig to help his compatriots overcome the wounded national feeling by adopting a retrospective glance. Grundtvig gained prominence from his collections of Danish ballads both in his native country and England, with which he was in constant cultural interaction. Sven Hakon Rossel connects Grundtvig’s interest in English intellectual society to the Danish philosopher’s three journeys to England between 1829 and 1831, “during which Grundtvig also laid the foundation for international Beowulf

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research” (198). Serving as the epitome of Gothicism (Beowulf hailed from a Gothic tribe), and being the very first saga written in Old English, Beowulf was deemed as a valuable piece of evidence amongst Northernists that the Anglo-Saxon world constituted a harmonious unity in the Middle Ages. Nationally celebrated as the national narrative of Britain, besides the Arthurian legends, the epic Beowulf was linked by Grundtvig to the Scandinavian world, endeavouring to highlight the pan-European character of Danish literature. Rossel argues that Grundtvig succeeded in bringing to the foreground the refined status of Danish literature, and its close connection to other national literatures, such as Old English literature, displaying that “for centuries, Denmark dominated the culture of Scandinavia and has influenced English works such as Beowulf and Hamlet” (2). Apart from the fascinating insights into Anglo-Danish connection that the writer seeks to offer in more than one respect (language, colonial past, folk literature), the above reference proves that Marryat befriended Hans Christian Andersen, the renowned story-teller, during his journey to Denmark. Andersen’s writings were impregnated with the same nationalist spirit as Grundtvig’s, and he was also a Danish personality whose fame surpassed the narrow Danish borders. According to Rossel, Andersen’s works mingle Danish patriotism with cosmopolitanism, reflecting a “deeprooted patriotism and an ever increasing yearning for a larger world” (232), coinciding with nineteenth-century Denmark’s effort to promote its national identity both nationwide and abroad. In addition to the patriotic as well as cosmopolitan character of his fairy-tales, Andersen fulfils more than anybody else the Herderian notion of “Volksseele” in his compilation of folk stories, in which the Danish folk spirit is explicitly mentioned. As W. Glyn Jones contends, the Danish writer exemplified the ideals of Danish Romanticism, and had a considerable impact on Danish population “looking for an escape from the sordid present […] typical of the Golden Age in Danish literature” (53-54). At the same time, Marryat is also anxious to compare Danish people’s level of literacy and the technological advancement of the Danish nation in general to Victorian Britain’s accomplishments on the same fields. As has already been argued, Marryat marvels at the multilingual background of every Dane, who is able to converse in various languages apart from his native language. This ability, also observed in other Nordic countries, reflects a well established educational system, based on the dissemination of education in all orders of Danish society. Witnessing the dissemination of education in Denmark, Marryat states that:

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the pupils are instructed in French, Danish, German, and the girls in music, embroidery, useful household duties, habits of order and cleanliness […] Here, too, they enjoy the advantage of a fine open country, and sea-bathing in the summer season. (58)

Addressing the remarkably liberal status of education (of both sexes) within the framework of the Danish educational system, the writer stresses the backward, and largely unjust, character of Victorian education. Despite his loyalty to the imperial cause, Marryat seems to acknowledge that, unlike the Danish system, favouring social justice through the effective dissemination of knowledge, British system reproduces the rigid forms of Victorian society in the schooling system. With reference to Victorian educational reforms, John M. MacKenzie notes that “the imperial role of the public schoolboy was sacrificial and the purpose of a public school education was to create the neo-imperial warrior; untroubled by doubt, firm in conviction, strong in mind and muscle” (120). In opposition to the Victorian student, who was prepared to support the imperial mechanism and meet the needs of the colonial system, the Danish model of education relied on the opposite basis. Strongly affected by the Herderian view of education, opposed to “the hazards of social disintegration in the wake of industrialisation and urbanisation” (Barnard 5), the Danish model paid attention to the notion of Humanität (Humanisation), which might be defined as a human condition, in which every nation and every individual can realise its cultural needs, residing in a parallel development of cultures and individuals (Löchte 48-9). To this end, Grundtvig succeeded in disseminating his pedagogical ideas, imbued with the Herderian notion of Humanisation, establishing, according to Jespersen, “a school for life, where the living word could stimulate and enlighten people, in contrast to the traditional grammar school, called ‘school for death’” (105). In that respect, as well as in the easier access of both sexes to schooling, Victorian Britain appeared to be backward, and Victorians terribly attached to a system seeking to promote the values of the Empire rather than concentrate on the humane aspect of education. Furthermore, it is evident that the author is preoccupied with the inevitable corruption that mid-nineteenth century industrialisation has brought about, proving the frequent polarity between the imperial system and the untouched pre-industrial world. As Eric Hopkins puts it, “what is certain is that industrialisation was steadily undermining and changing the old social structures” (19) and without any doubt “there lurked a great mass of moral corruption” (61) which did not escape the attention of Victorian scholars. Marryat highlights class mobility, which facilitated the rise of a new, bourgeois class in Britain, and was gradually witnessed in

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Danish society, as the country made its first steps towards industrialisation. Being a member of the upper-class, and being touched by the ongoing social transformations of his own country, Marryat warningly reproaches the efforts of the Danes to follow the path of the Britons towards industrialisation, spoiling the natural beauties of their country in the name of technological advancement: If the prosaic Danes continue to destroy their forests and drain their lakes for filthy lucre’s sake, their country will lose half its charms; in these consist their strength. I have often thought, were mankind less farinaceously inclined, how much more beautiful a world we should live in. (347)

Although industrialisation was seen as an indispensable element in the consolidating process of the British Empire as well as an integral aspect of Victorian Britishness, Marryat warns against Danish people’s wish to modernise their country. The author’s attitude is based on the dichotomy between utopia and science that was described earlier. If Denmark follows Britain’s example, its people are doomed to experience social degeneration, a phenomenon already taking place in industrialised Britain. According to Fjågesund and Symes, the tendency of British travel writers to assume the role of the prophet for the country visited is rather common, because many travellers, embracing Rousseau’s theory on the noble savage and the hypothetical State of Nature, were anxious to apply this theoretical framework to their travel destination, to prevent the country “from the pitfalls of civilisation” (130). Marryat claims that the Danes should prioritise nature over progress, echoing views of the previous century. Another element which disproves once again the eighteenth-century conception of the Nordic populations as prone to apathy and primitiveness is the description of the Danes as an industrious race, whose restlessness is attributed to their Viking descent: I believe this love of locomotion to be the last remnant of the old Viking spirit of the Danes. They can now no longer seek adventure far and wide, but the ruling passion will out; so, reduced in the area of their wanderings, they flit twice a year, from one street of their capital to another, working out by these means the native restlessness which might otherwise lead to trouble in these days of order and government. (208)

Clearly the author subverts once again the dystopian image of the Nordic populations as static and presents Danish people as an industrious nation whose restlessness emanates from its Viking heritage as this inclination to locomotion.

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Despite the above praise, Marryat inevitably “others” the Danish nation, reproducing stereotypes of Danish cultural backwardness. However, this is not to say that he does not succeed in providing his readers with a concise presentation of this small nation due to his reference to the major characteristics of Danish culture. In attempting to approach the Danish people, he manages to offer essential insights into Danish lore, nationalist spirit and scientific heritage. Furthermore, he does not identify the country’s utopian dimension in its technological backwardness. Sensitive to the demands of the Northernist movement, he embraces the Northernist hypothesis, connecting the Dano-Viking lore with elements of the AngloSaxon heritage in order to strengthen the nexus between the two cultures. He also contrasts the liberalism of Danish civilisation, reflected in aspects such as its pedagogical background and pre-industrial status, with the symptoms of social degeneration in Victorian Britain. Unlike Wollstonecraft, Lowe, Oswald and Bunbury, Marryat is not particularly concerned with the position of women in Danish society. Consequently, he can only describe Danish women in accordance with the role ascribed to the female sex in Victorian society, which is mostly domestic, as the following excerpt indicates: The Danish ladies, even of the highest rank, are excellent ménagères, and look after the servants with a sharp eye, so that, when they enter the service of foreigners accustomed to domestics who know their business, the native servants, even if honest, are apt to run riot from want of proper directions. (204)

The author praises Danish women for their domesticity, for being good household keepers, and for keeping, at the same time, their servants under constant surveillance. Despite the irony with which the writer’s comment is imbued, it is important to note that Marryat is satisfied with the discovery that Danish women are properly confined to their domestic sphere, seeking no further association with the male, public domain. Fjågesund and Symes highlight the British male travellers’ belief in the ideal position of Victorian women as faithful companions and good mothers, indicating that “the British middle-class was seen as a model to be emulated, a woman in the happy economic position of being free from the necessity of earning a living herself” (221). Nonetheless, the author’s emphasis on the direct involvement of Danish women, “even of the highest rank” in household chores mirrors his dissatisfaction when linking this extreme domesticity with the issue of social hierarchy. Similarly, Marryat’s engendered discourse, favouring overtly female passivity, changes into a description of social hierarchy relations within this

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domestic sphere. This attitude evidently reflects the social rigidity governing every aspect of human relations in Victorian Britain. The same applies to another episode in the travel narrative, when the author describes some Danish women working at their looms: “The women sat employed at their looms (I looked in at one window) in the fabrication of strong brown Holland pocket handkerchiefs with a white border” (298). In this case, Danish women have abandoned their domestic sphere in order to earn their living in a factory and support their families financially. The image of these working-class women is familiar to the writer, having observed similar scenes in his native land. It seems that this link between women and the private sphere ceases to be a matter of concern when social rank outweighs gender: if, according to Foster and Mills, mid-Victorian women should adopt a feminine conduct which complies with their role as devote companions of their husbands (9), this is required by their social position as members of the Victorian bourgeoisie. It is not a mere coincidence that, upon entering a Danish Chapel, Marryat approves of the clear placement of the flock according to their gender and social hierarchy. We next visited the Royal Chapel, fitted, in accordance with the date of the building, with closets and pews -no questions of sittings here- the royal household all arranged and marshalled according to rank and precedence, their offices registered on the doors: women on one side, men on the other; hof-damerna (ladies of rank), hof-damerne piges (maids), &c., down to the wives of the very stablemen. (317)

Marryat’s attitude reveals the close connection between hierarchy and gender, where hierarchy is prioritized. Yet gender is interrelated to the notion of social distinction, as can be seen in the extract, and the author is anxious to trace this connection in several aspects of Danish society related to women. Despite the limited depictions of Danish women in Marryat’s travelogue, the author overlooks the main developments taking place in nineteenth-century Danish society concerning women’s emancipation. The indifference towards the women’s liberation movement constitutes a common feature in travelogues produced by men. Marryat’s sporadic reference to Danish women is made to conform to the fundamental values of the Victorian patriarchal society instead of providing the reader with a necessary background on the issue in question. He does not mention any women writers such as Friederike Brun, 6 Sophia Magdalena Krag Juel 6

Friederike Brun (1765 – 1835) was an illustrious writer and traveller as well as salonist in the Danish Golden Age.

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Vind,7 Magdalene Charlotte Hedevig Schimmelmann,8 and Frederikke Louise Stolberg9 whose contribution to the field of politics, philosophy and Danish patriotism were of paramount importance and accelerated the women’s integration into the publish sphere through formation of the Danish Women’s Association, founded in 1871, which constituted the first and foremost feminist association in Northern Europe (Derry 262). Obviously, in Marryat’s discourse the issue of gender is of secondary importance, as he clearly highlights images of domesticity that accord with the patriarchal spirit of the Victorian era. All things considered, Marryat’s travel narrative reproduces the concept of Britishness in various ways that indicate Britain’s anxiety to strengthen its nation-building process. The author touches upon theories which reiterated the Northernist connection of Britain to the Nordic countries based on their obvious similarities in a wide range of national characteristics. These common elements are projected by Marryat in support of Herder’s theory on the cultural spirit (Volksgeist) of nations, seeking to unify Denmark and Britain at a linguistic, ideological and historical level. What is more, in view of the dominant German nationalist theories about the North which sought to include the Scandinavian countries into the German cultural and geopolitical sphere, Marryat attempts to write a travelogue as a reaction against these allegations, projecting the British claim to the Saxon world. Even though his narrative carefully illuminates the basic characteristics of the Danish movement of Romantic Nationalism, and his discourse is strongly supportive of the Danish people’s struggle for further international recognition through a creative revival of their myth and legends, Britishness is prioritised to such an extent, that Marryat ascribes to the Danish nation-building struggle a secondary role. In spite of the significant limitations in the scope of the writer, due to his loyalty to the imperial cause and his attempt to minimise the destructive effect of the British army on the national feeling during the Napoleonic Wars, this travel account does not lack originality, since it was written to project Denmark as an Arcadian society whose landscape may not possess the attractions of other Nordic countries, such as Iceland and Norway, but its increasing patriotism, remarkable literacy and affluent state provide the country with a distinct identity. Marryat is interested in 7

Sophia Magdalena Krag Juel Vind (1734 – 1810), was a Danish salonist and noble, hostess of the Danish party and strong advocate of the Anti-Germanic movement. 8 Magdalene Charlotte Hedevig Schimmelmann (1757-1816)8 was a Danish noble and salonist. 9 Frederikke Louise Stolberg (1746-1824) was a Danish playwright and salonist.

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dismissing, in most chapters of his travelogue, the dystopian concept of the North as a zone of savagery and coldness as well as in highlighting the achievements of the nation. Finally, his approach to the issue of gender perpetuates the gender stereotypes in Victorian Britain, given his emphasis on Danish women’s “ideal” domestic aspect and in the fact that he overlooks the actual developments in this field within Danish society.

CHAPTER TWO LADY WILDE (JANE FRANCESCA ELGEE): DRIFTWOOD FROM SCANDINAVIA

Lady Wilde was born Jane Francesca Agnes Elgee (1821-1896) to a conservative, middle-class Protestant family in Wexford. She wrote folk tales under the pen name “Speranza”. 1 It is worth noting that she did not choose her Italian pseudonym at random, as, according to her own allegations, she was partly of Italian descent; 2 yet her choice of the name indicates, as Heather L. Tolen notes, that Lady Wilde “wanted to craft a persona -build a new identity- for herself” (6). She was married to the Irish doctor Sir William Wilde and is chiefly known for her internationally acclaimed son, the writer Oscar Wilde. Of Irish descent, she was a proindependence activist during the early stage of the Irish national movement. Her work should be seen in close connection to the emergence of Irish nationalism in mid-Victorian Britain, as she was “one of the most inflammatory writers of the Young Ireland movement” (Howes 5): 3 her vast contribution to the Irish cause can be seen in her essays and poems published in the Irish newspaper The Nation. Her activism exercised strong influence on the Irish peasantry. She produced several anti-English articles that led to the shutting down of the newspaper and resulted in her public dismay. In addition, Lady Wilde was a precursor to the movement of Irish Literary Revival, which flourished between the 1880s and 1920s and whose authors were “associated through their cultural nationalism, their romanticism, their preoccupation with heroism, their interest in folklore and the occult, their attention to the peasantry, their promotion of 1

She had written several political essays under the pen name John Fanshaw Ellis during her journalistic career before the adoption of the pseudonym “Speranza”. 2 She also claimed to be a descendant of the famous Italian author Dante Alighieri due to the resemblance of their surnames (Wyndham 13). 3 The movement of Young Ireland (Éire Óg) was forced in the mid-nineteenth century by Irish scholars such as Lady Wilde, Thomas Davis, John Mitchell and others in response to the continuous British suppression of the rising Irish patriotism.

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an ancient Gaelic polity and worldview” (Wilson Foster xi). Thus, Lady Wilde was among the prominent nationalistic voices that called for Irish independence from England during the years of the Great Famine, 18451849” (Tolen 1-2), even though she displayed many “unpleasant”-to the Irish Catholics- traits as a non-conforming, feminist, Protestant female author. In fact, despite her active engagement with the patriotic activities of the Young Ireland movement, “she has been largely neglected by studies of Irish cultural nationalism” because of her “engendered excesses” (Howes 6), namely her explicit views on the role of women in nineteenthcentury Ireland and Britain as a whole. In addition to her continuous participation in the Irish struggle for independence, she produced two collections on Irish folklore, namely Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (1887) and Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland (1890). Lady Wilde also published the travelogue Driftwood from Scandinavia (1884). A friend of the feminist Millicent Fawcett, 4 she also ran a literary salon in support of women’s right to vote and have access to professional life. Throughout her poems and essays, she endeavoured to fashion herself as the figure of the “Celtic Great Mother”, that is, “a mythological persona which had implications that reached beyond the boundaries of Famine-ravaged, mid-nineteenth century Ireland” (Tolen 12) and reinforced this literary fashioning with her extravagant appearance. By focusing on Irish folklore and through her emphasis on Ireland’s mythological past, Lady Wilde does not only identify herself with her country’s struggle for further cultural autonomy from Britain; she also wishes to reconcile the conflicts associated with Irish nationhood, and especially those between Irish Catholics and Protestants, as well as between the Irish and the English. As Murray G. H. Pittock points out, Irish society was heavily divided into Protestants and Catholics while Irishness was automatically linked to Catholicism, due to the fact that the Irish nation consistently defined itself on the grounds of its religious faith and Catholicism constitutes the faith of the majority of the Irish population. Consequently, the Protestant Irish were largely viewed as culturally alien, “as resident Teutons” (70). Being an Anglo-Irish herself, and well aware of the detrimental effect that such a conflict could have on the Irish national cause, Lady Wilde desired to unite her compatriots under their common past through her work, and most particularly by readdressing Irish mythology and race. It is therefore my contention that 4 Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1927), a British essayist and activist, was the president of National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies.

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her consistent efforts to revive Celtic lore should be taken into serious consideration when reading her work and I will attempt to do precisely so in my analysis of her travelogue. Lady Wilde’s Driftwood from Scandinavia was inspired by her journey to the specific geographic zone in1884. She made the trip when she accompanied her spouse to Uppsala, where he was awarded a degree, honoris causa, by the University’s rector for his important archaeological work on Scandinavian antiquities discovered at Islandbridge, near Dublin. Wilde was not unfamiliar with the Scandinavian setting: prior to her Scandinavian tour in 1884, resulting in the creation of the travel account in question, she honeymooned in Denmark in the summer of 1852 (Fjågesund and Symes 365). The originality of her narrative lies in her ability to focus on each Scandinavian country and treat it as a separate cultural entity, in contrast to an overwhelming number of Victorian travellers who represented the North as a uniform, utopian whole. Even though the description of the Danish capital and Danish society occupies the greatest part of her narration, she also provides the reader with useful information on Sweden and Norway, which she views as the other major forces of nineteenth-century North. Moreover, her travelogue partakes of her contemporary British travellers’ (Baring-Gould, Oswald) stock tendency to identify racial similarities between their native country and the Scandinavian states. Yet unlike Bunbury, Laing, Coxe and Wollstonecraft, who sought to promote the idea of Britishness in their contact with the European peripheries, Wilde was concerned with the Norse-Irish connection on multiple levels in reaction to the increasing Anti-Celtic sentiments in Britain after the mid-1800s that escalated as a result of the armed rebellion of the Irish against Britain in 1848. In her effort to dismiss possible allegations of Celtic inferiority to English supremacy, Wilde uses the theories on race that were produced by ardent Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts in order to subvert them and redefine Celtic identity. Clearly, she endeavoured to challenge this nation-building plan of the Britons that was developed at the expense of the Celtic race and drew from the stock view of race as the factor of utmost importance to the ethnographic studies of the mid-nineteenth century. Several theories emerged as products of racial antagonism, “drawing on the discourses of physiognomy, phrenology and physiology” (Young 82); these racial theories exacerbated the incubating animosity between the English and their insular peripheries and reproduced the concept of the strong AngloSaxons and the weak Celts. What is more, Pittock refers to another racial theory that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, was influenced by

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Darwin’s theory on human evolution and reinforced the inferiority of the Celtic race. In his own words, Celtic Darwinism proved a key reinforcement to the idea that the Celts, though unfitted to territorial identity, had left a kind of hereditary cultural imprint on British society which helped give it a gentler, more sympathetic and feminine dimension. (71)

Undoubtedly, Lady Wilde was well acquainted with this anti-Celtic racial framework that projected the Irish as a nation in decline; hence, she persistently addresses the superiority of the Celtic race by drawing on the same racial background with the aim of deconstructing it. This is particularly obvious in the introductory part of Wilde’s narrative, since the very first lines introduce the reader to a new Northernist hypothesis, that is, the historical ties shared between the Irish and the Danes: “Ireland and Denmark were connected together a thousand years ago by many ties, as our legends, history, and antiquities testify” (1). Instead of employing the word “British” to designate the British-Danish connection, the writer opts for the word “Irish” in order to make explicit her own identity as an Irish woman within the United Kingdom. Owing to English philosophers’ tendency to use the generic term “British” in order to incorporate all peripheral populations (Scots, Welsh and Irish) into a collective identity, Young stresses that in mid-Victorian Britain “the Englishman is no longer the man from England. The word becomes a more general, delocalized term that denotes the whole population of the British Isles” (119). Based on this definition, one can understand Wilde’s desire to subvert this midVictorian trend by projecting her Celtic identity anew. Yet this does not apply to Wilde’s case, since she is chiefly concerned with the presentation of the Celtic racial supremacy, given her constant emphasis on the conquering attributes of the Celts, that is, her Irish compatriots and the other peripheral ethnicities of the British Isles. Her travelogue abounds in scientific proof and historical incidents that seek to defend the Celtic race against all accusations made by English writers who desired to extol the magnificent racial properties of the Anglo-Saxon Teutons over the Celtic ethnic groups of the Kingdom. In Driftwood from Scandinavia the nation-building dimension of race appears to occupy a considerable position, and Wilde utilises the Scandinavian context in order to formulate her ideas about the achievements of the European racial groups. Given the race-oriented perspective from which she tends to contemplate Denmark, it is obvious that her writing is strongly influenced by Comte de Gobineau’s thesis that the impact of race on the national character and physical attributes of the people of each

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country is far greater than any other factor, such as nature, political structure and the climate. Wilde embarks on her journey to Denmark to investigate the racial connections between the Irish Celts and the natives. As the writer aptly mentions in the prefatory part of her narrative This was the moment to commence ethnological speculations, and to study types. The Yorkshire men are short, stout and square, with fair, pleasant features. They differ altogether from the Celtic type in form, feature, colouring and shape of the head. (16)

In the above excerpt, the writer does not only specify the reason for which she realises this trip to Scandinavia but tends to read “racially” every aspect that she comes across throughout her journey, such as people, nature, culture and language. The very study of the racial attributes is not only confined to the Scandinavian context but is also triggered before her departure, when she attempts to contrast the different racial features of the inhabitants of Yorkshire (that is, Englishmen) with those of the Celts, the latter being much darker than the average Teutonic type. The reader is also struck by Wilde’s emphasis on features such as shape of head, fairness and colour, all considered fundamental in the racial placement of a nation, according to the mid-nineteenth century studies. On the one hand, one can comprehend the significance of physiognomy as a racial denominator, as well as the extent to which intellectual societies of the time were influenced by the racial theories that emerged during the mid-1800s. This reminds us of Young’s claim that, besides the linguistic and historical data, the definition of ethnicity changed in the midnineteenth century, and the identification of racial similarities was the key principle in the definition of nationhood (12). Many nineteenth-century writers, such as George Combe5, claimed that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that mind is the noblest work of God; [and were] convinced, also, that this discovery carries in its train the most valuable improvements in education, morals, and in civil and religious institutions. (ix-x)

Combe’s craniological and phrenological discoveries were well received by Victorian theorists, since the racial debate gained a new impetus following the “scientific” discoveries that attested to the importance of heredity in the development of people’s abilities and 5

George Combe (1788-1858) was a Scottish lawyer, as well as the founder of phrenology and anthropometry.

