Writing on the academic study of masculinity in medieval literature, Ásdís Egilsdóttir has noted that,

Ásdís is entirely correct that scholars exhibit an anxiety over writing about masculinity in medieval literature and that they frequently make a point of justifying their choice to do so. But it is nevertheless important that researchers continue to do this in order both to acknowledge their intellectual debts to the tradition of feminist research within which the scholarly study of masculinities is situated and to indicate how such analyses are inevitable, necessary, and logical applications of feminist theoretical insights. In particular, it is largely to Black feminist thinkers that we owe the indispensable insight that there are multiple modes of femininity and multiple ways of ‘being a woman’. It is by the extension of such theorisations that we reach the inevitable conclusion that there are also multiple ways of exhibiting masculinity. But the mere recognition of the logic of this position will be of little impact unless we draw on this insight in our scholarly explorations of masculinity. If we only examine the construction of femininities we, as a side effect, privilege – even reify – masculinity as an unimpeachable, ‘natural’ category. It is only by studying masculinities – their formation and operation – that we force masculinities, like femininities, to be recognised as socially constructed. And it is not until we acknowledge masculinities’ social construction that we may begin to critique them and consider their socio-political effects.

This volume of essays is the first that takes masculinities in Old Norse- Icelandic literature as its focus. The past few decades have seen a welcome proliferation of books – both monographs and edited collections – that consider masculinities in a range of other medieval literatures. But this flurry of activity has had a fragmentary influence upon Old Norse-Icelandic studies, meaning that a coherent exploration of the works that address masculinities in Old Norse-Icelandic literature – as well as a fuller consideration of masculinities across the many genres of Old Norse-Icelandic texts – is long overdue. Not only will more sustained attention to masculinity in Old Norse-Icelandic literature provide clearer frameworks for future work in this area, but it will also offer a valuable contribution to our understanding of the ways in which masculinities function and are expressed in a literature that frequently offers clear contrasts to other medieval literatures, especially other European literatures. The oft-remarked upon distinctiveness of saga-style narration, the existence of a variety of genres of extended prose texts, and the very particular forms of poetry that were produced mean that Old Norse-Icelandic literature is unique among medieval literatures. The socio-political context in which this literature flourished – a frontier community, in a harsh and unforgiving environment, that was without monarchical rule for much of its history – often enables representations and constructions of identity in general, and of masculinities in particular, that vary significantly from those found in other contemporary literatures; in a similar way, the distinctive literary forms of the Old Norse-Icelandic corpus have already provided valuable additions to understandings of medieval literature in other areas, for example of Romance in a pan-European context. This volume thus serves a dual purpose: to explore the textual performance and representation of masculinities in Old Norse-Icelandic literature and to provide a deeper understanding of masculinities more generally. In order to achieve these joint aims, this introduction first discusses the concept of gender (including masculinity) to provide a general statement of the approach to masculinities used throughout the volume.

In Chapter 35 of Laxdoela saga, a woman named Auðr is publicly accused by her husband Þórðr of having worn men's breeches ‘sem karlkonur’ (like masculine women). He uses this claim as reason and legal justification for divorcing her. As readers, we cannot know for certain whether this accusation is to be considered factually accurate or a complete fabrication. Before this chapter, Auðr's ostensible deviation from sartorial gender norms had not previously been mentioned in the saga; the issue is only raised at this point when Þórðr's love-interest Guðrún – who is also the woman he will marry following his separation from Auðr – asks him whether it is true that his wife ‘er jafnan í brókum ok setgeiri í’ (is always wearing breeches with inset gores) and also suggests that the name Bróka-Auðr (Breeches-Auðr) has come to be associated with her as a result. But regardless of its veracity, this claim of a transgressive gender performance is apparently – within the world of Laxdoela saga at least – a legitimate, and culturally intelligible, reason for the dissolution of their marriage.

Instances such as this one, in which cultural masculinity is ascribed to a female-sexed character, can be found in a number of the sagas of Icelanders. And in modern gender studies scholarship today, as discussed in the introduction to this volume, the idea that sex and gender are not coterminous is both commonplace and widely accepted. Judith Butler's influential theorizations of the socially-constructed and performative nature of gender allow for (and even demand) the radical uncoupling of gender from sex. The result of this radical disruption is that – to use Butler's words – ‘gender becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one’. Jack Halberstam, partially drawing upon Butler's theorizations and exploring extensively the implications of this radical uncoupling, has discussed the realities and representations of female-sexed women and characters who embody or perform modalities of masculinity.

