Borovsky, Zoe. Never in Public

• Author: Borovsky, Zoe
• Title: Never in Public: Women and Performance in Old Norse Literature
• Published in: The Journal of American Folklore 112.443
• Year: 1999
• Pages: 6-39
• E-text: jstor.org
• Reference: Borovsky, Zoe. "Never in Public: Women and Performance in Old Norse Literature." The Journal of American Folklore 112.443 (1999): 6-39.

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Annotation

In the medieval Icelandic family sagas, women as well as men gained and bestowed honor by performing verbally. While men's performances took place in the official, public realm, women promoted and defended the honor of the household in the domestic, private realm. With the introduction of writing, the boundary between public and private was more strictly enforced, and women's participation in the honor system became more restricted.

References

Chapter 044: munt þú nú hafa eggjað þá: "Here it is Berghora's ability to influence her sons (privately, unofficially, yet persistently) that effectively undermines Njaill's efforts to negotiate an end to the feud using official, public means. … These women performed in the more private space. In addition to the social-legal concept of official public space, with its center at the Althing, there was another spatial dimension with the farmstead as the center and the world outside as the periphery." (p. 15).

Chapter 102: Þangbrandur og Steinvör: "Here it is Berghora's ability to influence her sons (privately, unofficially, yet persistently) that effectively undermines Njaill's efforts to negotiate an end to the feud using official, public means. … These women performed in the more private space. In addition to the social-legal concept of official public space, with its center at the Althing, there was another spatial dimension with the farmstead as the center and the world outside as the periphery." (pp. 9-10).

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