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national characteristics. In Wilde’s case, it must be observed that she applies the same criteria when referring to the common Teutonic characteristics between Germans and the British royal family, and thus reinforces the idea that Anglo-Saxons are a purely Teutonic race, sharing similar racial features with their distant ancestors in Germany. When referring to the Danish nation, Wilde makes a clear-cut distinction between the pagan/ Viking background of the Danes and their Protestant/ refined present. While she comments on the former state of the Danes in the most disapproving manner, stating that the Danes were the most terrible and ungodly of pagans when they first came to our shores; but through the influence of the Irish saints and holy men of the Church they were gradually Christianized, and evinced their zeal by founding new churches, though they still continued to plunder the old Irish abbeys whenever they had the opportunity”. (2)

At the same time, she contends that “the modern Danes are dreamy, poetical philosophers, without ambition or any military influence in Europe” (79). Apparently there are visible differences between the country’s past and and its present, and one could draw the conclusion that the former “barbaric” aspect of the country is staunchly opposed, according to the author, to its nineteenth-century “civilised” image. This portrayal of the Danes as a peaceful nation with brutal war-like ancestors constitutes a rather perplexing image, and the reader of the narrative is left confused as to the reasons for which Wilde formulates so contradictory statements. The distinction between the present and past of the Danish nation is drawn by the writer for a number of reasons. First of all, Victorian writers tend to pay reverence to Protestantism as a nationbuilding factor of pivotal importance; this means that the positive projection of nineteenth-century Denmark is associated with the strict Protestant background of the country, which, in the eyes of the writer, is taken as a sign of refinement and social improvement. What is more, nineteenth-century Danish society is endowed with a religious homogeneity and tolerance, not easily encountered in Britain or other European countries during the same period, a condition which is admirable, according to Wilde: “The Danes have also the virtue of tolerance. Lutheranism is established by law, but fanatical hatred for religious differences is unknown amongst them” (68). Additionally, Wilde’s favourable depiction of contemporary Danes might be explained by her strong belief in their racial intermingling with the Irish. For one thing, the writer speaks of the racial interaction between this Teutonic race with the Irish Celts during the Viking period:

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many faces reminded me of the handsome Irish western type; and, as we know from history that the Norsemen often plundered and pirated along the west coast of Ireland, they may probably at the same time have carried off many of the dark-haired Irish maidens, Sabine-fashion, as their brides. (147)

The writer affirms that many physical traits of modern Danes indicate the mixture of Celtic and Teutonic blood throughout the history of the country. Consequently, Danish people, being a mongrel nation, combine characteristics of both races; their refined and artistic disposition is attributed to their Celtic origin and their conquering propensities to their Teutonic background. The above comment is particularly significant because Wilde endeavours to include Ireland in the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis about the racial connection of England with the Nordic countries. If the merging of Danish and Irish blood occurred in the past, then Ireland should not be excluded from the Anglo-Saxon discourses on Northern unity but rather be regarded as an equal member of the Old Norse world. Moreover, the existence of racial intercourse between the Danes and the Irish Celts foregrounds the notion of Irishness as a panEuropean value. Clearly Wilde aims to disprove the Anti-Celtic theories that portrayed the Celtic nations as racially inferior to the Teutonic-Aryan racial family and ascribe a superior role to Ireland as another cradle of European culture at a racial level. Being aware of Gobineau’s premise that “the Celt has probably, at no time, been inferior to the Teuton in valor; in martial enthusiasm, he exceeds him. But, at a time when bodily strength decided the combat, the difference between the sturdy Saxon and the small, slight though active Gaul must have been great” (124), Wilde reverses this speculation by presenting the Celtic race as equal to the Teutonic in strength, and far superior in spirituality. Hence her comment that “the Danes are a mixture of Celt and Teuton, and the Celtic blood has spiritualized the Teuton clay, and given to them that charm of manner which is loveable and attractive” (126). In other words, the contemporary aspect of the Danish nation differs from its Viking barbarous image thanks to the process of racial mixture that contributed to the country’s social improvement and cultural development. It is worth noting that Wilde’s insistence on the racial intercourse between the Irish and the Danes is purposefully mentioned, given the implications that such an intercourse could suggest for the definition of the Celtic race. In accordance with the popular racial theories of the midnineteenth century, a racial intermingling with inferior races would be detrimental to the overall existence and to the physical- intellectual qualities of the superior race. What can be deduced, therefore, is the

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imperative character of racial purity for the survival of the highest races. On the contrary, degeneracy occurs if the superior race mixes with the inferior races, and this process leads to the end of civilisation. As Gobineau puts it, “a nation lives so long as it preserves the ethnical principle to which it owes its existence; with this principle it loses the primum mobile of its successes, its glory and its civilization” (78). If racial admixture between unequal races undermines racial cohesion, then in her travelogue, Wilde fosters the image of Celtic race as an equal race to the Teutonic/ Germanic ethnic groups and the harmonious coexistence of Teutonic and Celtic characteristics is reflected in the amalgamation of the contemporary Danish nation. As illustrated by the writer, when referring to the Teutonic (Saxon) race, “the Saxon lies at the base of all Germanic peoples, gross, without any sense of the beautiful” (126). Yet the Celtic origins of modern Denmark account for the nation’s love for art and intellectual activities, a sense of the beautiful that can only be found in the Irish temperament. In that way, racial intercourse between equal races can benefit an ethnic group, as the Danish case suggests. Instead of fostering the image of the Irish as a peripheral nation, both racially and culturally, the author endeavours to substantiate Celtic contribution to the amalgamation of modern Nordic nations. As a matter of fact, racial impurity among the nations of Northern Europe challenges the firm belief of European racial theorists that the Germanic nations, such as the Scandinavians, remained racially unaffected, a fact which also accounted for their general “supremacy” over other racial groups. On another occasion, she praises Danish children for their “heavenly ”Nordic (Teutonic) features: “the children are lovely- such fair, turquoise-eyed little fairies could not be matched or over-matched in Europe; and the complexion of the higher classes is often wonderful in its dazzling fairness” (50). Moreover, according to Wilde, “and finer, fatter, handsomer, rosier children than the little Danes could not be seen in Europe” (30). As has already been stressed, Lady Wilde does not aim to construct another dimension of Britishness in her travel narrative. The principal purpose of her text is to highlight the attributes that render the Celts a worthwhile race, capable of colonising and ruling countries such as the English. To this end, there are several instances in her text which suggest a dichotomy between Irishness and Englishness. Once again, Denmark is the appropriate place to investigate this binary opposition, through the study of the racial and political history of the Danes. Inevitably, her view of Denmark as a racial utopia leads the author to draw generic distinctions between different European races. Therefore, a major part of the writer’s

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travelogue on Denmark revolves around the conflict between the Teutons (implicitly represented by the English) and the Celts (meaning the Irish). There are several instances in the writer’s narrative which suggest that the focal point is not so much the travel destination but rather the racial rivalry between Ireland and England on multiple levels. Hankings considers the fusion of race with nation as synonymous notions during that period, and patriotism as immediately interwoven with “race pride” (141). Wilde expresses this race pride quite explicitly when she juxtaposes the virtues of her fellow Celts with the characteristics of the Teutons in terms of strength and idiosyncrasy. As Wilde claims: Every race is fitted for its destined place in the world-scheme by special characteristics. The Celt, with his light, buoyant temperament and the gentle, courteous ways, that make assimilation with other nations so easy, is eminently suited for colonization (172).

In accordance with the above extract, one of the obvious merits of the Celts is their ability to colonise and racially mix with other nations around the globe. This statement is particularly striking because Wilde wishes to attack the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis of racial purity by introducing the idea that the Celts may not be as racially pure as the English Teutons contend to be, yet they easily adapt to new geographical conditions and cultural contexts, as they are by nature gifted colonisers. For one thing, the author attacks Gobineau’s premise that “the subsequent decline in culture is due to racial mixture with consequent decline of racial genius” (Hankins 47) because the role of Celts as colonisers and racial progenitors of the European races, such as the Danish, indicates that they have hardly been affected by the continuous racial crossings with other nations. For another thing, the colonising propensities of the Celtic (Irish) race dispute the common tendency of the Anglo-Saxons to project the Celtic race as effeminate and devoid of ruling abilities. According to Pittock, it was this emotionality which reached the point of feminine weakness that “the conquering, masculine” Anglo-Saxons despised and used to differentiate themselves from their Celtic neighbours (60). The act of colonisation is closely related to both the Viking age and the nineteenth-century British Empire. Therefore, Wilde firmly believes that the Celts are equally endowed with a conquering disposition and should be deemed as important contributors to the interests of the Empire towards that direction. The central role of both the Teutons and the Celts as colonising “tribes” can be noticed in another extract, when the writer refers to them as forces that govern humanity: “the two races are as centrifugal and centripetal forces of the universe. They represent the ideal and the actual; the

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passionate impulses of the imagination, and the steadfast logic of reason and law” (109). Lady Wilde mentions the Aryan origins of the Celtic culture, and consequently of the Irish: “the progression of races is slow, and the Celts may have been in possession of Europe for thousands years before the Teutons, the next great Aryan race” (107). At this point, the author makes use of the Aryan race to speak of Celtic supremacy. This racial theory, which was conveniently vague, encompassed many different nations belonging to the white race, and satisfied the appetite of imperial powers to picture themselves as members of an ancient, superior race. In compliance with Gobineau’s view that: among the groups of white races, the noblest, the most highly gifted in intellect and personal beauty, the most active in the cause of civilization, is the Arian race. Its history is intimately associated with almost every effort on the part of man to develop his moral and intellectual powers. (236)

According to the writer, one should attribute the remarkable moral and intellectual properties of the Teutons and the Celts to their Aryan origin. This generic inclusion of ethnic groups such as the Celts and the Teutons into the same superior race, the Aryans, seems to have a seducing effect on Wilde, who is willing enough to fight the racial segregation imposed on her fellow Celts by the English and ascribe to the Celtic race a dominant role in the racial mapping of Europe. The author’s reference to the superior moral and intellectual attributes of the Aryan race coincides with the common effort of all European nations to derive some sort of superiority from their racial background. Therefore it is hardly surprising that Wilde is seen to make the following statement later on in her travelogue, when she addresses again the origin of the Celtic race: The Celts came after the Turanians, and were the first of the great Aryan tribes that migrated westward from the shores of the Caspian, to lay the foundation of all the existing nations of Europe, giving a Celtic nomenclature to every place and river on their line of travel. (105)

This capacity of the Celts to spread across Europe and adorn other nations with their remarkable racial characteristics through the process of blood mixture is opposed to the general presentation of the Celtic race by the Anglo-Saxons as less-gifted peoples, with a “lack of political capacity” (Hankins 168). On the contrary, the self-image of the Anglo-Saxons was based on the premise that they had an “alienable right and capacity to rule” (Hankins 168) being superlatively endowed with imperial tendencies.

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Obviously, Wilde reverses this hypothesis by placing the Celts as the dominant race which undertook the mission of enlightening the other nations, resorting, however, to the same reproduction of the myth of the chosen race, by ascribing an empowered position to the Celts. Furthermore, the writer’s desire to idealise Irishness as a concept of utmost importance becomes even more obvious in a stark juxtaposition between the Teutons and the Celts in terms of physique, in which Wilde resorts to a craniological study of the Irish people. In addition to their projection as the first Aryan race to colonise Europe, the Celts are also praised by the writer for their physique (and more specifically for their cranium), which accounts for their moral character: Of the Aryans, the Celtic head is the most oval; slender in the outline and prominent at the brows -the artist head, with reverence and veneration and the religious and moral faculties all strongly marked. Retzius considered the Irish head the most moral in Europe. (171)6

The attempt of the writer to associate the strengths of the Celtic race with the physiognomy of its people indicates the extent to which Wilde is influenced by the anthropological studies of the 1850s. The virtuous aspect of the Celts, and therefore the Irish, is proven, according to the author, by their physiognomy, in particular that of their cranium, which accounts for their attachment to art and religion. The author goes on to argue that the Irish, who are regarded as the emblem of the Celtic race, are the most moral nation in the world because of their cranium. This statement appears to coincide with Gobineau’s theory, according to which the physical characteristics of nations are the main indicator for their placement in the racial scale, while the Herderian concepts of folk culture and language are deemed as secondary parameters. As Young argues, claiming that “physiognomy had become an accepted, particularly popular with artists and writers in so far as it offered a visual instrument to augment their portrayal of characters” (61). This extensive emphasis on physiognomy can be found in Wilde’s statement that “here one can see at a glance how the form of the head is created and denotes character, both national and individual, and is a sign and prophecy of destiny” (168) when she pays a visit to the Museum of Physiology in Sweden, eager to investigate the relation between craniums and their impact on individual and national attributes. Thus race is defined by the writer as a sign and prophecy of a nation’s destiny, an attitude that is quite deterministic, if one considers 6

Anders Retzius (1796-1860) was a Swedish anthropologist and professor of anatomy.

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other cultural aspects which could also have an impact on the amalgamation of a nation. The writer simultaneously points to the fact that the physical and moral character of nations and individuals are all innate but there is also some room for improvement in accordance with her remarks on Danish progress. Notwithstanding the author’s attachment to race as the ultimate nationbuilding factor, and despite her constant effort to delineate Irishness racially and culturally, there are various occasions in the travelogue which illustrate aspects of Danish life that could be regarded as utopian without being tinged with racial associations. Firstly, when concentrating on the country’s historical background, she places emphasis on the former position of the country as a conquering kingdom, which ruled the Baltic Sea and had little in common with its nineteenth-century status as a midget nation, withdrawn from the main developments in European politics. As Wilde points out, “Denmark has a remarkable history. Two hundred years ago she made the world tremble as far as Rome, and was the most powerful and piratical of nations” (78). The contribution of the Danes to the racial awareness of the AngloSaxons and the Celts is also made explicit in the light of the Danish conquest of the British Isles. The racial admixture of the Viking with Celtic blood is further stressed on another occasion, when the author refers to the past status of Denmark as Queen of the Baltic and an important Scandinavian empire: Many people fell under the Danish yoke. They conquered England, ruled in Dublin, dismembered France, and for centuries held sway over all Scandinavia, and bore the three crowns of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden on the national shield. And Denmark still holds a magnificent position as Queen of the Baltic and guardian of the portals of the North Sea. (79)

The portrayal of the Danes as a heroic nation of empire builders reflects the main reason for which Vikingism was prominent in Victorian Britain, whose rising empire sought to justify and consolidate its power. The Danes, an imperialist nation par excellence, are praised for their conquering tendencies and their significant imperial history, a fact which indicates how imbued Wilde is with the expansionist spirit of the imperial system. Regarding the idelisation of the Viking warrior culture, Fjågesund and Symes contend that “the flexibility of the Viking myth similarly provided an ideal vehicle for explaining and justifying the transition from domestic nationalism” (135) into overseas imperialism. This interest in the imperial past of the Danes certainly positions their country whose bygone glory has left an indelible effect on European history in the centre rather

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than the periphery. However, it strikes the reader as a paradox, considering Wilde’s endeavour to differentiate Ireland from England as an autonomous, culturally independent nation throughout her narrative. Besides depicting Denmark as a conquering nation, Wilde also alludes to the country’s frequent depiction as the bridge between continental Europe and the North or rather as the borderline between civilised Europe and the unrefined, savage Nordic countries. While describing the situation of the capital, the author states that “on every side vessels of all nations were crowding to the one great goal, where Copenhagen sits throned as a queen, commanding the portals of the North Sea and of the Baltic” (34-5). With reference to Danish society, Lady Wilde introduces the reader to another utopian dimension of the country visited, besides the strictly racial, which is the National Romantic Nationalist “revolution” of Denmark after the turbulent years that followed the loss of Schleswig and the transformation of the once conquering kingdom into a midget nation at a territorial level. The remarkable accomplishments of the small country are often praised by the writer, who does not cease to emphasise every vestige of the Grundtvigian educational model that contributed to the country’s description as a nineteenth-century Hellas, a point which was also made in Marryat’s travelogue. Wilde informs the reader that “art is the religion of Copenhagen. It suits this city of northern Greeks and careless philosophers” (65) and she also states that “Denmark rests her claims to notice on other grounds- on science and literature, art and archaeology” (74). This definition of Denmark as an advanced nation, which can make its own claim to European culture, is of particular significance if one considers that Scandinavia was persistently viewed as part of the peripheral, backward aspect of the European continent. Clearly, Wilde refers to the spirit of Scandinavianism, the main promulgator of which was the group of Danish intellectuals who strove to promote their Viking roots and their cultural connection with the other Nordic countries (Derry 85), whereas she pays homage to Grundtvig according to whom “the sagas of the Norse gods embodied allegories relevant to modern Christian Danes, especially so since the Nordic languages, both ancient and modern, were not sullied” (Kent 60). The Danes are gifted with several remarkable attributes thanks to their “superior” racial background, stemming from their mixture with the Celts, and this can be reflected in their excellent schooling system, which effectively connects past and present. Vestiges of this educational prosperity are exalted by Wilde when she links all major aspects of Danish life to their Irish origins: “the modern Danish school is extremely interesting. Danish history, Danish peasant

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life, with all its bright colouring and costume; Scandinavian scenes, the cromlech and the grave-mounds, identical with the Irish (70). Aside from their depiction as an Arcadian nation, whose core elements are in perfect harmony with each other, the Danes are admired for manifesting a remarkable degree of social equality in their everyday life, a fact which clashes with the writer’s social experience in Victorian Britain. Unlike other authors focusing on Denmark, such as Wollstonecraft7 and Lowe,8 who emphasised the obsession of the Danish with their social ascension as well as the despotic image of the Danish government, Wilde marvels at the peaceful coexistence of different classes, when frequenting the same places, as social segregation is not favoured by Danish society: “people of all classes- gentle and simple, lords, peasants and artisans- are to be met at the Tivoli and Alhambra Gardens, which are laid out in the Moorish style, and brilliantly illuminated” (45). This image is starkly contrasted with a later comment of the writer on British social reality, which incorporates two extremes, that is, absolute poverty and extreme wealth, a comment which alludes to the dystopian image of Britain and the projection of Denmark as an Arcadian society: “England is one great workshop, its symbols the furnace and the factory; and the population seems divided but into two classes- masters and toilers, aristocrats and slaves” (12). Notwithstanding the author’s attempt to construct a racial utopia by focusing on the Danish people as a nation which perfectly combines the moral and physical attributes of the Teutons and the Celts, Wilde shows significant concern over the issue of gender in the country visited. In particular, the writer touches upon several aspects of Danish culture in order to substantiate her views on the further emancipation of European women. Before exploring the author’s views on the issue of womanhood, the conditions in which she undertook this journey to Scandinavia should be mentioned. To begin with, at the time of her journey she was at the age of 63, a fact which prevented her from taking part in pioneering activities that other women travellers such as Bunbury, Lowe and Oswald pursued during their residence in the Scandinavian countries, such as mountaineering, boat journeys and horseback riding, that is, activities predominantly 7

Wollstonecraft remarks that “Vassalage is nevertheless ceasing throughout the kingdom, and with it will pass away that sordid avarice which every modification of slavery is calculated to produce” (69). 8 Lowe notes that “some of the British residents told us confidentially, that with the exception of music, refined amusements were in a slightly stagnant state — talent rather held in terror” (154)

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reserved for male travellers. This means that Lady Wilde could never satisfy the frequent self-projection of nineteenth-century women travellers as adventure heroines, who “travel without the comforts of civilisation, and often describe pitting themselves against inhospitable environments” (Foster et al. 258). Notwithstanding her visit to various countries in the North of Europe, one hardly bears witness to any privations that she might have experienced, and this may partially be explained by her upper-class background, which could not allow her to face dangers associated with an average journey to Scandinavia. Besides age, another key difference of Lay Wilde’s position from women travellers like Lowe is that she travels with her husband William Wilde, accompanying him to his journey towards the Swedish city of Uppsala to receive an honorary degree from Uppsala (the NordstjärneordenOrder of the North Star). We have every reason to remember Upsala with pleasure and gratitude. The university conferred a degree honoris causa, on Sir William Wilde; and on leaving, Baron de Kroemer graciously presented him, as a memorial of our visit, with a drinking- horn, mounted to simulate the raven, the sacred bird of Odin. (192)

For this reason, Wilde differs from other women travellers who treated their travels as a unique opportunity to break away from the patriarchal society of their home country and the barriers of their domestic existence in order to experience life as free agents. As Dorothy Middleton aptly points out in Victorian Lady Travellers, the travel could connote for most British travellers of the female sex nothing more than “an individual gesture of the house-bound, man-dominated Victorian woman” (4). Contrary to this recurrent self-presentation of women writers as independent travellers, who can visit the remotest corners of the earth without the presence of a male companion, Lady Wilde does not produce her travelogue upon this basis. In Driftwood from Scandinavia, the main aspects of womanhood that come to the foreground are those of sisterhood and female oppression. The first aspect is linked to the writer’s attitude towards members of the same sex both in Scandinavia and Britain. The idea of sisterhood is manifested as the sympathetic glance at the position of women home and abroad. Far from being coincidental, Wilde’s reference to the Brontɺ sisters, the famous British writers, sheds light on the limited recognition that women can enjoy when venturing into male-dominated areas. In the chapter on literature, the author explicitly deplores the poor progress of British women in gender relations. As an indicative example, she mentions

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the Brontɺ sisters, who, according to Wilde, were sunk into oblivion despite being endowed with remarkable writing skills because of their gender. As mentioned by Wilde, “Yorkshire made one think of the Brontɺs, the wild, weird, gifted Irish race that flashed up a sudden light upon the age from the swamps and fens where they had found a home” (13). What strikes the reader is the effort on the writer’s part to combine the issue of gender with the overemphasised topic of race. Wilde implies that the Brontɺ sisters should be admired for two reasons: their talented personality and their independence, the latter emanating from their Irish blood. Gender and race appear to be fused into a dynamic whole, which indicates Wilde’s original thesis on both topics: the creative propensities of the aforementioned Irish women are attributed to their racial origins, a fact which demonstrates the importance which Lady Wilde attaches to the role of race in the amalgamation of a nation’s character. At the same time, in an effort to criticise the restrictions reserved for Victorian women, Wilde comments on the limited recognition of the Brontɺ sisters by Victorian readership, stating that “literature was a poor thing. What was the use of it all? It never made any money. Such were the Yorkshire views on the great Brontɺ sisterhood” (13-4). This unrewarding attitude of Victorian society towards gifted women writers enables Wilde to urge her compatriots to pursue a more active role in Victorian society, which wishes to keep them confined to their domestic, plain existence. Furthermore, the author evidently identifies with the unfortunate end of these Irish writers, feeling equally insecure in her role as a woman writer. Thus she expresses the need of women to be professionally active in order to enjoy further professional and political emancipation. On another occasion, the idea of sisterhood is expressed by Wilde through the depiction of Danish female peasants. As the writer mentions: women were working in the fields, and very unlovely they looked in their lank blue cotton gowns. Their faces are the colour of turf; their fields are walled with turf; […] yet from these turf bogs came the bravest of the ancient barbarians, and thousands of wild conquering hordes have swept over these plains. (26)

Clearly, the writer deplores the inhumane conditions under which Danish women of lower orders are forced to work. What is more, she attempts to associate the strenuous lifestyle of Danish women with the warlike character of the ancient Vikings, highlighting that it was these women who gave birth to the wild Viking warriors. The writer implies, therefore, that the fundamental male qualities of virility, valor and bravery result from the beneficial influence of motherhood. Although Wilde links