FROM THEIR VERY beginnings, Old Norse myth and poetry have been worked and reworked, written and rewritten, interpreted and reinterpreted, across a range of media. Various runestones, particularly from Sweden, depict scenes from myth and legend which are also recounted in the Poetic Edda. The eddic poetry of the Volsung cycle, to take one example among many, is found preserved – partially – within Vǫlsunga saga. Here, not only do a number of stanzas cited in the saga come from eddic poems but also Vǫlsunga saga itself is largely a prose retelling of the eddic Volsung sources. Slightly later in Icelandic literary history rimur (long stanzaic narrative poems) emerge as a literary form. Three cycles of rimur – Vǫlsungs rimur, Trymlur and Lokrur – find their inspiration in eddic and heroic sources. Furthermore, the development of the rimur form itself was at least partially influenced – in terms of ‘style, diction, and metrics’ – by the conventions of both eddic and skaldic poetry. A range of English poetry – from the medieval to the modern – shows the clear influence of Old Norse sources. O'Donoghue's study of The Return of the Native in this volume makes clear the influence of Old Norse poetry on one particular English author, and a number of novels, ranging from the high fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkien to the young adult fiction of Melvin Burgess, also owe a great debt to medieval Norse material. Comics and graphic novels, too, have drawn on material from Norse myth and legend. Norse material has also inspired a range of musical works, ranging from Richard Wagner's operatic Ring cycle to viking metal. Literal translation has kept Old Norse poetry alive, in myriad languages, for hundreds of years. But translation – whether literal, cultural or both – is not limited to the plastic, the graphic, the musical or the textual. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have given rise to a number of cinematic works that are either inspired by Norse material or can be regarded as adaptations of it.

gle: I've got an image of you - as an actress, that is - as a sort of loner. Although at the time of talking you are associated with the Royal Shakespeare Company, when I look back on your career I get the impression that you like to cut loose from time to time. I mean that you don't seem to like to be closely tied to any company style or ensemble for too long. Is this impression correct?

jd: Yes, it is correct. I think it doesn't evolve out of wanting specifically to be on my own - to be not connected with something. It doesn't really involve that. Very early on someone once said to my agent, 'Well we can't cast Judi in that, because that's a part for a leading lady and she's a soubrette.' I'm not going to be that. I've never wanted to be cast as one type of person. For instance I've lately read it twice that people have a rather serious image of me. They didn't use the word 'chilling' but they meant a rather serious, rather tragedienne person. Well that is so unlike me. I think things most probably happen most successfully in comedy, funnily enough. So, Gareth, it's not so much not wanting to be tied down to a company, it's rather not wanting to be tied down to an image. And so if anything like Cabaret and playing Sally Bowles came up, that was just like getting the most wonderful present, and everything else beside it appeared dross. Each time some kind of challenge like that comes up and somebody takes a gamble on me, then I want to do it.

In a recent review of the interpretations of Edward II and Richard II by the exciting young actor, Ian McKellen, Ronald Bryden quoted Richard Mansfield. The capacity required for the great Shakespearian roles is described thus:

It is heartening to note such words being used to indicate a young actor's quality yet, with a start, we realize how rarely they can be applied now. On the other hand, it is not long ago that we found them echoing in our minds when we experienced the best of Wolfit, Gielgud and Olivier.

In the summer number of Flourish J. C. Trewin amplifies the evidence of past glory. He recalls Ernest Milton's ' orchestration of the “Rogue and Peasant slave” soliloquy', and Maurice Evans' 'sweeping gesture at “Northumberland thou ladder'”. Richard Mansfield's strident image is matched by Trewin's recalling of 'Edith Evans' Millamant voice— fan spread and streamers out'.

Trewin is not indulging in romantic nostalgia. His point is firmly made.

It is an enormous achievement that the Royal Shakespeare Company, since 1960, has been able to maintain such a large head of steam in so many parts of its machine. When the theatre history of the sixties comes to be written this company will occupy a dominant position. The National Theatre (a later starter) still shows but few signs of catching up with the devious, athletic and exciting pace of its rival. Indeed, so far as Shakespeare is concerned, it has shown more signs of fruitless emulation than studied competitiveness. A Much Ado which seemed a self-congratulatory refugee from comic opera and an As You Like It from the Danny La Rue stable represent the image that most people carry with them of the National’s inventive and creative conception of our national dramatist.

Peripatetic academics return annually to this country with optimistic but strangely frequent apologias about the events on the boards at Stratford Ontario and Connecticut. They remain in Stratford, England, awhile; they often fulminate about what they see at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, but it is possible to detect, in the eyes, as they give you the last handshake, a look already of nostalgia for what they are leaving. So many of them tacitly seem to accept that, for all its shortcomings, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is the true and vital home of Shakespeare at mid-century.

This article is in three parts. The first discusses the acting (but particularly the speaking) of Gielgud and Olivier; the second attempts an analysis of Paul Scofield in the context of his Macbeth; the third is, in the main, a transcript of part of a tape-recorded conversation between Ian Richardson and myself.

The justification for the contents is the unusual opportunity presented recently to compare the work of two actors of the older generation and that of a midway and a younger generation. The film of Olivier's Othello followed by the recorded version (on which my analysis is based), a recital at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre when Gielgud enacted the deposition speech from Richard II (my analysis is based on this and the recording), Scofield's Macbeth and Richardson's Coriolanus and Malcolm-—these are the themes which came together and suggested my approach.