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Colour in the Eddic Mythological Poems

出版	Aberdeen University, 2019
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=r09RyQEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋We live in a world full of colour. We take pleasure and personal enjoyment in the beauty of colour in the natural world and its use in literature. Colours can, and do, express deeper meanings in poems, songs, literature, and art, encouraging those who are listening, reading or looking to feel a certain way. And it is with these expressions of meaning and emotion in mind that the use of colours in the Old Norse-Icelandic eddic mythological poems, their associations, and/or their symbolic functions, is explored in this thesis. I examine and address the various complications a researcher faces when investigating the very broad scope encompassed by the word 'colour' across various disciplines and the problems of differing world concepts of colour, including the ramifications of applying an anglophone perspective to foreign colour terms. I address the question: Can we truly know how colours were perceived in a past society? In addition, I discuss the difficulties of the fluidity of medieval colour symbolism. Through the critical assessment and contextual interpretation of the significance of each colour term that I have found used in the eddic mythological poems contained in the Icelandic manuscript known as Codex Regius (GKS 2365 4to) this thesis proposes that the use of the various colours in the poems imparted information about social structure and status, fertility, and gender identity; and that colours were used to signify beauty, death, power, wealth and supernatural potency. I show that, as a colour, gold had its own unique identity, thus differing from the stance taken by previous scholars. I also show that although medieval colour symbolism was fluid the Old Norse-Icelandic eddic mythological poems reveal a stable form of colour symbolism.