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the unfavourable labouring conditions of Danish women to the bellicose and masculine world of the ancient Vikings, they are also portrayed as beings reduced to slave-like labour. At the same time, the writer marvels at the great advances of female emancipation in Scandinavia and is ready to juxtapose these developments with the backward aspect of Britain on the same field. Casting a melancholic glance at the submissive and unrewarding position of women in Victorian society, Wilde admires the high recognition of female writers in Swedish society adding that: Clever and intellectual women, also, in Sweden hold a much higher position in society than their literary sisters of England. They are honoured and made much of, and treated with considerable distinction, solely from belonging to the peerage of intellect. Whereas in England wealth, with the ponderous routine of life that wealth entails, seems to be the chief measure of merit and the highest standard of perfection in social circles. (201)

Based on this description, Swedish authors of the female sex enjoy the same social status as their male colleagues, honoured and accepted by the intellectual circles of the country. On the contrary, the work of British women, like the aforementioned Brontɺ sisters, rests in oblivion, thwarted by the narrow gender boundaries that patriarchal society has imposed. Wilde marvels at the autonomous existence of her Swedish fellow writers, who are given the opportunity to excel in art and literature without being the subject of the sharpest critique as their British sisters are. Nevertheless, Wilde’s comment on the unrewarding and unrecognised state of women writers in Britain is contrasted with the considerably positive developments towards the same direction in Scandinavia, and is further triggered by the writer’s witnessing of the visible emancipation of Scandinavian women in that field. In that respect, what Foster and Mills have described as an attempt of British writers to establish a friendship with members of their own sex in the country visited in order to “break down or re-define the differences between self and other” (22) is partly observed in Wilde’s travelogue. For instead of projecting Scandinavian women as backward and members of an inferior culture that is entirely deprived of agency and social participation, she engages in a gender discourse which wishes to illuminate the backwardness of Victorian society in the issue of gender, an attitude which is reminiscent of the views of Wollstonecraft, Oswald and Lowe on the same issue. In addition, the negotiation of Wilde’s own status as a writer, as well as that of her fellow writers in Britain, is further triggered by her befriending indigenous women, a fact that corroborates her hypothesis that Victorian Britain is a

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gender wasteland. Thus, as Vron Ware points out, it is this interaction with indigenous women that enables many Victorian women writers like Wilde to acquire their own political voice (25). All things considered, the travel narrative Driftwood from Scandinavia provides the reader with various images of Danish utopia: racial, educational and feminist. The Scandinavian context triggers issues of racial awareness on the writer’s part; indeed, Wilde demonstrates her anxiety to apply the contemporary racial theories she is aware of to the study of Danish culture and society. Holding the firm belief that race constitutes the only factor which could help a nation maintain its cohesion, Wilde formulates her ideas on the racial dimensions of the Danish culture, and casts a nostalgic glance at the early stages of nation-building in Europe. Moreover, the writer is genuinely concerned with and intrigued by these stages of racial development of the European nations, a fact that is reflected in one of her concluding remarks: we see how easily the early races in their migrations could pass from island to island, and find food and sustenance in plenty, with the great shadowy pine forests for their dwelling-place; and in their wild, joyous freedom, with nature, energy, independence, and vigorous work, lived a healthier and therefore happier life than our vaunted civilization can now offer to poor, dyspeptic, nervous depressed, worn-out, hypochondriac humanity. (229)

Finally, it should be highlighted that Wilde’s travelogue coincides with British women’s struggle to achieve recognition from a society that scarcely favoured female emancipation in any way. The idea of sisterhood that emerges from the juxtaposition between the domesticity of British women and their emancipated Scandinavian counterparts comes to the fore as an essential component of her text. What is more, Wilde’s fashioning of Denmark in particular and Scandinavia in general as a gender utopia sets the pace for British feminist writers to work on the field of women’s rights with a new vigour.

PART VII: FINNISH UTOPIA

CHAPTER ONE CHARLES BOILEAU-ELLIOTT: LETTERS FROM THE NORTH OF EUROPE; OR A JOURNAL OF TRAVELS IN HOLLAND, DENMARK, NORWAY, SWEDEN, FINLAND, RUSSIA, PRUSSIA AND SAXONY

The Reverend Charles Boileau-Elliott (1803-1875) was an early Victorian writer born to an English father, Charles Elliott (1776-1856) who was an Indian Administrator, a judge of Fatehghar and also served at the Court of the Great Mogul in India. His mother Alicia Boileau was of Irish descent. He studied at the East India College at Heylebury and in 1832 he became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He gained relative prominence through his essay On the Effects of Climate on National Character (1821). Raised in India, he was fluent in Persian, a fact which allowed him to translate texts from that language into English. He also wrote two travelogues, one named Letters from the North of Europe; Or a Journal of Travels in Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Prussia and Saxony (1832) and Travels in the Three Great Empires of Austria, Russia and Turkey (1838). Elliot was familiar with the Nordic countries, having undertaken two consecutive trips to Norway in 1830. This section concentrates on Boileau-Elliott’s first travel account Letters from the North of Europe and more precisely on his depiction of the Finns during his journey in Northern Europe. Before conducting a closer examination of the travelogue, I should stress that Finland does not constitute the writer’s only focus in his account since he provides the reader with extensive information on the other Scandinavian countries (Norway, Denmark and Sweden) and devotes the second part of his narrative to the depiction of the manners and mores of the Russian Empire. For this reason, although the author’s presentation of Finland will be the main point of reference in my text, there will be sporadic references to the other countries, when the author touches primarily upon issues such as

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gender and primitivism in the Scandinavian context; in thisway, I feel that there can be a more efficient and just analysis of the work in question. At the same time, considering the period during which Boileau-Elliott produced his travelogue, that is, in the early Victorian era, when the mapping of the North was still unclear to the average traveller and reader, Victorian travellers did not focus on Finland as a separate national entity but rather see it as a region divided between the two superpowers of the North, Russia and Sweden, culturally, linguistically and politically. Another noteworthy feature of this travelogue is the writer’s origins; despite being a British citizen, he was raised in India, and although he treats Britain as his place of origin, he tends to draw a constant comparison between Indian nature (and customs) and the images that he comes across in his journey in the North. In the introductory part of his travel narrative, Boileau-Elliott acknowledges the significant effect of India on his identity as an author by stating that: The allusions to India will not be thought too frequent by those who are interested in our eastern possessions. Her political importance, the moral condition of her people, and the natural features of the country, have secured for India the attention of every- one whose thoughts are occupied in politics, morals, or statistics; and in preparing for publication his private letters, the author considered it unnecessary to expunge the occasional allusions to a land where the first years of his life and of his manhood were passed (3).

Based on this excerpt, one can draw an important conclusion about the author’s viewpoint and role as a narrator. Contrary to other British travellers who treated England (and Britain) as the centre of international developments due to the rising power of the Empire, Boileau confesses that India constitutes a significant part of his childhood and formation as a theorist and philosopher. By using the word “eastern possessions”, the author explicitly refers to the colonial world, a significant part of which is India, a fact which elucidates his outlook as a coloniser and imbued with the colonial values. At the same time, by presenting India as a “land where the first years of his life and of his manhood were passed”, Boileau-Elliott accentuates the impact of the colonial space on the fundamental stages of his life, that is, his rite of passage from childhood to adulthood in a country which was culturally as remote to Britain as any Oriental periphery of the imperial world. The frequent allusions of the writer to other Oriental expeditions he had undertaken, such as his journey to the Himalayas and the Indian lore, contradict this prefatory promise that his observations will be confined to the European context. It is hardly

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surprising that later on, the writer admits that a comparison will inevitably be drawn between India and the countries visited, a fact which indicates that the Asian context underlies his outlook on Scandinavia when he encounters cultural traits which are not akin to British culture: I must plead as my excuse that the comparative study of countries and their productions falls immediately within the province of a traveller; and that everything connected with India has an especial claim to my attention. (51)

This introductory statement suggests that his upbringing within the colonial space and not in the metropolis penetrates his presentation of the notion of Englishness in the travelogue Letters from the North of Europe. With reference to the diasporic notion of Englishness, Young observes that in the imperialist discourse, “Englishness was transformed into ethnicity unlike any other; because it was no single ethnicity, but an amalgamation of many, it became a cosmopolitan ethnicity” (232). Boileau-Elliott’s idea of Englishness is closely related to the cosmopolitanism he has acquired during his childhood: his delineation of his national identity encompasses a patchwork of Oriental and Occidental cultural values. This rather ambivalent stance of British colonisers towards the Other signals the unclear properties of Englishness (and Britishness) as part of their national identity. They are both hostile to and part of the colonial world, and despite their imperialist cosmology, British citizens are sometimes better acquainted with the Other than the metropolitan world, and their only connection with the metropolis is through their placement as the superior caste in the colonial world in opposition to the inferior indigenous people. Young claims that “enough writing remains, however, as evidence of the extent to which Englishness or pan-Anglicanism successfully created an identity for those of English descent elsewhere […] a form of longdistance nationalism” (226) which he calls “diasporic transnationalism”. As frequently confessed by Boileau-Elliott in his travel narrative, “I find many things in this northern latitude reminding me of India” (50). This reveals his own national identity as an amalgam of Indian and British values, a fact which shapes the comparative gaze he adopts at the Scandinavian context. Boileau-Elliott’s attachment to India also recalls the inclusive aspect of Englishness in the essay The Expansion of England written by Sir John Seeley1. In his influential essay, Seeley formulates the idea of the Greater Britain, which suggests a national identity of the English encompassing all 1

Sir John Robert Seeley (1834-1895) was an English historian, professor at University College, London.

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the ethnic minorities which form part of the British Empire. In particular, the theorist compares it to the breadth of the Ancient Greek Empire established by Alexander the Great, an Empire which constituted an amalgam of different ethnicities but embraced Greek identity as the dominant culture: For by Greater Britain we mean an enlargement of the English State, and not simply of the English nationality. It is not simply that a population of English blood is now found in Canada and in Australia, as in old time a Greek population was spread over Sicily, South Italy and the Western Coast of Asia Minor. That was an extension of the Nationality but not of the State, an extension which gave no new strength, and did not in any way help the Greek name when it was attacked and conquered from Macedonia. (50)

Contrary to Marryat and Metcalfe, who tend to emphasise English superiority over foreign peoples and the insular peripheries (i.e. the Celtic ethnic groups of the British Isles) and articulate self-aggrandising theories such as Anglo-Saxonism and Nordicism, Seeley draws the attention of the Victorians to the collective dimension of Englishness, extending it towards the occupied territories of the Empire, mainly India, which had adopted English institutions and cultural elements (language and religion), envisioning a Greater Britain, challenging the strict insular borders of Great Britain. Thus the rather exclusive notion of Englishness gives way to the more inclusive concept of Britishness which encompasses every corner of the British Empire. This calls for Young’s argument that“the British Empire is Greater Britain […] England is not the ‘island so-called’, but the political union named after the island, which is quite capable of expanding so as to cover half the globe” (212). In fact, there is an instance in BoileauElliott’s travel account which demonstrates this loyalty to the spirit of Greater Britain, when the writer receives a letter from a Russian gentleman: The same gentleman observed. "I consider the English to be the finest government in the world, and the administration of India to be the masterpiece of its prowess. It is a political miracle. It is not in the ages of darkness, but in the nineteenth century, that England has driven from their eastern possessions the French, Danes, Portuguese, and all other Europeans; and that, with a handful of men, at a distance of four thousand leagues, she holds in subjection more than a hundred millions of men. It is quite incomprehensible!" This enlightened Russian concluded by saying: "I would not on any account that England should lose India”. (239)

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Interestingly enough, the author uses this letter as an opportunity to exalt the omnipotence of the British Empire, excluding other imperial powers of the time (France, Denmark, Portugal) from their own colonies and being envied by another rising imperial force, the Russian Empire. The reader is also struck by the author’s insistence on the importance of India as one of the pillars of the British Empire, an allegation which shifts the centre of the empire from metropolitan Britain to an Oriental periphery, India, this fact indicates Boileau Elliott’s his strong belief in the existence of a Greater Britain, not restricted to the narrow European territorial dimension of Britain but rather connoting all the overseas possessions of the British Empire. The author’s outlook denotes the late eighteenth- century perspective of the Britons, who, according to Linda Colley, “were perplexed by the problem of having acquired too much power too quickly over too many people” (103) while British patriotism was built upon “monarchy, the importance of the empire, the value of military and naval achievement” (145), concerns expressed in BoileauElliott’s travel narrative when he approaches India as an integral aspect of Britishness. In his previous confession of the crucial role of India in his formation as a writer, Boileau-Elliott also talks about the genre for which he opts when writing his travelogue. In particular, he mentions that he prepared for publication his private letters. Being an early Victorian writer, the author is influenced by the norms of eighteenth-century literary canon according to which travelogues are either written in diary form, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiographical work The Confessions (published in 1782) or according to the epistolary style introduced by traveller writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, John Quincy Adams (Letters on Silesia: Written During a Tour Through That Country in the Years 1800, 1801) etc. According to Tony Lurcock, “most writers of this time [early nineteenth century] published their travelogues in the form of a journal or series of letters; written at the time, these could be easily worked up for publication” (4). This is often noticed in the author’s travelogue, since he tends to interrupt his narration in order to quote the manuscripts/ letters that he exchanges with a Norwegian pastor as well as with other people with whom he becomes acquainted in his lengthy trip. In his travelogue, Boileau-Elliott also remarks that his letters “comprise little more than a journal, penned at moments snatched from the occupations of a traveller passing quickly through the countries he visited” (2), thus reinforcing his rather furtive and adventurous gaze at the places he encounters throughout his journeys in the North.

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Apart from the literary genre to which this travelogue belongs, it is also essential to touch upon the historical circumstances that surround his narration. As has already been suggested, the mapping of Finland remained rather unclear to the majority of the Victorian travellers, given the country’s complex history. Divided between the Germanic West and the Orthodox Orient, it was ceded in 1808 to Russia; after falling into his hands, the Russian Emperor Alexander I “created the Grand Duchy of Finland, an autonomous part of the Russian Empire where the legal and religious traditions from the Swedish era were allowed to continue” (Lavery 1). It was a former territory of Sweden (the cradle of the Gothic civilisation as seen by several northernist scholars) and an annexed territory of the Russian Empire, which, as contended by Henriette Kliemann-Geisinger, functioned as the epitome of the Eastern cultures; thus “the barbarian image of the North was henceforth transferred to this new East, whereas the new, German-Scandinavian North was supplied with a positive, pure and natural image” (76). This shift from the dystopian to the eutopian projection of the Nordic countries, as part of the civilised North (that is, Sweden) as opposed to the primitive East (embodied by Russia) due to its Greek Orthodox religious tradition2applies to Finland to a certain extent: the country is frequently described by the scant number of Victorian travellers as Russian Finland (designating the Finnish-speaking regions approximate to the Russian Empire) and Swedish Finland the Swedish-speaking coasts of Finland which were linguistically and culturally influenced by the country’s former ruler. However, Boileau-Elliott’s visit in Finland overlaps with one of the most tumultuous phases of Finnish nationalism, marked by the rising Fennomania, that is, the nineteenth-century Romantic movement in Finland which aimed at exploiting all the national elements that formed the Volkgeist of the country, Finnish language and folklore, in order to culturally distance itself from Sweden and protect the Finnish nation from the eminent Russification. In his History of Finland’s Literature, George C. Schoolfield underscores the importance of the Finnish Society in Helsinki “from which so much literary activity of the 1830s (and by extension, the following decade) emanated […]” (57). This Finnish national awakening named ‘Helsinki Romanticism’ was considerably 2

As Boileau-Elliott states: “but for this emblem, the Christian church might easily be mistaken for a Mahomedan mosque. Nor is it in externals only that the resemblance obtains: In the worship of the interior there is scarcely less of superstition; perhaps more of senseless mummery: and the members of the GrecoRussian Church have the same mode of prostrating themselves in prayer and touching the ground with their heads, that is adopted by the Mussulmans” (164).

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empowered by the publication of Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot’s composition of the country’s national epic, published in 1835, five years after Elliot’s visit in Finland. Neil Kent claims that this “cultural reassessment was one national component in a pan-European trend to turn back to traditional roots, just at a time when growing industrialisation and migration were changing the nature of society and identity” (122). Yet Boileau is not aware of this nationalist wave in Finland. Therefore, his observations are solely confined to the external appearance of the Finns, a basic outline of their manners and mores, as well as their interaction with the author prior to his arrival in Russia. As regards the writer’s intercourse with the Finnish people, Elliot’s standpoint is associated with his loyalty to the Herderian notion of national character, as can also be noticed in his other writings such as On the Effects of Climate on National Character. The author of this travelogue lays emphasis on the serious impact of climate on the formation of a national character when he refers, in the first part of his travelogue, to the Dutch people and their constant battle with the aquatic element, since they live in a flat land built upon polders and dams: The national character is observant, industrious, calculating, frugal, brave and phlegmatic. All these qualities may be traced, in a greater or less degree, to their peculiar situation, in constant danger of inundation. (18)

In this extract, Boileau-Elliott clearly presents the geographical and geological conditions in the Netherlands as conducive to the formation of a specific national character, compared to the continuous movement of the waters, as well as to the insecurity that Dutch people experience because of the increased possibility of inundations. The theory of climate, which is already manifested in ancient Greek philosophical texts by Aristotle and Hippocrates, gained significant ground during the Enlightenment, and received greater prominence after the publication of Montesquieu’s 3 work The Spirit of the Laws (L'Esprit des lois in the original French title), published in 1748, which sought to explain the physical and moral attributes of ethnic groups according to material factors such as the climate. Roberto Romani discusses the impact of Montesquieu’s theory of climate on the building of nations, arguing that Montesquieu draws on this climatological tool “through which he aims to account for the great variety of habits, mores, laws, and collective characters ‘which mark out all the countries of the universe” (39). In that respect, the national character (or 3

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) was an influential French moralist and sociologist

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caractère national) is equated to the laws of nature and human nature in general. Hence Boileau-Elliott’s comment on the amphibious existence of the Dutch, and the indisputable effect of the sea on their industriousness and patience: Ever on the water or in the water, the ideas of this amphibious people are inseparably connected with the element which they alone have subjected; and the words, which I have translated literally, inappropriate in any other mouth, are aptly addressed by the Hollander to his aquatic brother. (18)

If the Dutch national character is attributed to the Dutch people’s constant battle with the sea surface-“inseparably connected with the element which they alone have subjected”- the Finns are presented by the writer in relation to the infertile and desolate character of their country. As Boileau-Elliott claims: A Roman historian, speaking of their entire destitution of arms, horses, and settled abodes; of their hardships, toils, and dangers: concludes with observing that they provide for their infants no better shelter from wild beasts and storms, than a covering of branches twisted together. (157)

In this passage, Finns are depicted as a poverty-ridden people, leading a dangerous life and being under the constant threat of wild beasts and adverse weather conditions. The hardships to which they are constantly subjected render them noble savages because their primitive living conditions demonstrate the powerful (and negative) effect of nature on the national character of the Finns, who are characterised by a certain degree of stoicism. Boileau-Elliott’s view of the Finns as members of a primitive society, deprived of the technological facilities of modern civilisation emphasises their close communion with nature, the main component of the Rousseauesque world. Moreover, their destitute lifestyle reiterates the author’s conviction that climate decisively forges the national character of a country. As Richard Chevenix argues, in late eighteenth- and first half of nineteenth-century literature, climate is not only the earliest, but the most constant cause which acts upon the characters of men, collectively or separately […] but whatever be the suitableness of soil to climate, no fertility can make a nation great, unless it extends over a sufficient territory, and many fields must be united before national splendour can be attempted. The extent of territory necessary to this end is wholly relative, and varies according to the condition of society, and the strength of neighbouring empires. (40)

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Drawing upon this extract, the national character of a country is not only based on the favourable or unfavourable weather conditions inherent to its climate, but also extends to other factors associated with climate, such as fertility and territorial expansion. A country’s proximity to other Empires also determines the constitution of its national character. Taking all these factors into consideration, the Finnish nation is regarded by Boileau-Elliott as a country doomed to be enslaved and bear the yoke of various Empires (first the Swedish and then the Russian). Being deficient climatologically, territorially and geopolitically, Finland is not likely, according to the writer, to survive as a separate political entity. The Russian government liberally allows the whole revenue of Finland, small as it is, to be expended within the limits of the country. The Fins have a council of their own, and none but a native can fill any office of trust. At first, I am told, they regarded their annexation to Russia as a hardship; probably because they remembered that Peter the Great had conquered a portion of their country, which was thereby dismembered. But the kindness of the emperor has now conciliated them: and so long as lie treats them with consideration, there can be no doubt that it is an advantage to the Fins to be attached to a nation which has the power to protect them against foreign enemies. (161)

Unlike Laing and Bunbury, who criticised and felt intimidated by the increasing participation of the Russian Empire in the mapping of Europe at the threshold of the nineteenth century, Boileau-Elliott views the preservation of the Russian imperial rule in Finland as a positive political development which allows the Finns to develop thanks to their incorporation into a larger political body since “it is an advantage to the Finns to be attached to a stronger nation”. Given the “inability” of the Finns to become self-sufficient and strong enough to resist the invasion of other political entities, they should fully succumb, as the writer contends, to the foreign political influence as long as they maintain some degree of autonomy. Boileau-Elliott’s attitude is rather paternalistic but may be explained by the fact that “the Grand Duchy retained its autonomy, its special status within the Russian empire, which had enabled ‘the embryonic state’ created by Alexander I in 1809 to develop into a more or less fully-fledged entity” (Kirby 21). In that way, the writer feels that Finland, in spite of being a Russian protectorate, is found in a favourable position since it is not absorbed into the imperial mechanism of Russia but functions undisturbed and maintains its national identity. This step which is decisive, if one considers that in the British Empire the colonisers treated the indigenous people as savage people that were “wild and vicious”, and posed a threat to the colonial interests and to any member of

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a refined society, thus constituting the Other that needs to be domesticated in order to meet the requirements of the Western, imperial beholder (Pratt 65). The author’s tendency to justify the Russian empire might be seen in connection to his strong belief in the Greater Britain: if British national identity is based on its colonial possessions like India, it is natural that the Russian national character is formed through the exercise of power over other territories such as Finland. Apart from viewing the climatological and cultural dimensions as determining factors of the national character of a nation, Boileau-Elliott is also concerned with the existence of patriotic feeling in Finland, as suggested in the following extract: The Fins would not exchange their country and their servitude for the freedom of England, much less for the romantic hills of Norway or of Switzerland. Their patriotism has been the theme of admiration among all nations and all ages. (157)

Boileau-Elliott admires Finnish patriotism, despite their servitude and their forcible subjection to the Russian yoke. In fact, their patriotism should be seen as another important component of the nation-building process described in Herder’s philosophy. The Herderian definition of patriotism is built upon the notions of the sense of freedom and the imperfection: as Barnard maintains, “Herder posits a sense of imperfection and a sense of freedom, then, as the foundation for the emergence of human culture and the formation of distinctive national identities” (9). Herder also contends that multinational states are more likely to form a collective national identity as opposed to nation-states, because “despite the possibility of conflictual relations, the mode of overall thinking (Denkart) was more similar within nations than between nations” (Barnart 10), thus implying a collective consciousness. Being part of a vast empire, and with a relative free status as an autonomous duchy, Finland is more likely to forge a national identity within the framework of the Russian empire than as an independent state. This is why Boileau-Elliott refers to the freedom of England to juxtapose the dependent status of the Finns and their strong patriotic feeling with a country which, despite being the core (and not the periphery) of the British Empire, needs to forge a collective identity for many different nations. Once again, Boileau-Elliott’s words allude to the cosmopolitan identity of the Britons, incorporating various ethnicities and cultures that need to be assimilated. In other words, the author holds the view that it is much more difficult to colonise than to be colonised.

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In addition to the issue of national identity, the writer addresses the issue of race in his attempt to describe the Finnish nation to his Victorian readership. Earlier in his travelogue, he sought to portray the Finns as noble savages, in constant battle with the most unfavourable elements of nature, ardent patriots, and paradoxically pleased with their attachment to the Russian Empire. Similar generalisations are made by the author when describing the Finnish Laplanders (or Sami) and the Finns. As Lurcock notes, “the earliest accounts of Finland often confuse the races: Swedes, Finns and ‘Lapps’. In particular, travellers in Lapland did not usually distinguish Finns living in Lapland from what are now known as Sami, the native inhabitants” (xii). This racial confusion is also apparent in BoileauElliott’s travelogue. The writer’s simplistic definition of the Finnish race can be traced in the following extract: Laps have a common origin, as their features, form, and language indicate. Throughout both countries, those are denominated Laps who live, as nomades, with and on their reindeer and those are Fins who support themselves exclusively by fishing. In our employment of this last Teutonic word, we use the whole for a part; and thus lose the due which the word Jin affords to the generic appellation of a race of fishermen. (156)

For Boileau-Elliott both peoples, that is, the Lapps and the Finns, are similar both physically and culturally. What renders the Finns different from the Lapps is that they do not lead a domestic life and usually occupy themselves as fishermen. Yet what strikes the reader’s attention is not the generic distinction drawn by the author between Lapps (the nomadic race) and Finns (the race of fishermen); it is the use of the term “Teutonic” which implies the racial gap that separates the Germanic race (the Teutons) from the Other. “So linguistic sameness became the basis of race, culture and nation” (58). The racial theory of Teutonism also resulted from this triumvirate of race-language-nationhood, according to which “the Germanic peoples had separates identities from those of the Celts (including the Gauls) as well as the Jews” (Young 58). As a result, races such as the Lapps and the Finns were treated as inferior due to their physical and cultural “deviation” from the Germanic rule. The prejudiced discourse about the Other quickly turned into a theoricisation of racial discrimination that connected physical with spiritual abilities. With regard to the discrimination with which Finnish culture and people were faced in view of the emerging racial theories such as Teutonism, Aryanism and other sub-theories of the same racist ideological basis, Johanna Laakso notices that in the nineteenth century, “the traditional idea of Ural-Altaic relatedness, i.e. between Finns and ‘Altaic’

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peoples such as the Mongols, and the theories of the Asiatic origins of the Finno-Ugrians also still enjoyed some popularity” (93-4). At the same time, since language was regarded as a characteristic deeply interwoven with racial identification, Laakso maintains that although the Finnish language and ethnicity gradually gained the ideologically leading position in Finland, the battle against being branded as ‘Mongols’ (and thus, according to the received wisdom of those times aesthetically, intellectually and morally inferior to white Europeans) continued during the first half of the 20th century. (94)

Laakso’s point shows that Finnish National Romanticism did not only come to represent Finland’s struggle to build a separate national identity from the Russian ruler, based on its distinct language and culture; it was also manifested as a defense against the racial allegations that considered Finnish culture and race aesthetically and intellectually inferior to any Germanic nation. This is evident in Boileau-Elliott’s treatment of two distinct races, such as the Sami and the Finns, as essentially the same because of their difference from the dominant Germanic race at more than one level (linguistically, physically, culturally). The homogenisation of the two races certainly reveals the writer’s empowered position towards cultures which are deemed inferior to the Saxon culture. If the depiction of the Finns earlier in the travelogue alludes to the image of the noble savage, the following extract indicates that the Lapps, who lead a nomadic life, are treated as anthropoids, divided between the human world of reason and the animal instinct, whose primitive manners render them subject to the British travellers’ curiosity: Three days before I joined two gentlemen who are now ray travelling companions, they had supped and slept in a Lap hut with a family of those wanderers, surrounded by six hundred deer; and much did they enjoy the opportunity of observing the manners of a race who seem to form a link between the worlds of reason and of instinct. (100)

Boileau-Elliott’s prejudiced comment on the Lappish tribes might be interpreted both in connection to the theory of climate and the racial theories that underpinned nineteenth century anthropology. On the one hand, living in the far North, the Lapps incarnate everything hostile related to the inhabitants of northern locations. As Waldemar Zacharasiewicz asserts, in eighteenth-century travel literature “the negative assessment of the consequences of a northern location in the globe was enhanced by unfavourable associations of the North generally with demons, devils and a threat to God’s people” (32). Boileau-Elliott’s conviction that climate is

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conducive to the formation of a people’s character is also implied in this comment, in which he treats the Lapps as a primitive tribe, that is, entirely devoid of any refinement resulting from civilised environments. Yet the author departs from the eighteenth-century tradition since it is evident that he also presents the Lapps according to their racial attributes placing them really low on the racial scale. Therefore, Boileau-Elliott perpetuates the animalistic stereotypes that travellers and theorists tend to ascribe to peoples to whom they are remotely connected at a cultural level. His discourse is tinged with racial prejudice and images of the noble savage (and frequently of the mere savage), and his emphasis on the primitive (and uncanny) appearance of the Lapps is reminiscent of the fact that “the very name ‘Lapland’ held for eighteenth-century readers some of the mythological power that Siberia had in later ages, as a place of great remoteness, beyond the boundary of civilised life”, whereas the Laplanders “had a reputation throughout Europe for magical practices and sorcery” (Lurcock 7). In his text, Boileau-Elliott sets the focus on the primitive dimension of the Lappish (and Finnish) culture without insisting on the threatening presentation of its commodities. The Lappish tribes that the author encounters in his trip are obviously objectified but they also stimulate his “appetite” for an anthropological investigation of the origins of the human species, a tendency which became very fashionable in midand late Victorian literature, given the prevalence of several racial theories that spoke of human evolution, such as Darwinism. In an attempt to juxtapose the overrefinement of his British background with the “savageness” of the Laps, Boileau-Elliott asserts that Drinking and smoking form their chief sources of enjoyment. How pleasure can be derived from such habits is happily incomprehensible to us: but their ideas are few; their enjoyments still fewer. My friends left them with the impression that they are as little as possible elevated above the brute creation; though they do not quite answer to the description which Tacitus quotes with ambiguous faith, that they have human faces with the bodies and limbs of wild beasts. (62)

In this excerpt, the writer makes it clear to the reader that the Lapps are part of the animalistic world, since they are entirely devoid of any spiritual aspirations and at the same time, both their aspects and their overall disposition mirror their brutality. In addition to their brutal physical aspects, the habits of the Lapps reveal their complete moral and intellectual degradation, which is reminiscent of the fact that they are “as little as possible elevated above the brute creation” (62). Boileau-Elliott’s function as the imperial beholder, who assumes the empowered role of the

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moral and cultural assessor, is strongly felt. Far from being accidental, the British travellers’ conclusion that the Lappish families are wild creatures, whose brutal behaviour stems from their limited exposure to refined manners and mores, is drawn prior to their sojourn at the tents of the Lapps. This signifies that the British travellers, the writer included, have crystallised their opinions about specific races’ allegedly inferior abilities even before interacting with them. The prejudice of Boileau-Elliott and his fellow travellers reminds us of the concept of surveillance, frequently used within postcolonial studies. Indeed,“one of the most powerful strategies of imperial dominance is that of surveillance, because it implies a viewer with an elevated vantage point, it suggests the power to process and understand that which is seen, and objectifies and interprellates the colonized subject” (Aschcroft et al. 185). In the text, the Lapps are objectified by the imperial gaze in such a manner that they acquire a new existence, characterised by subalternity and powerlessness, an act described by Lacan as “the grand autre” (Aschcroft et al. 186), that is, the imperial beholder without whose gaze the Other loses its identity. The objectification of the Lapps/Finns and their constant racial Othering by the author are also evident on another occasion, in which the writer juxtaposes the backwardness of the Finnish Other with their former rulers, the Swedes: The contrast between Finland and Sweden is very striking. I could fancy myself in Asia. The peasants wear long loose robes of a coarse woolen manufacture, secured by a Nilken ceinture like the hinimerhund of the Mussulmans. Their beards are thick and long. Their dress, except the European hat, resembles that of Beoparries from Cabui. Two churches in Abo, with Byzantine domes, remind one that, though the mass of the people now profess the Lutheran faith, they are subjected to a government which, till lately, acknowledged as its ecclesiastical head the eastern patriarch of Constantinople. (157)

In this excerpt, on the one hand the writer compares the Finnish peasantry to Asian, Muslim civilisations and on the other hand, he contrasts them to the Swedes because the latter, by belonging to the Teutonic world, are undoubtedly in a more advanced state. In addition to their traditional outfit, the Finnish peasants appear to Boileau-Elliott as particularly oriental-looking, given their long beards and the architecture of their churches, which is esthetically reminiscent of the Russian Orthodox religious tradition. Notwithstanding his familiarity with images of the Orient and his upbringing in India, the very heart of Asia and the colonial system, Boileau-Elliott seems to draw this analogy between the

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Finns and the Muslim world in order to culturally displace the country from the Western world; on the contrary, although Germanic nations such as the Swedes may also constitute a Northern periphery Sweden is still regarded as a country that is culturally and racially related to Britain. This comparison foregrounds the concept of surveillance which was mentioned earlier in the text; Finns and Lapps do not only belong to the most inferior racial groups in Europe, but their very appearance and cultural aspects point to their amalgamation as the backward Other. The naturalisation of the Finnish peasant-native as the backward Other is also felt in another extract, in which the author emphasises the oriental savage aspect of Finnish peasants in Russian Finland: The only towns on the road are Borgo and Lovisa. Eighteen miles on this side of the latter is the river Alberfors, the boundary between old and new Finland, or that conquered by Peter the Great and that ceded by Sweden in consideration of Russia's guarantee of Norway and the succession of Oscar to the throne of Bernadotte. In Russian, or Old Finland, the peasants wear a cloak, or caftan, sometimes called a khalaat, resembling in form, as well as name, the eastern dress. It is tied round the waist by a ceinture of serge. The hat is broad-brimmed; the trousers are of linen; and the boots excessively wide and cumbersome. The men could not possibly be mistaken for civilized beings. (259)

The reader of this excerpt is struck by the primitivism around which the description of the inhabitants in Russian Finland revolves. According to the writer, their dirty and destitute appearance reassures the Western traveller that they belong to a primitive world, which is completely unintelligible to the average one. His reference to Russian Finland coincides with the fact that in Victorian travel accounts, Finland is always examined in accordance with its political state prior to its annexation to Russia, that is, as Russian Finland and Swedish Finland. In BoileauElliott’s excerpt one can also discern this cultural conflict between the two “Finlands”, the more advanced part (“ceded by Sweden”) and Old Finland (conquered by Peter the Great) which belongs culturally to the East, once she considers the writer’s remarks on the Oriental/Eastern aspect of this Finnish part. The uncanny appearance of Finnish peasants readdresses the racial inferiority of the Finns expressed by the writer in his intercourse with the Lappish families, as well as the animalistic appearance of people in Northern latitudes, which conforms to the concept of the Wide North. Boileau-Elliott’s constant reminder that he witnesses the very origins of human evolution coincides with Joan Pau Rubiés’ argument that bourgeois travellers always attempt to “step beyond the boundaries of European dominion in order to search for the remotest manifestations of human and

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natural diversity” (258). At the same time, the images of the Finnish savage that Boileau-Elliott employs in his travel narrative might be seen as an effort to project the notion of Britishness as the ultimate cultural experience versus the idea of the savage which “could occur only if there was a concept of the civilized to oppose it. In this way, a geography of difference was constructed” (Aschcroft et al. 36), as has also been observed in Marryat’s travelogue on Denmark. Another instance, indicative of Boileau-Elliott’s confusion when it comes to the delineation of the Finnish race, can be noticed when he arrives in the city of Åbo, 4 and befriends the Swedish consul. The author mistakenly identifies his new friend first as a Swede and then as a Finn, as indicated in the following excerpt: With the kind assistance of the Swedish consul-general we contrived to get through the tedious formalities of the passport-office by noon the following day. I joined his family circle in the evening in order to see something of Finnish manners. Such opportunities are not to be lost, though they are not always of an agreeable nature, as the want of some medium of verbal communication renders the interview frequently nothing more than that word literally imports. (158)

The author’s inaccurate description of the consul both as a Finn and a Swede derives from the country’s complex political and linguistic situation. The city in question, maintaining a Swedish-speaking community of Finns until the present day, confuses Boileau-Elliott, who treats the two nationalities as part of the same cultural context, an attitude of indifference also noticed in his classification of the Lapps and the Finns as the same racial Other. Notwithstanding his desire to portray different national characters in his journey in Northern Europe, it is apparent that the writer holds the view that everything that does not belong to the British cultural continuum is homogeneously primitive, regardless of geographical location or national culture, a tendency which indicates, as already mentioned, that Boileau-Elliott’s mapping of Europe does not rely on geographical data but is rather based on a geography of difference that needs to be constructed in order to distinguish the British civilised world from the savage inhabitants of the North. Thus, “Swedish-speaking Finns, confusingly for modern readers, are often referred to ‘as Swedes’” (Lurcock xii).

4 This is the Swedish name of the Finnish city Turku, which was the capital of the Finnish Duchy until 1812.

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The writer’s indiscriminate use of all these terms (Finns, Lapps, Swedes, Russian Finns, Swedish Finns) might also be explained by the general tendency of the Victorians to associate language with factors such as nationhood and race. As the writer notes, “the want of medium of verbal communication renders the interview frequently nothing more than that world literally imports”, thus signalling his insufficient knowledge of the Nordic languages and therefore his inability to distinguish the visible differences between languages such as Finnish and Swedish. Acknowledging the importance of being familiar with the language of the country visited in order to understand the national character of its people, Boileau-Elliott apologises to the reader for his lack of sufficient exposure to the Scandinavian context, asserting that: On the one hand, perhaps I remain ignorant of some things I might learn; on the other, I imbibe no prejudices. In a foreign country, conversation with tlie natives is probably the most correct source of information. Of this I have availed myself to the utmost, particularly in intercourse with intelligent men at the tables of the ambassador and Count Rosenblad, to whom I am much indebted. (151)

The above excerpt, as well as the previous ones, indicate the writer’s conviction that, by becoming acquainted with the language of a nation, one can also acquire substantial understanding of all the aspects related to that country’s national character and an efficient portrayal of its people at various levels (racial, sociopolitical, cultural). This obviously accords with the Herderian view of language as a nation-building tool. In Finland’s case, the racial identification through language could have further complications for the national identification of the Finns, since it did not constitute a clear indication of ethnicity: though sharing a common national identity, the linguistic division between the Finnish nation into Swedish and Finnish-speakers resulted from the historical circumstances which resulted in this peculiar linguistic situation in the country. For this reason, several pro-Nordicist theorists, such as Grant and Osborn, when addressing the ethnographic identification of the Finnish race, conclude that: “The problem of the Finns is a difficult one. The coast Finland, of course, is purely Swedish […] the shores of the Gulf of Finland were originally inhabited by Nordics and the intrusion of round skulled Finns probably came soon after the Christian era” (109). Drawing upon this rather simplistic ethnographic analysis of the Finnish race, one can draw a striking analogy with the confusing portrayal of the Finns by BoileauElliott, who attempts to approach the Finnish nation by employing all the Herderian criteria that allegedly composed a national identity such as

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language, religion and climate, quite inapplicable to the Finnish cultural context. The travelogue is also beset with references to the author’s own role as a traveller and narrator. The allusions made to his self-image in his travel account are linked to his general discourse about the function of masculinity abroad. This masculinity is based on the male travel writer’s function as a hero in his own narrative, a recurrent motif in travel literature. As Korte points out, Victorian male travellers tend to present themselves as “heroes every bit as courageous and enduring as the protagonists of the contemporary adventure novel; moreover, the travelling heroes offered their readers the thrill of adventures which had actually been experienced” (88-89). Boileau-Elliott’s identification with the role of the adventure hero is summarised in his frequent reference to the unexplored parts of Northern Europe that he encounters in his trip. By alluding to the hardships that a trip to the North entails for the average traveller who is accustomed to more conventional trips to continental Europe: I am now out of the beaten track of English travellers, very few of whom have visited this part. (51) The Englishman, who is loth to encounter the difficulties of travelling, satisfies himself with a luxurious tour through Germany and Italy, and is willing to believe that the bleak regions of the north can ill repay the enterprising traveller: but he little knows the loss he sustains. (98)

In both passages, the writer seeks to differentiate himself from travellers who treat the North as a cultural wasteland, by emphasising the rewarding dimension of the journey that he undertakes. At the same time, by speaking of the Englishman “who satisfies himself with a luxurious tour through Germany and Italy”, Boileau-Elliott signals his reluctance to be considered a conventional traveller. Since a trip to the North connotes various travel adversities, the author ascribes to his role as a traveller a heroic position that is clearly juxtaposed with the role of the tourist, who is superficially (and materialistically) connected to his travel destination. This assumption of a masculine role by the author is closely linked to his intention to describe the process of travelling as an act of heroism, which rewards the adventurous traveller after having gone through inconceivable difficulties. Boileau-Elliott’s rejection of “common” travel destinations of the Grand Tour, such as Germany and Italy, and his parallel projection of himself as an adventurous travel persona, should be seen as part of the change of aesthetics in travel writing at the close of the eighteenth-century

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and at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Lurcock contends that traveller writers were attracted to the North because “readers were bored with accounts of traditional European travel, and were anxious to read about fresh fields”, while Finland was a “destination almost exclusively for those who were rich and titled, as well as bold and adventurous” (xi-3). No wonder Boileau-Elliott’s discourse is interspersed with allusions to his difficult position in an alien world, unspoiled and unexplored, which acquires a new meaning upon his arrival as a member of a civilised society. This emphasis on his hardships could be summed up by the phrase “unable to talk the language, and in an unknown country of which no guide-book was procurable, I had some difficulties to encounter” (109), a reference which does not only increase the originality of his purpose to visit these sequestered tracts, so far removed from the evils of modern civilisation, but also reminds the Victorian reader of the cultural incompatibility between the refined Briton and the savage inhabitants of the North. As has already been demonstrated, Lowe, Metcalfe, and BaringGould expressed similar concerns on the role of the traveller as opposed to the more materialistic function of the tourist. Aside from his placement as an adventure hero in his travelogue, the author assumes the role of the solitary traveller, a role which is complementary to his overall intention to emphasise the exploratory- and adventurous-nature of his journey to the Northern peripheries. In BoileauElliott’s own words: I am without a companion from necessity; without a servant from choice. It is not here as in France, Switzerland, and Germany, the beaten route of travellers, that you meet your countrymen every day and in every town. On the contrary, you travel miles and miles without seeing a rational being. A traveller for pleasure is a rarity. Except in Christiania 1 did not meet one in the whole of Norway, unless unwittingly on the road. I make this exception, because 1 passed a gentleman on the Fillefjeld who seemed to be English as he did not bow. (135)

In accordance with this self-definition of his role as a traveller, Boileau-Elliott emphasises his desire to experience the North all alone. By projecting himself as an exceptional case of a British traveller, who avoids undertaking a conventional journey to Germany or France, these were common travel destinations during the period of the Grand Tour- the author avoids identifying with tourists who treat their travels as a kind of consumerism rather than lifetime experiences. The author’s anxiety to distance himself from the average travel and engage in “perilous” journeys that will challenge his worldview adheres to his conviction that travelling

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is a process which is intrinsically linked to adventurous and elitist activities for “the chosen ones”. This concern is frequently expressed in mid- and late- Victorian travel narratives; for as Buzard notes, travelling, “a cultural practice once identified with privileged individuals and devoted to the securing of their privilege appears transformed as at once into an activity scandalously accessible to a de-individualised, metaphorically liquid mass” (47), that is, mass tourism. Additionally, the role of the solitary traveller in the Northern latitudes is firmly linked to Rousseau’s idea of Mother Nature and to the Romantic perception of travelling. According to this, the Romantic traveller insists on images “of genuine rural life, as opposed to the squalor of urban living, but also of such human virtues as friendship, loyalty, solidarity, endurance and independence” (391), which are all qualities on which Wollstonecraft also bestows significant attention. Endurance and independence seem to be the key elements of his travel persona, since he constantly alludes to the unfavourable position to which he is placed in the Northern countries, unchaperoned and unacquainted as he is with the culture or language of the inhabitants. He thus projects the heroic dimension of his trips and the Romantic conceptualisation of his travelling in solitude: My journey from Christiania has been as pleasant as a solitary drive could possibly be. Perhaps you will wonder how. With neither servant nor companion, I can travel in a foreign country without any knowledge of the language; indeed. I wonder also. (135) Thus the termination has been, if possible, more signally blest than any other portion of my northern travels. Since leaving England I have been " In journeyings often, in perils of robbers, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, and (now lastly) in perils in the sea. ‘The same gracious God has protected me in all, and brought me to the conclusion of a tour which affords scarcely less pleasure in retrospect than it did in duration’. (298)

Based on the excerpts in which the author indulges in a self-description as a modern hero in the North, devoid of any necessities which could facilitate his travelling to places hostile to the poorly equipped traveller, one can understand the importance that he bestows on his role as a man defying nature and the perils of the Northern climate in order to get involved in a journey which may pose a threat to his existence. By reinforcing the solitariness and the perilous nature of his journeys, the author aims at drawing the reader’s attention to the masculine character of this undertaking. This masculinity can only be experienced and projected when the traveller goes through several adverse conditions all alone.

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Foster and Mills speak of the feeling of empowerment (and moral transcendence) that both male and female travellers experience when found “in an otherwise unpeopled landscape. Generally critics have argued that the sublime is a moment of confrontation between a solitary individual ego and a landscape where these problems of conflict and otherness are resolved” (176). This empowered position of the solitary traveller, whose existence is both challenged and entwined with a sense of transcendental freedom in the most desolate corners of the globe, is stressed during Boileau-Elliott’s trip to the Hardangerfjeld, one of the most precipitous mountains in Norway. In search of the unknown, the writer admits that: The pass we resolved to attempt was another one, quite unexplored. Should you blame, yet perhaps you have yourself experienced the feeling that makes one the more anxious to traverse ground, because it is terra incognita. (71)

Drawing upon this extract, the reader is struck by Boileau-Elliott’s infatuation with the unexplored, and his own function as one of the first British travellers who venture into regions that had hardly traversed by his countrymen. The author’s own confession that the travel destination automatically acquires a new meaning when it is a terra incognita to the average tourist indicates his travel purpose. Instead of visiting European countries touched by mass tourism, the author is stimulated by the isolated position of the Northern peripheries such as Norway, Finland and Sweden, which revolve around the idea of Ultima Thule and connote “indescribable” hardships and adventures. Boileau-Elliott’s self-portrayal as a solitary explorer alludes to the recurrent self-image of Victorian travellers as brave explorers, in pursuit of uninhabited (or thinly inhabited) territories. If, according to Foster et al., an essential part of femininity is the avoidance of danger[…], for male adventurers there is a sense in which they have to describe privations and difficulties. They travel without the comforts of civilisation, and often describe pitting themselves against inhospitable environments. (258)

The recurrence of scenes in which Boileau-Elliott functions as a modern Robinson Crusoe in his travelogue reveals the importance of masculine manifestations during the process of travelling. Owing to the fact that more and more women (such as Wollstonecraft) began to travel to the most isolated parts of Europe and overseas at the dawn of the

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nineteenth century, it hardly comes as a surprise that Boileau-Elliott constructs his text on the basis of the idea of masculinity: Hope and fear succeeded each other in rapid alternation; and the promised Heaven seemed to retreat before us. At length, an hour before midnight, we reached it, and perhaps never entered the home of our fathers with so much thankfulness as we did this pile of stones; for suspecting that the guide had lost his way, we were anticipating continued exposure to the tempestuous elements. (74)

By providing the reader with minute depictions of his “quest” to the most secluded corners of Europe, the author does not only stimulate the imagination of his readership about human survival under the most inhospitable circumstances but also elucidates an early Victorian manhood in journeys to the Scandinavian countries: the voluntary involvement in the most dangerous aspects of travelling, during which the male traveller can forge his masculine identity away from the civilised, middle-class environments. On the whole, Boileau-Elliott’s travelogue Letters from the North of Europe should be seen as one of the earliest attempts to approach Finland as a Northern Utopia, whose inhabitants are repeatedly viewed as noble savages. Despite the considerable limitations of his travel account as regards the presentation of Finnish culture and race, Boileau-Elliott sheds light on the political condition in Finland and presents the country as a worthwhile travel destination, which rewards the adventurous traveller who wishes to depart from the Grand Tourist ideas and venture into newly explored regions. An original aspect of his narrative is the incessant comparison that he tends to draw between the Orient and Finland, a tendency which reveals both his inclination to project the grandeur of diasporic Englishness and the Othering of Finland as a backward (and utopian) society. He also shows a genuine interest in the racial delineation of the Finns, in spite of his discriminatory attitude towards everything that does not pertain to the Teutonic cultural continuum. As to gender considerations, Boileau-Elliott is extremely concerned with his own travel persona, undertaking the roles of the adventure hero and the solitary traveller in order to make the most of his “Scandinavian travel experience”.

CHAPTER TWO ETHEL BRILLIANA (ALEC) TWEEDIE: THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS

One of the few British travel writers who devoted extensive part of their literary work to Finland as a separate cultural and geographical entity was Ethel Brilliana Tweedie (1860-1940), a prominent woman born to a wealthy middle-class family, who signed her work as Mrs. Alec Tweedie. In spite of her limited recognition by the modern literary world, Tweedie was a prolific travel writer, who did not hesitate to visit the most exotic places and could only been compared to her male counterpart in the field of travel literature, namely Anthony Trollope. As Anka Ryall points out, “though almost forgotten today, these books [Tweedie’s] were widely read at the time, and Tweedie came to be regarded as an authority on the north” (274). In addition to her journeys in the Scandinavian countries and Russia, which enabled her to produce three travelogues on Norway, Finland and Iceland, she visited Southern Europe (Greece and Sicily), like many of her compatriots who were interested in acquiring travel experiences through journeys in lands which were not akin to the British culture or mentality; she also visited the United States and Mexico. Some of her main travel narratives, well-known to the Victorian reader, were The Winter Jaunt to Norway (1894), A Girl’s Ride in Iceland (1895), Mexico from Diaz to the Kaiser (1906) and Mainly East (1922). However, her most illustrious book did not belong to the genre of travel literature: Women and Soldiers (1918) addresses the issue of New Womanhood, as manifested during the First World War in Britain. A suffragist and a strong advocate for the need of British women’s further participation in the public sphere, Tweedie saw the potential of women’s sociopolitical emancipation not only through their active involvement in the Red Cross but also through the provision of various services in the army. Laura L. Dean stresses Tweedie’s faith in the Era of “New Womanhood” in which role redistribution of gender roles should occur between men and women so as to overturn the well-established gender system in early twentieth-century Britain (518). Owing to her strong belief

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in female liberation, a major part of her narratives might be interpreted in the light of feminist theory. As Ryall suggests, Tweedie utilises her texts “to espouse such different causes as gender equality in marriage, women’s education, and female cross-riding […] to model a modern ideal of female autonomy” (274) by alluding to the principles of the New Woman. An important and innovative feature of her work, which was hardly encountered in her contemporary travel writers, is that she made use of methods which might be deemed quite pioneering considering the poor technological facilities available to the average Victorian traveller; in most of her journeys to these distant lands she carried a camera to capture images which could not be accurately depicted by her own illustrations, sketches and beautiful artwork- she was a skillful illustrator among other interests and artistic inclinations. Therefore, it might be claimed that this female writer, who produced most of her books in an era, which did not leave a lot of free space to women striving to achieve professional and social emancipation, managed to lead an independent life and conduct research on various subjects in such a detailed and meticulous way that she could set an example for modern travel writers and researchers. Through Finland in Carts was written in the late-nineteenth century (1897), at the peak of the British Empire. It constitutes one of the few travelogues that treat Finland as a separate cultural and geographical entity. Tweedie travelled to Finland many years after its conquest by Alexander I in 1809, when the country ceased to belong to the Swedish kingdom, a fact which had an enormous sociopolitical impact on the Finnish historical memory as it forced the country to renegotiate its identity under new circumstances; the incessant association of Finland with Sweden, both at a cultural and political level since its first annexation to the Swedish Empire in 1157, was terminated, and as a consequence, Finland was forced to unite with the Russian Empire, a union which seemed to be problematic from its very start. According to Jason Lavery, the long-lasting union with Sweden (11571809) strengthened the role of Finland as a Western European territory and reinforced its political solidarity with the other Scandinavian countries through the use of institutions that promoted the spirit of Scandinavianism, crystallised by the Kalmar Union, the Union of the Three Crowns. Within the framework of this union Finland played a secondary, yet a much more dynamic role than the one attributed to her by imperial Russia: Finland’s integration with Sweden occurred in a wider context of Scandinavian unification. During most of the 14th century, each of the three Scandinavian unions combined with one or both into some type of union. The most durable unions, the Kalmar Union, the Union of the Three

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The termination of this union isolated Finland from the main body of the Western world and its neighbouring Nordic countries, challenging its internal socio-cultural cohesion through its placement between East and West without receiving any merit by either leading force of those which represented the cultural coalitions of the Western republics against the Russian empire and its conquered territories. Moreover, the peculiar status of Finnish autonomy which was officially granted by the Russian Empire was conducive to the independence of Finland (1917) as well as the accentuation of the increasing cultural differences of the Finnish culture from Sweden and Russia. This autonomy, which is frequently mentioned by Tweedie as an opportunity for the Finnish nation to excel both culturally and economically and break definitely from the Russian yoke, was a fruitful experience which accelerated the Finnish nationalist movements and the rise of the nation as an independent state: Autonomy also can imply something short of complete independence. In this sense, too, the word is useful in describing Finland’s experience […]. Until about 1890, Russian imperial power and Finland’s autonomy were two sides of the same coin that separated Finland from Sweden and made it a peaceful part of the Russian Empire. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Russian imperial power began to see its autonomous creation not as an achievement but, rather, as a threat. (Lavery 66)

Notwithstanding her meticulous research and adventurous journey to Finland, Tweedie has been heavily criticised by modern critics as a writer who reflected the views of middle-class British travellers and the conservatism of Victorian England to its utmost extent voicing the colonialist perspective from which she tended to conceptualise the unknown territories that she visited (Nyman 25). This critique results from her rather disdainful comments on Finnish peasantry and positive depiction of the Finnish gentry, a fact that highlights her strong belief in the Victorian spirit of social hierarchy, and her disregard of social equality as a practically impossible probability which, “by default”, is encountered in uncilivised countries. At the same time, according to Ryall, “what makes Tweedie’s Nordic travel narratives unique and of interest today is their conflation of discourses of northernness and female emancipation” (274); the author appears to address these issues on various occasions in

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her narrative, thus illustrating the contradictory stance that she adopts towards the country visited. The constant focus on the idea of northernness (intimately linked to the notion of savagery in most incidents described in Tweedie’s texts) is for Granqvist one of the main reasons for which Finland is misconceived by the author, who is led to exaggerations and misinterpretations because of her own rank as a middle class woman in Britain: That Russian Finland was not only relatively unknown to an English elite and middle class used to travelling for leisure but also subject to misconceptions of the most bizarre kind seems to have been the major reasons that prompted Ethel Brilliana Tweedie, or Mrs Alec Tweedie as she signed her name, to undertake a journey through Finland in the summer of 1896 and write the book Through Finland in Carts about her experiences. (Granqvist 193)

Granqvist maintains that the introductory part of Tweedie’s travelogue proves his point, as the travel writer states as the major aim of her voyage, besides leisure and simple curiosity for the unknown, the reconstruction of this country in the eyes of the British reader: Finland is not the home of barbarians, as some folk then imagined; neither do Polar bears walk continually about the streets, nor reindeer pull sledges in summer—items that have several times been suggested to the writer. (5)

Granqvist claims that the introduction of Tweedie’s travelogue expresses the writer’s aim to construct a discourse which could contribute to Finland’s projection as a modern western nation and remove, at the same, any suspicion on the British reader’s behalf that this Nordic country is simply a frost-bitten wasteland without any signs of human activity and progress (194). Nonetheless, as the narration progresses, the writer neglects her commitment to westernise that country and tends to reiterate overgeneralisations that she intended to remove from the British reader’s imagination: for example, she states that, although to the average (English) reader Finland may simply be a terra incognita, Finland is “larger than our own England, Scotland, Ireland, aye, and the Netherlands, all put together” (5), emphasising in that way her compatriots’ ignorance about a country which constitutes an integral part of the European continent. Nyman calls Tweedie’s travelogue a “patronising narrative since the story of Finland in this travel narrative is one told by a patriotic late Victorian middle-class woman traveller who interprets a marginalised nation to members of her own rank” (81). Drawing upon several instances in the travel account, it is evident that Tweedie’s discourse is interspersed with imperial comments

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on Finnish identity and cultural values. In spite of her obvious attachment to the Empire’s depiction of peripheral nations, I contend that Tweedie diverges more than once from her contemporary travel writers, as she focuses on issues which constituted taboos within the framework of the Victorian society, such as the professional and intellectual emancipation of women, while she also makes direct references to women’s sexuality. In spite of Tweedie’s aforementioned statement that she wishes to refine and reconstruct the Finnish myth for the English reader, the writer does not neglect the reader’s keen interest for the unknown. This is why she opts for a contradictory definition of Finland in the introductory part of her travelogue which mirrors her willingness to stress the primitive and romantic character of this Nordic country by demonstrating several aspects which depict Finland as a savage country. Finland has been progressing, and yet in the main Finland remains the same. It is steeped in tradition and romance. There are more trains, more hotels, larger towns; but that bright little land is still bravely fighting her own battles, still forging ahead; small, contented, well educated, selfreliant, and full of hopes for the future. (6)

First of all, the romantic attitude towards the country reflects the average British traveller’s approach to “the other place”, namely his/her desire to find a new Arcadia which is not burdened with the negative effects of civilisation, similarly to all the previous travellers discussed here. Tweedie’s presentation of Finland as a country which is progressing in several fields (there are more trains, more hotels, larger towns, people are well-educated and self-reliant) indicates a country in formation (Granqvist 195) which can have a promising future through the guidance of Britain; its well-developed educational system in combination with the evident growth of its infrastructure point to the fact that Finland could rise as a reborn republic based on the principles and values which are set by the Victorian spirit of financial development and productivity. Nevertheless, the writer purposefully refers to Finland’s history, tradition and romantic visage in order to contribute to the creation of a northern Arcadia which remains unspoiled by the corruption of the civilised world, “in closest communion with nature” (Barton 270) and in possession of a primitive tradition. Finland as an Arcadian locus does not subvert the British Empire’s position as the centre that classifies other, “less advanced” countries, as peripheral. In fact, as Nyman points out, “while the writer’s seeming focus is on Finland, its people, nature and oddities, the values and ideologies it presents and foregrounds are British or English” (62) Finland is seen as “England’s Other”. which is strongly contrasted to the other

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threatening and alien force, the Russian Empire. In addition, Tweedie underlines Finland’s self-reliance in relation to other countries (mainly Russia) on various levels related to its unique culture, economic conditions and historic background: “Slowly and gradually Finland is emerging from the waters, just as slowly and gradually the people are making their voice heard among other nations” (7). Even though the writer’s positive comment on potential Finnish independence can be seen as a step away from the imperial discourse which she promotes through her travel narrative, she is mainly interested in Finland’s immediate liberation from an Empire that poses a threat to the existence of the British Empire in a geopolitical sense. Tweedie’s desire is that Finland reestablishes her previous attachment to Sweden, a Western country which is Germanic in origin just like Britain and more akin to Britain’s culture and political interests. In the previous excerpt, the writer may indeed refer to Finland’s need to acquire its own identity and voice amongst the (civilised) nations, yet the proper voicing of this acquisition of identity must be performed by Tweedie herself, a British citizen who has been brought up in a civilised country with proper values. Returning to a point previously raised, Tweedie firmly believes that Finland “requires an English voice to narrate its true story” (Nyman 81), despite the author’s definition of Finland as a terra incognita about which the Britons scarcely possess any significant amount of knowledge. Moreover, the emergence of Finland from “the waters” of her dependence on other countries, which wish to enslave the country and usurp its rich tradition and well-promising economic standards, as a selfreliant country with its own cultural values does not appear to be the main purpose of the writer’s decision to reconstruct the Finnish national identity. In fact, several aspects which are intrinsically connected to the Finnish language and culture are overlooked by Tweedie, who appears to be mainly concerned with the negative Russian impact on a potential Western republic. Swedish, Finnish, and Russian, the three languages of the country, were being spoken on every side, and actually the names of the streets, with all the necessary information, are displayed in these three different forms of speech, though Russian is not acknowledged as a language of Finland, the two native and official languages being Swedish and Finnish. Only those who have travelled in Russia proper can have any idea of the joy this means to a stranger; it is bad enough to be in any land where one cannot speak the language, but it is a hundred times worse to be in a country where one cannot read a word. (8)

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By highlighting Swedish and Finnish as the main languages of the Finnish inhabitants and Russian as the language of the Russian Empire, to which Finland belongs during the period of Tweedie’s visit, the writer quickly dismisses the British reader’s impression that Russian might also have an equal status as a language to Finnish and Swedish. This attitude adds to her anti-Russian sentiment (Nyman 82). Indeed, the author insists on presenting Finland as a Western country, which is in no way related to Russia at a cultural level. Paradoxically, on other occasions, Finland ceases to be the country which was formerly praised by the author as a Westernised country en puissance and is categorised as a primitive land. Bratton points out that Victorian travel writers are always eager to “other” the nations whose socio-historical context is subject to their analyses. At the same time, they tend to appropriate the domestic matters of these nations (people, nation and customs) to fit in the colonial discourse that they establish in their narratives (86). In the case of this travelogue, Tweedie makes a highly contradictory point, using Finland’s complicated language status as proof for its primitiveness and subjection to another nation, instead of admiring the Finnish people’s ability to employ in their everyday life the multilingual reality which has been imposed on them. Thus, Tweedie fails to comprehend cultural situations that are incompatible with the practices of the imperial system, which does not favour the coexistence of different cultural traits and approves solely of a dominant culture without heterogeneity of expression, especially when the prevalent ideological conventions of late Victorian society must govern the rising generation of this new nation (Warren 6). At the same time, Tweedie’s concern for the complex language issue in Finland voices another recurrent idea in nineteenth-century literature, that “only through language is a national feeling of community engendered and constructible” (Klitgaard Povlsen 99), an idea which stems from Herder’s concepts of “Sprachgeist” (language spirit) and “Volksgeist” (people’s spirit) permeating the construction of national identity (Herder 54ff). All the previous travellers of my research have expressed similar concerns on the issue of language. The process of Westernisation strongly advocated by Tweedie as the only means of Finland’s acquiring a new, independent identity, is also encountered in two other instances which present Finland’s primitive character, cultural adaptability to the Russian Empire’s demands and complicated historical background: first, when she states that: “with its Russian rule, its Finnish and Swedish proclivities, and its three languages, the country has indeed much to fight against” (19), and second, in the following exchange:

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“Do you mix much with the Russians?” we asked one of our new friends. “Hardly at all; they have conquered us, they rule as, they plant whole regiments among us, and they don’t even take the trouble to understand us, or to learn our language. No, we keep to ourselves, and they keep to themselves; our temperaments are so different we could never mix”. (28)

In the first instance, the travel writer brings once again to the foreground the complex past of Finland, which must deal with a quite confusing language situation in order to achieve an independent state of existence. Tweedie appears to sympathise with the Finnish cause and she clearly desires Finland’s liberation from Russian tyranny so as to accelerate its progress as a modern Scandinavian republic. Her sincere interest in the Finnish struggle for independence is substantiated by the question she poses to one of her Finnish acquaintances about the RussianFinnish interaction. The response that she receives corroborates Tweedie’s argument that Finland is completely unrelated to its Russian rulers, thus a possible break from the Russian imperial system could not have a serious impact on the already established Finnish identity. As Nyman points out, the sympathy towards the Finnish struggle is associated with the fact that “Mrs Tweedie’s narrative emphasises repeatedly the role of nationalism in Finland” (77). Finnish nationalism is pictured by the writer as abhorrence for the Russian conquerors; in that way, Finnish culture embodies the antipathy of the Western citizen for every symbol of the East. Through the lack of cultural intercourse between Finland and Russia at a linguistic, social and practical level, Finnish identity ends up constituting an antonymous notion of Russian civilisation and the projection of the Finnish patriotism coincides with Victorian England’s rejection of other imperial systems. It is evident that the colonial discourse which is inaugurated by the author is imbued with two different Others: Finland embodies the first, primitive Other which does not pose any threat to the well-being of the British Empire and is used to energise the myths about the expansion of Englishness (Bratton 76); Russia fulfills the role of the second Other, which might menace the interests of the British Empire due to potential territorial rivalry. The Othering of Finland includes religion, as the author describes the peculiar religious customs and the uncanny appearance of the Russian monks in the Orthodox monastery of Valamo, a place in Russian Karelia. The anti-orthodox and anti-catholic sentiments of the writer apparently urge her to describe a Russian monk as a creature of extreme ugliness and dirt, linking these hideous characteristics to the dogma that the monk follows:

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Part VII Chapter Two Though we had been in many ships, manned by many types of sailors, from the swarthy Moor to the short sturdy Icelander, the agile Italian to the fearless Norseman, we were encountered a class of sailor we had never seen before. He was a tall and lanky and lean; he wore a sort of long gown black cloth, green on the shoulders with age, and frayed at the elbows, while girdle of plaited wool encircled his waist. […] he was like no class or form of sailor we had ever seen before. He was something weird and uncanny…Yet he was a sailor, this antithesis of a Jack Tar, and he was also—a Russian monk! His hands were none of the cleanest, his clothes none of the sweetest; but it was not salt water that made them so—it was oil and age. (70)

The above description implies that Tweedie wishes to define the Orthodox dogma as alien to her own religious culture and ideology. The miserable image of the monk indicates the writer’s eagerness to see Orthodox Christianity as decadent and contrast it with the powerful image of Protestantism, the official religion of the British Empire as well as the main religious dogma in Finland. The pro-Protestant feelings of the author coincide with the writer’s view of religion as an integral part of the British Empire’s unity. Therefore, difference at a religious level is not allowed within her colonial discourse and must be heavily criticised by the author. Religion as a segregating practice is either consciously or unconsciously employed by Tweedie in order to highlight the inferiority of the Eastern civilisations compared to the spiritual superiority of the dominant West. Her encounter with a young Russian monk, who comes from Germany and belongs to the Russian gentry, triggers again her former speculations on religion as a tool to consolidate an imperial discourse within her narrative: “My mother is German,” he replied, “but my father is Russian, and therefore, I must belong to the Orthodox Church.” Of course, it is a known fact that if the father belongs to the Greek Church all the children must belong to that church, and once Greek always Greek. (76) Gently born and gently bred, educated as a gentleman, for nearly four years he had mixed with those beneath him, socially and intellectually, until he had almost reached their level. He lived with those by birth his inferiors, although he kept himself smart and clean and tidy. (83)

The juxtaposition between the conventionally dirty Russian monk who belongs to an inferior class and this German aristocrat, “doomed” to spend some years at the monastery of Valamo, reveals Tweedie’s ideas about religion, social equality and Otherness. As previously stated, the Russian

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Empire is viewed by the writer as the threatening Other which can challenge the stock views of the British realm. Nevertheless, this Otherness ceases to preoccupy the writer whenever it meets specific Victorian standards which irrevocably determine a person’s position in the world. The German and noble roots of the young monk seem to put Tweedie’s ideas about the Otherness aside; the writer does not hesitate to sympathise with the sad state of the man who is forced to intermingle with people that are both socially and intellectually unequal to him. Of course, the issue of the Finnish identity is neglected by the writer, who devotes a significant part of her work to her acquaintance with the young nobleman whose “erroneous” decision to stay in the Russian monastery is beyond the author’s religious and social comprehension. In general, the writer’s othering of Finland as a self-reliant country, which is strongly opposed to the alien and uncanny Russian culture, entails a significant degree of contradiction given Tweedie’s constant reference to the primitiveness of the Finnish landscape and people. This paradox should not be considered as a particularity of her style; in fact, as Bassnett contends, “this kind of text reflects the contradictions inherent in some of the books produced by nineteenth-century travellers, both male and female” (227), who may be seriously concerned with the exploitation of other nations by rival empires (the Russian in our case) and deeply devoted to the ideological and territorial consolidation of the British Empire. Yet the writer is upset when she faces generalisations about her own nation by some Finns that she encounters throughout her Finnish tour: “English people never speak anything but English, and they are inhospitable to strangers; they are a proud nation and cold”. It is a libel, a hideous libel; but one which is, unfortunately believed all over the Continent by foreigners not thoroughly acquainted with English folk in their homes. (38)

Tweedie expresses her indignation when discovering that the notion of Englishness is appropriated by Finnish people in order to give a generalised, negative view of her own nation. Her indignation is based on the British traveller’s belief that only the dominant culture is privileged to generalise on other civilisations. As Said puts it, “the capacity to represent, portray, characterise and depict is not easily available to just any member of any society” (195). As a result, Finns, who are not sufficiently exposed to the British culture, are likely to produce unjust depictions of England, representing its citizens as chauvinist, cold-blooded and arrogant people whose manners towards strangers are characterised by lack of hospitality

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and an unwillingness to facilitate communication through the use of other languages. Treating Finland as England’s northern periphery, Tweedie is eager to depict Finns as culturally and idiosyncratically inferior to the British culture. Owing to the refusal of the British travel writer to present a nation as a living organism, able to tackle its domestic affairs without the interference of a superior power, Tweedie places significant emphasis on the primitive state of the Finnish nation in contrast with the superiority of the British Empire. By the same token, the idea of primitiveness is prevalent in the writer’s evaluation of Finnish peasantry in several instances, a fact which highlights Tweedie’s failure to understand the political conditions of the country she visits as well as her inability to represent this people accurately. The term “primitive” is employed by the writer in an ambivalent way, stressing either the virtues or the negative traits of the Finnish nation. In fact, the word ‘primitive’ gives rise to the misrepresentation of the Finnish people. As Granqvist notes, the word ‘primitive’ is an umbrella term for several aspects of Finnish culture and society and “it connotes several things: naivety, innocence, stupidity, simplicity, the picturesque, the unsophisticated, the unhealthy, the ugly” (198) or the unspoiled. In short, it functions as the opposite of the word civilised in accordance with the values of the Victorian era. These instances can be easily discerned in many parts of the writer’s travelogue, whenever she makes direct or indirect references to the Finnish people: Finland is a primitive country, and we could not help smiling about at the spectacle of a family removal. When changing residences, it is evidently not considered necessary to pack up anything, consequently the entire contents of a house were put on board and removed from the ship without any wrappings whatsoever. (33)

This example indicates the writer’s mockery towards the peculiar habits of the Finnish peasantry. In this instance, the word “primitive” alludes to the Finnish peasantry’s engagement in activities that seem pointless or stupid to the British middle-class audience as well as to herself. On another occasion, Tweedie claims that the country is “primitive and picturesque, and its people are most kind and hospitable” (49). The notion of primitive acquires here the sense of the unspoiled, thus Finland is represented as an unspoiled land and Finnish people as uncorrupted by the vices of the civilised world. Yet in another excerpt, the author foregrounds the backwardness of the Finns in reference to the issue of hygiene:

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So that once in each week the entire population of Finland is clean, although few of them know what daily ablutions, even of the most primitive kind, mean, while hot water is almost as difficult to procure in Suomi as a great auk’s egg in England. (54)

The ironic comment on Finnish people’s sanitation is associated with their overall primitive state as a nation which is not endowed with the glories of industrialised and civilised life that Victorian England experiences during that period. The word “primitive” in this case epitomises the unhealthy habits of Finnish peasantry, who are not as clean as their English counterparts. Using sanitation as a frequent point in her negative reference to Finnish culture, Tweedie wishes to reprimand the Finns for being dirty and their living conditions for being unhealthy, despite the beauty of the country and the captivating primitiveness of their people: The country and its people are most captivating and well worth studying […] learn something of sanitation if they hope to attract strangers. As matters are, everything is painfully primitive, spite of the rooms- beds excepted being beautifully clean. (281)

Further on, she refers to the Finnish bathing customs “en masse” in a depreciating manner: “some hours afterwards he went for a ride, and on returning to the village he passed a Sauna, where the folk were enjoying their primitive kind of Turkish bath” (58). Clearly, the sauna is severely criticised by the author as an ugly version of a Turkish bath, during which people, regardless of sex, age or social status, enjoy bathing together. Tweedie’s negative attitude towards the sauna might be attributed to the Victorians’ general concern about the “degenerate” habits of the Oriental world; the bathing culture of the East appears to challenge the moral norms of nineteenth century British society because of its perceived erotic nature, thus posing the threat of contaminating Victorian culture through the introduction of Levantine influences deemed incompatible with Western values (Aravamudan 69). Although Tweedie does not wish to dwell extensively upon the subject, she is certainly aware of the moral implications that the sauna custom might have for the average European woman attempting to enjoy a bath which can provoke the conventional manners and mores. Regarding this rather “prudish” attitude, which is often encountered in women’s travelogues, Foster and Mills suggest that “even outside of colonised countries, British women often manifested a great concern about the necessity of dressing and behaving correctly” (8), a point also made by Wollstonecraft, Lowe and Bunbury. Thus, they fail to identify with whatever they consider unrelated to their own cultural

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experience and tend to reiterate the prejudiced discourse of the dominant “male gaze”. Besides its sexually challenging dimension, the Finnish steam bath culture alludes to the nineteenth-century opposition between the sturdy North and the corrupt South, “as the embodiment of the sensual and indolent Orient” (Mitsi 6). Comparing the sauna custom to the Turkish hammams, Tweedie does not only speak as a Victorian woman but also places hersef as a Western woman who supports the view of the Germanic cultures as morally superior to the corrupt Orient and South, a recurrent pattern in British travel literature since the early nineteenth century. Apparently, despite its geographical location, Finland is culturally displaced to the East. Yet the word primitive does not necessarily signify the “underdeveloped” or “immoral” practices of the Finnish nation, but it can also refer to more positive attributes of the Finnish culture: “Finland is thinly populated, but every Finn is at heart musical, and poetical; therefore, far removed from the civilised world, they made songs among themselves -fantastic descriptions of their own race” (135) . In this case, the word “primitive” is implied through the use of the phrase “removed from the civilised world” and points to the picturesque character of the country. Finland is depicted by the writer as a sequestered land, with a rich and mysterious tradition. In this way, the primitive increases the exoticism of the land and excites the British reader’s imagination: “this equality of class is always to be found in lands where civilisation has not stepped in” (150). Due to its unsophisticated society, Finland can achieve social equality; this practical removal of social barriers proves, according to the writer, the existence of a simplistic social model which does not favour social distinction. The folk music of Finland, an indispensable part of the country’s cultural patrimony, is also misinterpreted by the writer, who repeats the word primitive to denote the exotic, mystic and unspoiled character of the specific tradition in the Finnish society: “the dancing, like the Runo music, was primitive” (150). Yet the hand of the Philistine is, alas! to be found even in primitive Finland. As the modern Roman lights his glorious Colosseum with red and purple fires, so the Finn illumines his wondrous falls with electric light; spans it by the most modern of modern bridges, and does not even attempt to hide ‘the latest improvements’ by a coating of pine trunks. (183)

In spite of Tweedie’s interest in social improvement in primitive Finland, in this passage she contradicts her previous statements by calling the Finnish people Philistines who attempt to modernise the country’s infrastructure and destroy the purity of the Finnish landscape. Since

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Finland is a primitive country, its people should not advance technologically because, being unable to handle their own affairs as an independent nation, they will spoil the national (primitive) character of their country. Along with Finnish music, Finnish art does not escape the writer’s criticism as it is seen as a naive imitation of a more advanced civilisation: “Finnish art about a hundred and fifty years ago resembled the very earliest examples known of the Italian, only it was yet a hundredfold more primitive” (229). Making one of the most contradictory comments on Finnish primitiveness, the writer refers to Finnish people’s good education, in spite of their poverty and difficult historic conditions, as a surprising phenomenon which is observed within an underdeveloped, primitive country: “although so far removed from civilisation, and from luxuries of any kind, the old couple knew how to read, and they had one or two treasured books” (310). In general, the excessive use of the word “primitive” by the writer in order to characterise various incomprehensible features of the Finnish civilisation demonstrates her tendency to treat Finnish people as child-like beings who need to be reeducated in accordance with the ideals of a more advanced British culture. The representation of Finnish people as primitive subjects coincides with the colonialist construction of Otherness; the colonial Other must always be represented through generalisations which reassure the construction of stereotypically inferior nations in comparison to the superior image of the Empire (Boehmer 2005). Besides the primitive nature of the Finnish identity, Tweedie provides the reader with various characterisations of the Finnish nation, depending on several sociopolitical criteria. For instance, Finnish manners towards foreigners are either praised or heavily criticised by the writer. On the one hand, Finlanders’ lack of discretion and stubbornness are stressed as some of the main drawbacks ingrained in Finnish mentality: We were amused to find the Finlanders very inquisitive. This is as much a trait in their character as their stubborn obstinacy, their intense truthfulness, or their wondrous honesty. And a Finn runs a Scotchman very hard in evading a straightforward answer. (149)

Finnish people from Karelia, a region bordered by Russia, are accused of being unclean and more resistant to advancement because they have been “contaminated” by their Russian neighbours’ habits. On the contrary, Western Finns, who share closer cultural bonds with Sweden, are praised for their educational advancements and refined manners thanks to their Western upbringing, which has considerably civilised them compared to their Karelian compatriots:

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Part VII Chapter Two The people in Tavasland are fair-haired, slow, but exceedingly tenacious, and also somewhat boorish. Here the principal towns, manufactures, etc., are to be found. Many of the inhabitants speak Swedish, and all have been influenced by Sweden. The people are determined and persevering, and it is no uncommon thing for a lad to follow the plough until he is thirteen years of age, reading for his school and his university, and finally taking his M.A. degree, and even becoming a professor. (151) The people of the Karelen district are quicker and of lighter heart. They are nearer to Russian, and the Russian influence is distinctly seen. They are not so cleanly or so highly educated as the rest of the country, but they are music and artistic. (152)

The distinction made by Tweedie with respect to the existence of two different cultural groups in Finland increases the controversial character of her narrative because the Finns who had previously been presented under the spectrum of generalisation, are now presented as the heterogeneous product of two different empires, the Western group of the Finnish population which is educated by the civilised Swedish kingdom and the Eastern group which coalesces with the values of the Russian Empire. In this way, the writer emphasises to a greater extent the cultural subalternity of the Finns whose culture is supposed to be a hybrid construct of two different civilisations opposing each other, that is, the Swedish (West) and the Russian (Orient). As argued by Spivak, the notion of subalternity is related to the Other’s “precarious subjectivity”, undermined by the policies of the imperial world seeking to silence an inferior nation with the aim of appropriating its own history and truth (25). In fact, Granqvist goes even further suggesting that Tweedie’s attitude towards the interpretation of the Finnish population reminds the modern reader of Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, a concept which is inextricably linked to the colonial discourse of nineteenth century literature (200). Tweedie links the rise of Finnish national consciousness with the publication of The Kalevala, the famous Finnish epic written by Elias Lönnrot, 1 which constituted a work epitomising all the unique aspects of Finnish culture. In Kalevala, Lönnrot managed to combine the rich Finnish mythology with the remnants of oral tradition deriving from several regions of the country, with emphasis on the poems of Karelian district (Karjalan Runoja), which was the region to which the writer paid a 1

Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884), a Finnish doctor and linguist, devoted his life to the composing of Kalevala, the epic which compiled Finnish national folklore. He was also a passionate promoter of the Finnish language, which was the language of the Finnish peasantry in contrast to Swedish, the language of Finnish nobility.

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lengthy visit during her tour around Finland. Kalevala was published in two versions, Old Kalevala (Vanha Kalevala 1835-36) and New Kalevala (Uusi Kalevala 1849) which was actually the work that was translated into various European languages. The Kalevala may be seen as a compilation of Finnish folk tales and poetry, meticulously gathered and rewritten as a sequenced epic in order to satisfy the cultural and aspirations of nineteenth century Finland, which struggled for further autonomy after its annexation to Russia. Assessing the impact of the Kalevala on the Finnish nation’s self-realisation, Vento stresses that “the Kalevala fulfilled the expectations of a nationalistic educated class for a work which would raise Finnish culture to the level of that of Sweden and Russia” (83) during the nationalist period of Finland’s history (1809-1917), culminating with the country’s full independence in 1917. Tweedie acknowledges the fundamental importance of this work for the awakening of the Finnish spirit, and she provides the reader with extensive information about the main components of the work, its writer and its major contribution to Finnish national identity under the Russian rule: Professor Elias Lönnrot, as mentioned in the last chapter, realizing the value to scholars and antiquaries of the wonderful poems of Finland, so descriptive of the manners and customs of the Finns, set to work in the middle of the nineteenth century to collect and bring them out in book form before they were totally forgotten […] This whole was called Kalevala, the name of the district where the heroes of the poem once existed. (136)

In fact, the writer affirms that the writing of the Kalevala epitomises in a brilliant manner all the rare qualities of the Finnish spirit, which are not encountered in any other Nordic country. The heroic element that penetrates the lines of the Kalevala’s epic poetry demonstrates the patriotic idiosyncrasy of this nation throughout the centuries, as well as its multifaceted tradition, which points to Finland’s need to break from a past of dependency and lead its own way as an autonomous nation. The author senses that the existence of Runo poetry and the function of Finnish mythology as a constant source of pride for the Finnish population suggest that Finns are a nation attached to its own glorious tradition and the Kalevala forms the substance of this uniqueness. Moreover, it should be noted that the multiple contributions of Finnish epic poetry to the emergence of Finnish nationalism on historical and political levels does not constitute the only effect of the work on Finnish identity. The mythological figures, which are depicted in this epic, established a new utopia in the European literary world. A new artistic

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movement evolved in Scandinavia as well as in other parts of Europe, which was named “Karelianism” amongst artists and scholars who paid homage to the Russian Karelia, one of the main places mentioned in the epic poem (Vento 84). Apparently, Tweedie was also attracted to this myth of New Arcadia which abounded in legends and heroic incidents of infinite beauty, far away from the saturated old world. For this reason she makes the decision to pay her respect to the places which functioned as valuable sources of inspiration to Kalevala and which were the essence of the Finnish population’s mentality. Furthermore, being aware of the Kalevala’s crucial role in the understanding of Finnish identity, Tweedie expounds in a lengthy chapter on the mystic nature of Kantele music, which is played in the Sortavala2 festival, a folklore feast organised by the local Finnish peasantry and imbued with several elements of Finnish pagan tradition. Wishing to convey the romantic atmosphere of Finnish folklore, which echoes the sounds of a Northern Utopia, completely removed from modern civilisation, Tweedie offers her reader the following descriptions with regard to the preparations and the rituals of the festival: This Sordavala festival is really the outcome of an old religious ceremony, just as the Welsh Eistefodd is a child of Druidical meetings for prayer and song. In ancient days bards sang and prayed, and now both in Finland, the survival is a sort of musical competition. (98)

Here Tweedie makes direct reference to Britain’s own ancient traditions, alluding to the lost beauty of her own country, which has been contaminated by corruption in the name of improvement; the contemporary image of Finland as an unspoiled land, which has preserved its traditions and glorious past, is one of the few instances in these travelogues in which the author indulges in a strong contrast between the utopian image of a Nordic country and the depiction of Victorian England as a moral wasteland. Despite the evident primitive characteristics of the Finnish civilisation, Tweedie admires the ability of the Finns to harmonise past and present without betraying their traditions. Through her reference to the few existing traditional elements in Britain, the writer evidently makes a negative remark on her nation’s refusal to maintain what does not serve the interests of the British Empire. It seems that the writer is trapped in a series of paradoxes: as a British subject, she is supportive of the Empire’s expansionist spirit, while as a writer she tends to contemplate the 2

Sortavala (Sordavala in Karelian) is a town located in Russian Karelia, which used to be part of Finland before the Russian-Finnish war.

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manifestations of Finnish resistance to foreign influences from a romantic perspective, sympathising with the cause of the land. Continuing her description of Finnish people and their local customs, Tweedie refers once again to the Kalevala world by introducing the reader to an integral part of Finnish identity, the Kantele music (kantelemusiikki), as well as the importance of the Finnish oral tradition which is passed on unchanged and enriched to future generations: Clubs or choirs are sent from all corners of Finland to compete; the old national airs - of which there are hundreds, ay thousands- are sung, and that unique native instrument the Kantele is played. For hundreds of years these Runo singers have handed on the songs of their forefathers by worth of mouth, and have kept their history alive. It was Elias Lönnrot who collected these Kantele songs. […] Thus much ancient music and verse was revived that had almost been forgotten. (99)

The rich musical tradition of Finland, which is deeply interwoven with Finnish mentality, is successfully linked by the writer to the Kalevalaic themes written by the country’s national poet, Lönnrot. Tweedie seems to acknowledge the fact that the mythological images presented in this epic poem are engraved in every Finn’s consciousness. Consequently, Finlanders seek to reproduce the miraculous incidents of their glorious mythological patrimony through the use of Runo-music, symbolised by the Kantele-instrument. Thanks to this increasing demand to depict the Finnish national rise through a national symbol, recreated by a contemporary poet, the Kalevalaic mythological illustrations expanded beyond the Finnish borders, and the movement of Kalevala romanticism transmitted the Finnish cultural spirit to the other Nordic countries (mainly Sweden) and even far from the Nordic framework, emphasising the need of the Finnish population to be heard. It is worth noticing that in her description of Sortavala music festival, Tweedie refers directly to Väinämöinen, the central character of the national epic, in order to embroider her own narration with romantic nuances and with the aim of highlighting the pagan features of the Finnish Arcadian culture. This is evident when the writer endeavours to describe a scene in which an old man is playing his Kantele: The small flat musical instrument reminded one of the zither of Tyrol, while the strange airs bore some similarity to the bagpipe music of Scotland, at least in time, which, like the piper, the old man beat with his foot. His blue eyes were fixed on the wall opposite, with a strange, weird, far-off look, and never for one moment did he relax his gaze. He seemed absolutely absorbed by his music, and as the queer old figure- a sort of

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This scene might be regarded as a significant incident in Tweedie’s text, which indicates the writer’s overall opinion about Finnish culture. Despite its highly primitive nature that reminds British readers of their distant past, Finnish culture is extremely attractive. In this view, Finnish people are a nation strongly attached to their past and the revival of the Finnish spirit coincides with the legendary Kalevalaic imagery. There is no doubt that Tweedie makes use of Väinämöinen as a symbol of Finnish spiritual regeneration, knowing that in Finnish mythology this divine figure does not only fulfill the role of an invincible hero but also signifies the creation of the world. In Kalevala, Väinämöinen is endowed with various divine characteristics which are an indispensable part of the Finnish population; he does not only possess divine attributes such as, for instance, a magical voice, a magnificent strength and an incomparable talent in music, but he also combines his godlike appearance with anthropomorphic elements, being a demigod (being the son of goddess Ilmatar). All these great attributes, which revolve around the figure of this national symbol, confirm Tweedie’s formulation of the Finns as a people with remarkable contradictions and conflicting features. Furthermore, the romantic contemplation of a white-bearded Kantele player demonstrates the influence of the Kalevala Romanticism “which originated after the appearance of the epic finally established Kalevalaic themes in literature, art and music” (Vento 85) on Tweedie’s work. The writer must have been aware of all these depictions of Finland’s local hero in romantic forms of art because her description of an old peasant as a white-bearded god complies with the nineteenth-century representations of this legendary hero in the Kalevala, hence Tweedie’s allusion to the biblical3 and divine4 dimension of Väinämöinen. The portrayal of the Finns as an attractive savage people, who have alienated themselves from the corrupt civilised world and have managed to preserve the legendary aspects of their civilisation, and not to be absorbed in any plain activities

3

C.E. Sjöstrand (1828-1906) was a Swedish sculptor who depicted the central character of the Kalevala as Moses in his work “Kullervo talar till sitt svärd” in 1868. 4 J.Z. Blackstadius (1816-1898), a 19th century Swedish painter, was the first to paint Väinämöinen as a white-bearded Kantele player.

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which are routinely carried out in developed countries, is evoked when Tweedie addresses the utopian aspect of Finland in these words: When we peep into the mysteries of the Kalevala and see how trees are sacred, how animals are mythological, as, for instance, in the forty-sixth rune, which speaks of the bear “who was born in lands between sun and moon, and died not by man’s deeds, but by his own will,” we understand the Finnish people. Indeed the wolf, the horse, the duck, and all animals find their place in this wondrous Kalevala; and dream stories are woven round each creature till the whole life of Finland is become impregnated by a fantastic sort of romance. (140)

A more concise assessment of the Finnish population’s character is provided by the writer in the chapter on the manners of the Finns, in which all the positive and negative traits of the native people are minutely summarised: Finns are very intense; they are men of few words, slow to anger, and slower to forgive. […] They are more than hospitable; they are, in fact, overpoweringly generous in their invitations to the veriest stranger; they are kind in their dealings with foreigners- doing their best to entertain them, to understand their speech, although often speaking four or five languages themselves, and to show them all they can of their land, of which they are immensely proud. They have none of the beauty, brilliancy, or charm of the South; but all the sterling assets and food qualities of the North. (175)

Given this thorough evaluation, the Finnish population appears to possess all the advantages and disadvantages of an Arcadian society. On the one hand, Finns can be extremely hospitable, honest and generous towards foreigners, polyglots as revealed in their fluency in many languages, proud of their country, and honest, unlike the populations of Southern Europe. On the other hand, they are accused of being sluggish and slow-minded, devoid of the civilised world’s attractions. The writer also adds to this image of northern Arcadia the democratic spirit of the Finnish people, which she praises as one of the most important virtues of the nation: “it is wonderful to note how democratic the people are in Finland. Each peasant is a gentleman at heart, brave, hasty, independent, and he expects everyone to treat him as his equal” (153). In this way, she contradicts her previous statement about the inferiority of Finland, due to its a classless society which does not adhere to the Victorian emphasis on social hierarchy.

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A highly idealistic depiction of Finnish national consciousness is stressed by the writer through an indicative example of the Finns’ devotion to their country contrary to the Victorian Brit’s obsession with formality: Supposing the occupants of the English train were suddenly called upon to sing “God save the King,” what would be the result? Why, that more than half the passengers would prove so shy they could not even attempt it; another quarter might wander about the notes at their own sweet will, and perhaps, a small percentage would sing it in tune. (177)

Clearly, Tweedie is struck by Finnish national consciousness, mainly because of the country’s dependency on Russia and its overall primitive state. According to the author, its people have not lost their love for their country and they are willing enough to exhibit this pride under any circumstances. However, Britons do not display the same degree of patriotism. The social restrictions imposed on Victorians do not allow for manifestations of extreme nature despite the thriving condition of the imperial system which could permit the exteriorisation of patriotic feelings amongst the members of the British society. Regarding Tweedie’s own view of her role as a travel writer, charged with the mission to reconstruct the reputation and identity of an unknown land, the writer makes use of the following encounter with an old Finn in order to highlight her contribution to the creation of a Finnish identity and her responsible position as a member of a superior culture who will transfer to her compatriots all the experiences she has accumulated while travelling: “Excuse me, do you like Finland?” “Very much,” I replied, smiling at the question; “but why do you ask?” “I am a Finn—we are all Finns, and we are very proud of our country, about which most of Europe knows nothing”, or at least next to nothing, and I am desirous to hear what you think of it all?” “I am delighted with it. But again I must ask why you inquire?” “Because we all know about you from the newspapers (not one word of which we could read ourselves), and we are very anxious you should like us and our land, and tell the people in England we are not barbarians as they suppose”. (233)

The old Finn addresses Tweedie asking her to depict his country not as a barbarous land, as supposed by the majority of her compatriots, but as a land of proud citizens who strive to make their voices heard amongst other Europeans. The old man appears to have a particularly symbolic function; he belongs to the older Finnish generation, who has experienced a

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significant amount of isolation. Finland of the past is indeed a terra incognita which remained in oblivion until the historical conditions could favour the revival of the Finnish spirit. The image of the old man as reminiscent of the Finnish past seems to coincide with the introductory part of this travelogue, in which the writer addresses the reader through the words “slowly and gradually Finland is emerging from the waters, just as slowly and gradually the people are making their voice heard among other nations” (7). The lethargic and primitive state of Finland, embodied by the old Finn, is substituted by a dynamic rise of the country when the British writer undertakes the responsible and demanding task to expose this forgotten culture to the rest of the world. The repetition of the words “do you like Finland” recapitulates the supposed inferiority of Finland; the Finns are pictured as an insecure nation which seeks to safeguard and spread its reputation through the eyes of a Briton. Consequently, the writer assumes the powerful role of a mediator between the savage world, symbolised by Finland, and the civilised world, consisting of the Western, British literary audience. Tweedie’s relation to the Finnish population points to the argument of Nyman that, during her intercourse with the Finns, Tweedie’s “position as an English (or Western) traveller in a primitive country is naturalised, and knowledge becomes identified with power” (66). In the travel narrative Through Finland in Carts, the factor of language appears to be an issue of pivotal importance which has a great impact on Tweedie’s reconstruction of Finnish identity, given the writer’s continuous tendency to elaborate on that subject in her intercourse with Finnish peasantry and culture. It is evident that Tweedie is considerably preoccupied with the complex language condition in Finland as were Laing and Bunbury with the French-speaking aristocracy in Sweden. As already mentioned, Finland was a bilingual country prior to the Russian Occupation in 1809, with Finnish being the most widely spoken language by the Finnish lower classes and Swedish constituting the language of commerce and aristocracy. To add to the already split image of the language issue in Finland, Russian was obligatorily used in Finnish administration, thus reflecting the country’s subjugation to the Russian Empire. Tweedie acknowledges the importance of establishing a specific communication code for the effective unity of a country. Being a British subject, she is familiar with the strict language policies which were implemented in the British colonies during the nineteenth century; this kind of measures did not favour diglossic situations and sought to suppress regional languages in order to establish English as a lingua franca among

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the protectorates. In particular, the writer states that “with its Russian rule, its Finnish and Swedish proclivities, and its three languages, the country has indeed much to fight against” (19). In fact, within the framework of every empire, it is essential to deconstruct the original language of a country, in order to alter its power structures, before rendering it a periphery of the Empire (Brumme et al. 88). The writer thus views the linguistic mosaic of Finland as a weak point in the growing struggle of this nation for national independence. Further on, Tweedie expresses the colonial opinion about the language issue and justifies her own role as an English-speaking travel writer: English people never speak anything but English, and they are inhospitable to strangers; they are a proud nation and cold”. It is a libel, a hideous libel; but one which is, unfortunately believed all over the Continent by foreigners not thoroughly acquainted with English folk in their homes […] English, being the language of commerce, is fast becoming the language of the world, in spite of its imperfections, but to enjoy a country one must be able to converse in its own tongue. (38)

The writer’s words express indignation about other nations that tend to accuse English travellers of being completely reluctant to use the language of the country they wish to visit. At the same time, she provides the reader with an expected justification that English is on the gradual process of becoming an international language and surpassing the borders of the Empire. Yet her perception of Englishmen’s justified preference to use their mother tongue as an internationally accepted means of communication, dismissing in that way the “unfounded” accusations about British chauvinism, is completely incompatible with her role as a travel writer. Since she is assigned the important mission of representing Finnish identity and culture, she admits to the obligation of a travel writer to speak the language of the nation in question in order to enjoy all the aspects of its culture. Throughout her presentation of the Finnish language, Tweedie exposes her opinion about the difficulty with which the Western (British) travel must deal when attempting to concentrate on the acquisition of the language: Finnish is almost difficult as Chinese. Every noun has sixteen cases, and the suffixes alter so much, one hardly recognises the more complicated as the outcome of the original nominative. It takes, therefore, almost a lifetime to learn Finnish thoroughly, although the structure of their sentences is simple, and being a nation little given to gush, adverbs and adjectives are seldom used. (131)

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Once again the writer characterises another element of the Finnish culture as inconceivably difficult for the average British citizen due to the Finnish case system’s incompatibility with the mainstream English morphological structures. The complexity of the Finnish language is compared with the mysterious idiosyncrasy of its speakers, and the confusingly unique phenomena of the language render the process of its learning very strenuous, despite the fact that, as Tweedie confesses, the simplistic and unsophisticated character of Finnish people is also reflected in the language they speak. As a consequence, the writer does not hesitate to categorise the same object as unpleasantly difficult and primitively simplistic, by adopting a self-contradictory position in order to project the English language as the only acceptable means of producing sophisticated discourse. Finally, the author views the language issue in Finland as analogous to social distinction. Her text is imbued with the idea of social hierarchy, paying respect to the common tendency of Victorian writers to indulge in social categorisations (Boehmer 55). Having witnessed significant social changes, Victorian writers were particularly prone to describe emerging social conditions. Tweedie is interested in referring to the Finnish social experience, trying to demarcate the boundaries of the Finnish social order based on the language spoken in the country. Touching upon the issue of language as important evidence for the dangers lurking in the Finnish battle for independence, she mentions the following: One must remember the word Finn implies native peasant; the upper classes are called Finlanders. Until lately the two spoken languages represented two parties. The Finns were the native peasants who only spoke Finnish, the Radical party practically- the upper class who spoke Swedish among themselves were known as Svecomans, and roughly represented the Conservatives […]. But every year the Finlander is learning more and more of his native language, and Swedish bids fair to be relegated to the classics as far as Finland is concerned. Party strife is terrible […] It would be better if the Fennomans and Svecomans tried to remember that their real object is the same, namely the welfare of their own country. (153)

In spite of Tweedie’s excessive emphasis on the bilingual situation in Finland, which culminated in the last part of the nineteenth century due to the growing movement of national resurgence, it is true that the language problem never ceased to preoccupy Finland with respect to its national identity. The writer stresses the differences of rank among the Finnish population, with language being the determining factor in social placement. With reference to the existence of the Svecoman and the

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Fennoman movement, Lavery refers to the conflicting situation to which the language problem gave rise; due to the belief of the Swedish-speaking elite in the Finnish-speaking peasantry’s vulnerability to the Russian threat, the patriotic manifestations of the Finns were often denigrated by language movements that undermined the country’s national awareness (112). Acknowledging this complex situation, the writer aims at illustrating the weak state to which a country can be reduced when a strong dominant culture is not enforced. Several instances in the travel narrative Through Finland in Carts suggest that Tweedie is extremely interested in the issue of womanhood, as she frequently draws a comparison between British women and their Finnish counterparts. This is hardly surprising, given the common tendency of all women travel writers discussed to indulge in comparisons of that kind. Despite being raised in a patriarchal society, in which women were closely attached to their spouse and could only achieve a higher social status through the position of their male partner in society, Tweedie seems to admire sincerely the independence as well as the freedom of Finnish women in a number of fields. In doing so, she challenges the imperial discourse which she endeavoured to establish through the reconstruction of Finnish identity as synonymous with backwardness. In fact, Ryall distinguishes in Tweedie two different attitudes towards Finland, which are staunchly opposed to each other, and they are intimately connected to the issues of culture and gender. As the critic claims, on the one hand Tweedie tends to “primitivise Fenno-Scandinavia by foregrounding the cold and harsh climate and the area’s distance both culturally and geographically from metropolitan European centres” (274). On the other hand, when Tweedie reflects on the remarkable advances of the female sex in Finland and the backward aspect of her home country in the same field, northern countries like Finland “are represented as models of future progress. Compared to this exemplary north it is Britain that lags behind, and the contrast implies a fundamental critique of British culture at the fin de siècle” (Ryall 274). In that respect, Tweedie reverses the distance-centre- periphery model and eagerly projects Finland as the centre of gender developments, and Britain as the backward country which remains on the margins of such crucial advancements. Making a journey to Finland unescorted by a man, accompanied only by her sister and a Finnish upper-class friend, namely Frau von Lilly, Tweedie is clearly not a conventional middle-class woman of her time. Her very decision to travel alone, without the presence of a male escortguide, subverts a commonly seen pattern in Victorian travel literature produced by men. In particular, Tweedie challenges the well-established

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belief that journeys to the North constitute an adventure in which only men can engage due to the perils of the whole process. Tweedie’s status as a travel writer implies an open questioning of Victorian gender barriers: as Fjågesund and Symes point out, “the travel accounts of adventure, in which category the Scandinavian travelogues most naturally belong, challenged assumptions about the female need for protection” (63). Since Tweedie succeeds in completing her journey without any serious obstacles in her way, she also puts into question other gender stereotypes attributed to Victorian women. The author’s insistence in her self-presentation as adventuress is not a unique feature of her narrative style, as Wollstonecraft, Lowe and Bunbury adopted the same position of defying the oppressive patriarchal norms imposed on their sex. What renders her travelogue unique, however is the way in which she uses this concept of the adventure heroine to introduce to the reader the idea of the new woman, who must necessarily lead an unconventional life, challenge the Victorian norms and assume new roles, which are opposed to women’s domestic lifestyle; this becomes particularly evident in the sauna chapter, which is used, according to Ryall, “to demonstrate both her adventurousness and her professional enjoyment of ‘queer corners, odd experiences, and native life’” (278). When touching upon the issue of womanhood, Tweedie clearly transgresses her given socio-cultural background and, in many instances throughout her travelogue, she marvels at the extraordinary liberty that Finnish women enjoy by contrasting the English women’s lack of progress in the respective field of social liberation. A sign of this admiration can be noticed when the writer touches upon the issue of Finnish women’s easy access to higher education while discussing university life with one of her Finnish male companions: “This was all very well so long as men only took the degree, but great jokes have arisen since women have stepped in, because ladies naturally think it is only right that men should weave their laurel-wreaths.” “And do they?” “I believe they do. If not actually with their own hands, they superintend the making of such wreaths for their lady friends, whom we welcome to our University with open arms”. (180)

In late nineteenth-century England, the issue of women’s education had led to a serious debate about the necessity of admitting women to higher educational institutions given the general concern that education could unsex women (Sheffield 7). According to Sheffield, it was deemed necessary to incorporate women into institutionalised education and

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encourage their increasing participation in the public affairs of England because their educational improvement was linked for the first time to the promotion of British technological advancement. Even though Finland is presented by Tweedie as backward, being dependent on the Russian Empire and having a culture which was not akin to Western manners and mores, the unquestionable gender equality which existed at the time of Tweedie’s visit to the country exposes the seriousness of gender segregation in Britain as well as the open-minded mentality of the Finns on the same subject. Hence, the values of the dominant culture sound more primitive than the actual social system of the northern periphery that Finland embodied. In the “Women and Education chapter”, the writer seems to put aside the portrayal of Finland as a primitive, northern periphery and dwells extensively upon the remarkable progress of Finnish women in the field of letters: We must pause and reflect on two of the most important factors in Finnish life- the position of women, and the excellence of education. For it is the present advancement on both that will make a future for Suomi and even today can teach us much (194).

The writer’s concern over the issue of womanhood is not paradoxical, given Tweedie’s own status as a travel writer and journalist during a period in which British women’s sole possibility to ascend socially was in the most indirect way, namely through a successful marriage with a man of a significant social status. In Finland, nevertheless, gender hardly functions as an impediment, and women can easily assume different roles without being subjected to the least criticism. The author conspicuously links the social and educational merits of Finnish society to female emancipation in the country visited. Being an ardent advocate of feminist rights, Tweedie condemns the gender stereotypes of her own society by employing the prevailing sexual equality in Finland as a desired goal to attain for her own compatriots: There has been a preponderance of the female sex, and though in the last twenty years this surplus has diminished by one half, it may perhaps in some measure account for the wonderful way in which women have pushed themselves to the front and ceased to look upon matrimony as the only profession open to the sex. (195)

On the one hand, one can discern Tweedie’s effort to question marriage as women’s ideal social prospect, explicitly stating that matrimony should not be “the only profession open to the sex”. Her irony towards marriage can be well understood, considering the restrictions that

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marriage connoted for Victorian women as well as its incompatibility with the desirable “women’s autonomy” that the era of New Womanhood propagated. As Ryall points out, “a critique of the institution of marriage was central to the New Woman debates during the 1890s”. New Womanood viewed marriage as well as every other stereotypical image of womanhood as a backward institution that prevented women’s social and professional emancipation and largely undermined their access to the political life of Britain by “keeping them at home”. Sally Ledger maintains that the “New Woman of the fin de siècle had a multiple identity. She was, variously, a feminist activist, a social reformer, a popular novelist, a suffragette playwright, a woman poet” (1). Obviously Tweedie constructs her discourse on this multiple identity envisioned by the New Woman movement and this is intensely felt in her representation of the Finnish women and their achievements. Interestingly enough, Tweedie was one of the female writers who supported the use of uniformed women in industrial and war expeditions by the British army during the First World War; her own statement that “the world has discovered women, and women have found themselves. And a new world has been created” (Tweedie 5) summarises her liberal views on the subject of womanhood and her sympathy for female struggle for sexual and professional independence. Therefore, the subversion of Victorian prudery on several occasions in Through Finland in Carts is not coincidental considering her later activism: According to Doan, “with hyperbolic flourish Tweedie cheerfully welcomed the new world order, declaring it a state of ‘topsyturvydom’ wherein ‘every man is a soldier, and every woman is a man’” (517). Articulated by Tweedie during the First World War, these statements indicate the writer’s faith in women’s active role in every possible field of human activity. After all, as Jane Robinson argues, Tweedie “saw herself quite simply as a pillar of Edwardian womanhood whose duty it was to enchant others as much as she enchanted herself” (199). Overlooking the Victorian attitude towards her own sex, Tweedie employs the example of Finnish female independence in order to reflect upon a potential independent state of English women. The strength and perseverance of Finnish women is strongly opposed to the limitations imposed upon Victorian women. British women’s lack of agency is an overwhelmingly frequent subject in Tweedie’s discourse, given her tendency to identify with the dynamic attitude of the women in a land which might be inferior to Britain in Victorian terms of culture and politics but well advanced in social change: “we were impressed by the force and the marvelous energy and splendid independence of the women of Suomi

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who became independent workers long before their sisters in Britain” (197). In the travel narrative Through Finland in Carts it is clear that the writer endeavours to break away from several Victorian conventions about female representation. In order to disseminate her liberal views on the subject, she projects the persevering image of Finnish women as human beings who have constructed their subjectivity through their continuous involvement in male-dominated fields of human activity. As a consequence, unlike male travellers, who are more interested in relating the adventures of their journey to the unknown lands, Tweedie discovers in Finland the North Arcadia for British women who pursue further emancipation and refuse to comply with the Victorian standards that do not favour “stern and obdurate strength” (Reed 76) in women and emphasise female weakness as their most “lovable” trait. Another breach in Victorian prudery is the subversion of the “fallen woman’s” concept. Victorian society was renowned for its lack of sympathy and growing interest for women who had sinned and consequently violated the Victorian moral norms of purity (Reed 76). Yet in a conservative society, every possible expression of female sexuality was deemed morally reproachful. Based on that assumption, Tweedie juxtaposes the Victorian image of morally transgressive women (usually linked to prostitution) with the pictures of Finnish women’s nudity; despite their lack of reservations when it comes to the exposure of their body, Finnish women are equally virtuous, devoted mothers and housewives: In spite of advanced education, in spite of the emancipation of women (which is erroneously supposed to work otherwise), Finland is noted for its morality, and, indeed, stands among the nations of Europe as one of the most virtues. (197)

Thus, Finnish women have acquired their social independence without being considered unsexed or corrupt. This point is extremely important since the writer attempts to dissociate moral corruption from women’s struggle for wider emancipation. In fact, Tweedie possibly implies that a woman raised according to the Victorian value system can be more prone to moral corruption, given her reduction to a passive being without any opportunity to ascend in society. Her attack on Victorian values becomes more obvious later on, when Tweedie describes the role of the average Finnish woman in a more detailed way:

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In spite, however, of a woman being under the legal guardianship of her husband, there is probably no country where women are held in more reverence and respect than in Finland. While in Germany the middle class Hausfrau takes a back seat, hardly speaking before her lord and master, […] the Finnish woman, although just as domesticated, is less ostentatious in her performance of such duties, and, like her sisters in England, attends to her household matters in the morning, according to a regulated plan worked out for herself. (199)

Discussing the issue of womanhood within the Finnish society, Tweedie implies that the Victorian formulation of an ideal woman contradicts the emphasis of this conservative society on social improvement. The emancipated Finnish woman, who has been treated as an independent human being, appears to combine successfully her role as a mother, wife and housewife with her professional aspirations. Idleness as a synonym to women’s passivity and lack of activity outside the domestic space is severely criticised by the writer because, drawing upon the Finnish example, women possess a more respectable status as equal members of the same society, whereas women whose role is significantly determined by their gender cannot even excel in their limited domestic sphere of action. Finally, it would be worth looking at the writer’s observations during a theatrical performance of Anna Liisa, a well-known play in the Finnish theatrical world, written by Minna Canth, 5 one of the most significant nineteenth century playwrights of the country. The writer is not only surprised to hear that the play was originally written by a female writer but also comments on the actual emotional effect of the play on the audience, which mainly consists of Finnish peasantry: Anna Liisa was the piece chosen, because it was a peasant drama. It is written by one of Finland’s greatest dramatists- perhaps the greatest in the Finnish language- and a woman! (104) Minna Canth herself is a great writer. She seizes the subtleties of life, draws character with a strong hand, and appreciates the value of dramatic situations. No wonder the Finlanders admire a woman who writes in their own tongue, and feel proud of her as one of themselves. (113)

5

Minna Canth (born Ulrika Wilhelmina Johnsson, 1844-1897) was a feminist activist, whose works Työmiehen Vaimo (The Worker's Wife) and Anna Liisa were produced contemporarily to Tweedie’s arrival in the country. She was considered a very revolutionary and avant-garde thinker, who fought for women’s rights and her works discuss female position in Finnish society.

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In discussing cultural life in Finland, Tweedie seizes the opportunity to compare the gender reality of Victorian England to the equivalent social conditions in Finnish society. In practice, she elaborates on gendered discourse, in which a discrepancy is observed between her role as a powerful British narrator and her function as a woman; the above lines are highly ambivalent since the writer’s stance is extremely positive when referring to a female writer of another country. At the same time, she comments on the reactions of the Finnish audience in a rather negative manner, claiming that Finns are probably not sufficiently exposed to cultural activities of high quality, therefore reacting in an extremely emotional way. This contradictory attitude towards the theatrical performance points to the fact that Tweedie is unable to combine her own subjectivity as woman with her duty as a travel writer who is attached to the idea of the Empire. According to Barrett, female writing tends to be determined by the social situation in which it is placed (79). As a woman raised in a patriarchal society, Tweedie is identified with the Finnish writer; what the writer deduces from the positive reaction of the Finnish audience to Minna Canth’s work is genuine gender equality amongst the Finns, who do not hesitate to accept Canth as a national writer and they are not afraid of manifesting their sensitivity to the hardships which the female protagonist of her play must go through. On the contrary, Tweedie’s discourse is interspersed with colonial stereotypical images, for instance the sarcastic comments on some sentimental scenes of the play as well as the writer’s depreciating attitude towards the theatrically ‘uneducated Finnish crowd’. From that perspective, it is suggested that the writer’s interest in women’s emancipation is considerably undermined by her own devotion to the idea of nationhood and her obedience to Victorian middle-class values (Nyman 135) which gradually alienate her from the feminist liberal spirit and lead her to repeated patterns of colonial discourse about primitiveness of the Finnish population. Nevertheless, the problematic nature of her role as a female writer in imperial England does not prevent her from foregrounding Finnish liberal thinking; it should not be underestimated that Tweedie manages to illustrate the advanced state of womanhood in an unknown land and emphasise the poor progress in her home country on the same topic.

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In spite of Tweedie’s sincere interest in various manifestations of womanhood through her narrative, always accompanied by signs of admiration for the successful emancipation of Finnish women, the writer cannot fully overcome the stereotypical conventions of female decorum of her society, owing to the gender reality of Victorian England that does not allow her to accept “scandalous” scenes of nudity. The writer’s return to her previous discourse on the Finnish primitive Other is inevitable when she, a Victorian middle-class woman, is confronted with her own sexuality and her body’s exposure to the public. As argued by Granqvist, her distancing from the Finnish female Other occurs during the sauna chapter, in which she coalesces with the Victorian conventions about her own sex and denounces the sauna bath for instigating “a whole repertoire of violations against Victorian social and moral norms” (201). Through the writer’s eyes, the Finnish bathing process is an objectionable practice as such, bringing people together regardless of their sex and social position: Every Saturday, year in year out…the whole family have a bath- not singly, oh dear, no, but altogether, men, women, and children; farmer, wife, brothers, sisters, labourers, friends, and the dogs too, if they have a mind. (43)

Apparently, the steam bath culture appears to scandalise the writer, who has been brought up on totally different cultural values. Although Tweedie appears to hold a liberal stance towards the emancipation of women in Finland, in the case of the sauna she cannot go beyond the stereotypes ascribed to her sex and social position. The exposure of the female body triggers the Victorian norms about nudity and morality; Tweedie’s strong objection to female nudity could be associated with de Beauvoir’s claim that the female body constitutes a situation rather than part of one’s physical appearance (301). There is another episode in which the reluctance of the author and her sister to adapt to the sauna culture of Finnish society mirrors the negative connotations with which body is associated in Victorian society. My sister had hardly taken a plunge from the spring-board into the water below, before every man, woman, and child in the neighbourhood began exclaiming one to the other, "The English lady has tumbled in," and, absolutely, before the bather's head could appear again from the depths of the water they had all run to the bank to have a look at the phenomenon, more prepared to rescue her from drowning than to see her swimming far out into the lake with clothes on. (60)

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The writer’s sister prefers to swim in her bathing suit, a fact which seems incomprehensible to the Finns, who believe that she is about to get drowned. In other words, they cannot understand her “prudish” behaviour, since they are used to swimming completely nude, regardless of sex, given the absence of negative connotations attached to the body. Needless to say that in the Finnish sauna swimsuits, towels, or any other garments were (and are) rarely worn. The woman traveller’s treatment as the centre of attention by the local people challenges the woman’s perception of her body as evidence of guilt. The female body is regarded as an essential component of female subjectivity. Being seriously affected by the notion of female decorum in Victorian society, Tweedie fails to see the connection between nudity and social emancipation. Despite her exaltation of Finnish women’s independence, she does not recognise that the prevalent gender equality in Finland stems exactly from social equality on a larger scale, overlooking concepts like social hierarchy and stereotypically gendered attitudes. Also, the writer does not become aware of the sauna’s intrinsic connection to Finnish identity and overall mentality; commenting on the significance of steam bathing culture in Finland, Bird affirms that, “connected with birth and health and life-affirming water, the sauna was as sacred as a church” (1). Taking this definition of sauna into consideration, it might be deduced that the sauna suggests a highly esteemed ritual which does not only have religious associations, being linked to the purgatorial process advocated by the Church, but also seeks to unite people from different backgrounds. The coexistence of different, conflicting elements leads to the effective understanding of the Other, in terms of gender or social status, and increases solidarity for the creation of patriotism and national identity. Yet Tweedie is oblivious to all these important factors and continues to treat elements, which do not belong to the prescribed moral code of Victorian England, as contemptible characteristics of the “primitive” Other, embodied by Finnish people. In addition to the gendered version of a Finnish ritual, Tweedie attributes an element of eroticism to the cleansing process of sauna in the following incident during which Tweedie is treated as a spectacle by Finns, when trying to have a sauna bath. A spectacle, verily! But who could be angry with such innocent people? I had come to try a strange Finnish bath which interested me -why should they not come to see a queer Englishwoman if it amused them. Flinging shyness to the winds, therefore, I smiled and grinned at the next woman who entered as though I liked being on view and she went away happy. (64)

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Discussing the issue of the writer’s nudity in public, Granqvist comments on the writer’s swimming in a lake in front of some Finnish boys: “male gazing has been reversed into two contradictory aspects. It has been rendered socially insignificant but acceptable as part of a transgressive cultural experience, what is clearly outside the feminine idea of respectability; secondly, its erotic motivation and content provide the women protagonists with a sense of power and centrality” (202). It is true that Tweedie, previously scandalised by the explicit nudity in Finnish bathing customs, allows herself to transgress in terms of Victorian decorum by letting some young Finns peep into her naked body while swimming. As suggested by Granqvist’s above statement, she experiences contradictory feelings, an amalgam of guilt and pride; owing to the strict Victorian principles, the scene increases the writer’s own insecurity about her sexuality and contemplation of her body by members of a different gender. At the same time, she experiences an increasing feeling of empowerment over the male gaze; it is quite probable that the writer tends to diminish the seriousness of this situation believing that the men who gaze at her body are not her equals since they belong to another, “primitive” culture. Therefore their indiscrete attitude as part of their general “primitive” manners is partly justified. The author also treats this incident as of minor importance Male gaze reassures her sexuality because she is rendered the centre of attention, a fact which reflects the writer’s inability to function outside the familiar gender norms of Victorian England. Moreover, the writer does not hesitate to interpret some aspects of Finnish dance music in an erotic way: “Finnish dances are strange; a young man spies a young woman, he rushes at her, seizes her by the waist, dances lustily, and then lets her go as if she were a hot potato” (193). Based on this description, Tweedie compares the Finnish dancers to participants in some form of seduction, during which they behave in a lustful manner which stimulates the eroticism of the whole atmosphere. Once again, the writer engenders the proximity of the two sexes by laying stress on the blameful erotic elements in which this scene abounds. In short, it could be argued that, if the writer’s views of Finnish identity and people are ambivalent in various instances, Tweedie’s attitude towards the issue of gender seems to be quite unclear: strongly influenced by the stereotypical depictions of her gender, she tends to sexualise Finnish culture, a fact which certainly reveals her own suppressed sexuality and, at the same time, contradicts her general statement that Finnish people, and especially women, are very virtuous compared to other nations with less liberal customs. What is more, the writer fails to see sexuality as part of social equality in Finland. In conclusion, the author

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is often carried away, engaging in a discourse which is reminiscent of the principles of Victorian prudery and the imperial gaze. Through Finland in Carts is undoubtedly a work influenced by British imperial ideology, which largely views every foreign culture as the Other, regardless of cultural or geographical conditions. Ethel Brilliana Tweedie aims to reconstruct Finnish national identity in alignment with fundamental Victorian conventions about morals, improvement, social order and sexuality. Generally speaking, Tweedie adopts a patronising approach to the country visited, as she develops her discourse on the premise that Finland, as a periphery, is both culturally and spiritually inferior to Britain. In this respect, she differs from other women writers’ attitude towards the country visited- such as Lowe and Oswald- who seek to identify with the natives instead of gazing at them from a distance. In addition to its imperial dimension, this travelogue conforms to the multifunctional concept of Otherness: the writer makes use of Finnish geographical isolation and complex political background in order to illuminate the achievements of her own nation, and in insisting on this projection, she does not hesitate to appropriate Finnish identity to justify the imperial cause; at the same time, her text abounds in negative comments on the Russian rule, not only because of its haunting presence, which enslaves a nation in the process of formation; Russia represents a rival imperial power which is characterised by values that are completely incompatible with Western civilisation in terms of religion, language, and ideology, although the practices of both imperial systems are essentially the same. Nevertheless, Tweedie’s contribution to the depiction of Finland as a Nordic country which strives to achieve international recognition is extremely valuable. The writer does not only inform the reader about the main national symbols of Finland, the Arcadian spirit which overwhelmingly characterises various aspects of Finnish everyday life; she also familiarises the British reader with the social accomplishments of Finland, which are related to women’s emancipation and the poor progress of Victorian England in the same field. Despite its seeming superiority, English national consciousness cannot compete with the spontaneous patriotic feelings of the Finns, who, being under the Russian rule, are more eager to express their love for their country, putting aside significant conflicting parts of their historical heritage. As a Northern Arcadia, Finland captivates the reader; past and present constitute an effective amalgam through the romantic spirit which is reflected in the music and oral tradition of Finnish peasantry that constitute fundamental components of the country’s Volksgeist. Gradually, in Tweedie’s text Finland is transformed into the

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centre of significant cultural developments, as opposed to metropolitan Europe (and mainly Britain), which prove to be backward with reference to female emancipation .

CONCLUSION

My analysis has proven that, on the one hand, the North should not be treated as a homogeneous whole but rather as a European region fragmented into distinct cultures which are connected to Victorian Britain on various levels (cultural as well as geopolitical). However, given the considerable chronological gap which exists between some of the travel accounts that were written in early-middle or late-Victorian era, it is inevitable that there would be significant differentiations in terms of perspective, due to the constant changes within the Victorian sociocultural framework. This discrepancy is also reflected on each travel writer’s view of the North, as well as on their particular perceptions of gender and race. With reference to the issue of gender, while addressing its importance in several travelogues included in my book, I have demonstrated that the factor in question, considerable though it is, does not always determine the author’s narrative position or approach to the country visited, although in many cases the women travellers’ narrative style converged in many respects. First of all, regarding Wollstonecraft’s Letters, the epistolary form of her travelogue certainly enabled the author to speak up her mind and address several significant matters related to femininity with reference to the recipient of her letters, Gilbert Imlay. In other words, she produced her letters while having in mind that a male reader will “evaluate” them later on. Given the eccentricity of her position as a late-eighteenth century woman travel writer, much of her text is interspersed with comments against women’s domesticity and in support of their rights both in relation to Britain and to the Scandinavian context. In other words, through her comparative glance at Scandinavian manners and mores, and by applying aesthetic criteria such as the picturesque and the sublime to her selfdepiction, Wollstonecraft clearly paves the way for succeeding women travellers to address the issue of gender in their writing. She also influences her successors by assuming various narrative roles in order to point to women’s need to acquire further emancipation, such as those of the adventure heroine, the sentimental traveller, and the ethnographer. For her and for many other women travellers, Scandinavia is deemed as the perfect context within the framework of which they can discuss women’s position from different angles; in that sense, she attempts to engender the North.

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Likewise, gender appears to be a major concern in Selina Bunbury’s travel narrative about Sweden. Being a mid-Victorian author, Bunbury does not need to negotiate her role as a woman traveller throughout her narrative as often as Wollstonecraft. Yet gender prevails in her discourse, as she persistently seeks to project the remarkable developments of the Swedish liberation movement by contrast to the limited accomplishments of British women in the same field. Sincerely interested in women’s position though she is, Bunbury does not seem to be as vehemently opposed to patriarchal rule as Wollstonecraft, and womanhood paradoxically does not constitute the key theme in her travel narrative, as the author seems to base her text on the description of the notion (and the superiority) of Britishness. This shows that she is well adapted to the imperialist spirit of Great Britain. Regarding the issue of womanhood in Lowe’s travelogue on Norway, the sole aim of the author is to defy the dominant male ideology and deconstruct the stereotypes of passivity and domesticity attached to her sex. Lowe subverts the necessity for women to have a male escort; she fashions herself as an adventure heroine, ready to engage with every possible activity, such as mountaineering, which is predominantly characterised as masculine. All these qualities are similar to Wollstonecraft’s outlook on the process of travelling. Yet unlike Wollstonecraft’s and Bunbury’s travelogues, gender does not only occupy a prevalent position in Lowe’s discourse about the Norwegian context, but it is the other way around: it is gender, and not the Norwegian context, on which Lowe aims to concentrate throughout her journey to the most sequestered parts of the Norwegian countryside. In other words, the writer utilises the Norwegian setting as a utopian space through which she can systematically address issues of womanhood. As to Ethel Brilliana Tweedie, whose travelogue on Finland gives useful insights into gender in Scandinavia during the late-Victorian period, this author clearly shows the extent to which gender is theorised and more systematically addressed by Victorian women at the close of the nineteenth century; by focusing on Finnish women’s path towards complete emancipation, Tweedie seizes the opportunity to support her views on New Womanhood. This is not to say that the author bestows importance solely on gender when she discusses social conditions in Finland; gender is one of the reasons, if not the main one, for which Tweedie renders Finland a utopian locus that perfectly matches the ideology of the New Woman which she shares. In that way, gender outweighs the writer’s initial emphasis on the country’s savage image.

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Finally, Wilde’s and Oswald’s travelogues show signs of more complexity regarding the exploration of gender in the Scandinavian context. On the one hand, Wilde blends gender with other major issues such as the resurgence of Irish nationalism and the theoretical framework attached to the Celtic race. On the other hand, Oswald approaches gender from a more literary perspective, relating female emancipation to the ascending Northernist movement and the Anglo-Saxon theory, and identifying images of womanhood in the saga literature of the island she visits. Both writers treat the North as a gendered utopia, but unlike other women authors, they feel more confident in their multifold role as women/travellers/writers, as they seek to take the discussion on womanhood a step further by associating it with other major issues of their times. In addition, contrary to other British women authors, they do not wish to assume masculine roles so as to defy men’s hegemony in the field of travel literature but rather contribute to the field as equally esteemed authors. Notwithstanding the common tendency to treat gender discourse as a female concern, several male travel authors examined in this book formulate their own ideas about the two sexes during their journey and they also move on to compare women’s position between Britain and Scandinavia. Speaking from a dominant position as empowered members of the patriarchal society, most travel authors encountered in my research do not need to acquire a new identity or renegotiate their status as male travellers venturing into the unknown, simply because travelling is considered, until the mid-nineteenth century at least, a male property. Taking this parameter into consideration, I have looked at how the male travellers who journeyed in the North approached the gender issue. Marryat’s discourse on gender issues also provides us with some other stereotypes attached to women, that is, their “ideal domesticity”. In particular, during his peregrination in Denmark, Marryat praises Danish upper-class women for being excellent housewives despite their high social status and thus conforming to the representation of women as angels in the house. Female domesticity in the Scandinavian rural areas is revered by male authors like Marryat, who acknowledge the private space as the only area of excellence ascribed to women. In a similar light, Samuel Laing adopts a severe critical stance when referring to the condition of Swedish working-class women. Laing’s comments are related once again, to the desired domesticity of Victorian women; since Swedish women easily cross the border between the domestic and the public (professional) space, they are described as extremely masculine and alien to Victorian gender norms.

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The masculinity of Norwegian women is subject to Frederick Metcalfe’s criticism when he refers to their lack of artificial manners and their overtly independent behaviour, an image largely contrasted with the supposed fragility of the female sex in Victorian Britain. Although he does not approve of the adoption of a masculine attitude by women, Metcalfe persistently associates the independence of Norwegian women with the virile aspect of the Viking culture, since Ancient Norwegian women needed to raise warriors. By the same token, he treats the institution of the signekone (psychic) in Norwegian rural areas, by connecting the existence of these women with “supernatural strengths” to the imagery of Old Norse mythology. Clearly, Metcalfe, besides women’s masculine side, introduces the reader to a more utopian dimension of womanhood, unlike the previous writers. Similarly, Charles Boileau-Elliot regards gender as an indispensable factor in his presentation of Finland. The author posits himself as an adventure hero, alluding to the concept of the solitary traveller. He thus clearly identifies adventure and exploration as the basic ingredients of a male traveller’s journey. Finally, Sabine Baring Gould appears to define the concept of the adventure hero, assuming the role of the omniscient literary voice about the North. From his perspective, gender is closely related to literary authority. Baring Gould defies the conventional patterns of manhood and follows another path, adopting both the role of the imperial beholder and the mediator in his presentation of Iceland, which ensures an empowered state for his travel persona. However, both writers show no interest in women’s position in the country visited, a fact which also proves the confidence in their role as omniscient travellers or their overconcern about constructing their own narrative positions. On the whole, one could argue that all travel authors, more or less, adopt a comparative perspective in their evaluation of the manners and mores in the country visited. What certainly changes is the way gender is approached by each writer, and obviously women writers are often in search of a new identity, which does not conform to the stereotypes imposed on their sex, whereas male travel writers follow the opposite direction, by seeking to respond to the criteria that define their masculinity in the foreign territory. Admittedly, the Scandinavian context enables all writers to fashion a new identity. If gender is a factor that partly defines Northern Utopia, race inevitably constitutes an indispensable part in the construction of the North, as many British travellers treated the North as a potential field for further study of the racial origins of Europe, and more importantly, for the application of several racial theories such as Teutonism and Anglo-Saxonism to the

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North. When I use the term race, I connect it to the role of ethnicity, since the two terms were used interchangeably well until the mid-nineteenth century due to their convenient vagueness. Through the dissemination of Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage, the theory of climate and the concept of the Wide North, one can immediately understand that Wollstonecraft’s Letters are imbued with the spirit of Enlightenment. At the same time, since the anthropological sciences reached their apex much later, in the 1850s, Wollstonecraft could hardly make any racial connection between Britain and the North. Yet her emphasis on the backward character of the Northerners, the freezing effect of the climate on Nordic people’s disposition, and the link that the author draws between the inhabitants of the North and Scandinavian nature are indicative of how early British travel texts attempted to define the North in racial terms. As far as William Coxe is concerned, in his text Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark, though an early Victorian, he is aware of the impact of culture and race on the delineation of European nations, and this is why he is one of the first to stress the importance of the AngloSaxon theory that pointed to the Teutonic origins of Britain. What is more, influenced by Herder’s stress on the significance of national literature, he promotes a more rigorous study of the saga tradition, since he clearly identifies the sagas as the main piece of evidence which could elucidate the cultural (and racial) origins of British culture. In his text, however, even though he attempts to restore England’s ties with the Nordic countries, he explicitly refers to the notion of Englishness as a national value, as he is an English citizen. In addition, all the eighteenth-century concepts attributed to the North such as the theory of climate, the idea of the noble savage, and French Classicism are largely questioned by the writer, who introduces new elements to the presentation of Scandinavia in his attempt to adorn his discourse with early nineteenth-century findings on Old Norse culture, that is, the sagas. Boileau-Elliot’s travel narrative should also be regarded as one of the earliest attempts to racialise Scandinavia. Due to his cosmopolitan upbringing and his wide exposure to Indian culture, the author is a propagator of diasporic Britishness. Unlike the majority of the Victorian authors who point to more exclusive definitions of what pertains to British national identity, Boileau-Elliot defines Britain both culturally and racially in a highly inclusive way, making no distinction between Britons who live in the metropolis and in the colonial space. Nonetheless, in his contemplation of Finland, he unhesitatingly Others its citizens, stressing their savage state and their close resemblance both culturally and racially

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to the Indians, a large but marginal- and culturally distant- part of the British Empire. To put it briefly, his racial discourse attaches importance to the grandeur of diasporic Englishness and the Othering of Finland as a backward (and yet utopian) society. In doing so, he treats every nation that is not “endowed” with the Teutonic properties as racially inferior. Loyal to the Herderian notion of the Volksgeist (as is the case with Coxe, as well), Frederick Metcalfe connects race to Norwegian folklore. He also seeks to corroborate the Anglo-Saxon hypothesis by basing his discourse on the main components of Norway’s Volksgeist, such as its language (Volkssprache), folk tales and peasantry, that is, all the elements which are reminiscent of Britain’s Anglo-Saxon past. That the author adheres to the Anglo-Saxon cultural (and racial) agenda is made explicit in his Anti-Celtic attitude. Throughout his reference to Norway’s cultural renaissance in the nineteenth century, he ridicules the parallel attempt of the Scots to acquire a separate national identity, mainly through the nationalist manifestations of Ossianism and Pictomania. Apparently, his infatuation with the North is strictly Anglo-Centric, treating Englishness rather than Britishness as a national concept of paramount importance. In order to culturally define (and promote) England, he inevitably racialises Britain. In Laing’s text on Sweden, however, one can observe the author’s attempt to describe Britishness and Scottishness in juxtaposition with Swedish culture. Despite the writer’s limited reference to race and his severe criticism of everything that points to a departure of the Swedes from their Viking origins, it is evident that he also contemplates Sweden from a racial perspective, given his extensive emphasis on the country’s degenerate state after the introduction of French (Catholic) elements to Swedish culture. His attempt to stigmatise Swedish efforts towards modernisation and contrast it with the more pastoral, Arcadian aspect of Norway allude to his overall attempt to exalt Teutonism in every respect. Interestingly enough, Swedish Dystopia and Norwegian Utopia are always conceptualised in relation to Scottish identity, as Scotland plays a central role in Laing’s comparative view of the North. Laing clearly sees this duality in every British citizen who is not English. Indeed, he is Scottish but he also identifies with the British cause. For this reason, in Sweden both his Scottish and British identities unfold. Furthermore, the AngloSaxon connection that he aspires to illustrate through his travelogue is constructed upon its Scottish variant; that is, Laing addresses linguistic, educational and moral similarities between Scotland and Scandinavia, which are inevitably nuanced with racial comments.

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Another Scottish author, Elizabeth Jane Oswald, bases her racial discourse on the Anglo-Scandinavian unity on various levels. For one thing, she pays tribute to Herder’s concept of the Volksgeist by exploring the sagas as the main source of information around which the issues of Icelandic nationhood as well as British national identity revolve, while her travelogue is beset with valuable information on Iceland and Britain’s linguistic similarities (Volkssprache). Moreover, the author constantly reminds the reader of the racial connection between the Britons and the Icelanders by refusing to assume the role of the imperial beholder and by befriending the natives. When she touches on Iceland’s historical background, its Celtic roots come to the surface so that the Icelanders, a “mongrel” nation of Teutons and Celts, can be described as an enlightened nation. This dismisses Anti-Celtic racial theories that were propagated by English theorists. Throughout her travelogue, the author does not only dispel the Anglo-Saxon allegations about Celtic racial inferiority but also emphasises the significance of the Scots in the so called Northern Unity. As regards the Anglo-Irish author Selina Bunbury and the English author Ethel Brilliana Tweedie, they also embellish their travelogues with important ideas on the notion of race. On the one hand, Bunbury opts for an idealistic presentation of the island of Gotland in Sweden; she purposefully chooses this island, which was rendered the centre of attention by Anglo-Saxon and Nordicist theorists as the cradle of the Gothic race, and she juxtaposes the Swedish Teutons with the “inferior” Finnish and Russians. Her deterministic approach to race can be seen in the political analysis of Swedish-Finnish politics, in which she overtly approves of Finnish cultural attachment to their Teutonic neighbours, pointing to the racial (and cultural) expansion of the Saxons. Nevertheless, even though Tweedie only undertakes a journey to Finland, she also demonises the Russians and systematically others the Finns, since neither of them belongs to the Teutonic race. Their discourse obviously responds to the patronising view of peripheral countries, which do not form part of Britain’s nation-building agenda. Undeniably, Lady Wilde’s travelogue on Scandinavia is a travel text which mostly draws the reader’s attention to a racial Northern Utopia. By providing the reader with a minute description of the peoples that she comes across in her journey, she forms her discourse on the premise that race constitutes the only factor which could help a people maintain its national cohesion and she is anxious to document the early stages of nation formation in Europe. In doing so, she largely draws on the anthropological studies of the time in order to compare and contrast the two alleged supreme races of Europe, the Celts and the Teutons. An ardent advocate of

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Irish independence from Britain, Lady Wilde makes it explicit that her travelogue is about the significance of Irishness as an autonomous national idea. Rejecting the unionist idea which other Celtic authors suggest (Oswald, Laing, Bunbury), she refuses to use the term British when she speaks of Irishness. Moreover, the Irish author invokes and challenges the tenets of Gobineau’s racial hypothesis so as to exalt the merits of the Celtic race. Notwithstanding my extensive use of the term Northern Utopia in the representation of the North by Victorian travellers, some Scandinavian nations are not always seen in this light. Laing’s text is beset with remarks on Sweden’s decadent state and unjust political system, a fact which clashes with the overall view of the North as strictly utopian. It seems that this travel writer yearns to identify instances in which he could corroborate his theory on Anglo-Saxonism. The juxtaposition of despotic Sweden with liberal Norway reveals Laing’s desire to romanticise Scandinavia and throw an approving glance at its pastoral aspects, which, according to the author, can only be found in Norway or on the island of Gotland where the old Gothic spirit lingers. Though of Anglo-Irish origin, Bunbury does not indulge into a similar comparison between her native Ireland and the North. Even though she does not bestow significant attention on the rising Northernism, she also adopts a patronising attitude when witnessing the effect of modernism on the Swedish nation, an attitude which resembles Laing’s dystopian portrayal of Sweden. Similarly to these travelogues, Marryat seizes every opportunity to stress the weak image of Denmark by portraying it as a country in eclipse in opposition to his home country whose imperial splendour comes to the fore. His view of Denmark is always related to the parallel nation-building agenda of the British Empire. Despite his loyalty to the imperial cause, Marryat projects Denmark as an enlightened nation in which the Grundtvigian tradition has forged the people’s national conscience. Likewise, Wilde’s travelogue results in an exaltation of the Celts over the Teutons and the writer is trapped in the imperial discourse which she attempts to reverse by projecting the merits of the Celtic race. One might observe the similarities in Metcalfe’s and Lowe’s perceptions of Norway. Both authors foreground the idea of the Volksgeist by choosing to emphasise the nation’s rich folk culture. Lowe’s text is equally imbued with the northernist spirit. What is important in both writers’ cases is that they refuse to adopt a racial outlook on the country. Most importantly, both travellers wish to strengthen the image of Norway as an enlightened nation instead of othering the country. In a similar vein, Baring-Gould’s view of Iceland as a storehouse of history and the cradle

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of Western culture coincides with Oswald’s attempt to read the nation on the basis of the island’s literary accomplishments. Nevertheless, BaringGould’s exclusive focus on Icelandic medieval literature provides his readership with insufficient information on the country’s nineteenthcentury condition. His desire to project himself as a story-teller, whose erudition allows him to address several aspects of the Old Norse culture, overshadows his primary goal to represent modern Iceland to the Victorian reader. The Icelandic Utopia is largely based on the writer’s retrospective view of the island. Oswald appears to be more confident in her role as a travel writer; this challenges my introductory statement that Victorian women were not confident travellers. Oswald defies every imperial convention by allying with the natives, and instead of seeking to patronise the nation, she constantly draws a link between the country’s past and present situation, an attitude which is reminiscent of Lowe and Metcalfe’s outlook on the North. I believe that Oswald’s and Baring-Gould’s different perspectives are related to the former’s Scottish and the latter’s AngloCentric perspective, that is, the way in which they wish to define Britishness. The Herderian concept of the Volksgeist also occupies a prevalent position in Boileau-Elliott’s text. His travelogue reveals that Britishness does not always pertain to insular Britain but has acquired a broader meaning as a property of all imperial subjects. As for Tweedie’s travelogue, even though her text is interspersed with patronising comments, her focus on Finnish women’s accomplishments and her observations on Finnish folk culture reveal her genuine interest in the country. To sum up, I would like to stress that Northern Utopia is nothing more than all the perceptions of British travellers on the North depending on the historical, political and social context that forged their subject position. Regardless of the common view that a great deal of nineteenth-century travellers did not hesitate to denigrate or appropriate other cultures in order to project Britishness as the national idea of utmost importance, there was an equal number of Britons who sought to identify with the country visited in their attempt to break away from the oppressive conventions of Victorian society. With its classfree societies, its sturdy peasants and its numberless geological curiosities, the North came to epitomise the travellers’ desire for further emancipation as well as return to the preindustrial world; it also functioned as the appropriate Arcadian locus for the application of all nation-building theories of British scholars, who were anxious to substantiate their arguments with a visit to the Nordic nations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources Alec-Tweedie, Ethel B. Through Finland in Carts. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1897. Print. —. Women and Soldiers. London: John Lane, 1918. Print. Baring Gould, Sabine. Iceland its Scenes and Sagas. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 2004. Print. Bunbury, Selina. A Summer in Northern Europe, Including Sketches in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Aland Islands, Gothland. London: General Books, 2009. Print. Coxe, William. Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark. 5 vol. London: T. Cadell, 1792. Print. Laing, Samuel. A Tour in Sweden in 1838 Comprising Observations on the Moral, Political and Economical State of the Swedish Nation London: Longman, 1839. Print. Lowe, Emily. Unprotected Females in Norway, or The Pleasantest Way of Travelling There, Passing through Denmark and Sweden. With Scandinavian Sketches from Nature. London: Routledge and Co., 1856. Print. Marryat. Horace. A Residence in Jutland, the Danish Isles, and Copenhagen. New York: New York University Press, 1860. Print. Metcalfe, Frederick. The Oxonian in Thelemarken or Notes of Travel in South-Western Norway, in the Summers of 1856-1857. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1858. Print. —. The Englishman and the Scandinavian: Or a Comparison of AngloSaxon and Old Norse Literature. Ludgate Hill: Trübner & Co., 1880. Print. —. The Oxonian in Iceland; or Notes of Travel in that Island in the Summer of 1860, with Glances at Icelandic Folklore and Sagas. London: Longman, 1861. Print. Wilde, Lady (Jane Francesca Elgee). Driftwood from Scandinavia. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1884. Print. Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Ed. Richard Holmes. London: Penguin Books, 1987. Print.

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