This article focuses on the English translations of, and especially the introductions to, Henrik Ibsen’s _A Doll’s House_ and _Ghosts_ by Henrietta Frances Lord (1848–1923). Lord was a British women’s rights activist and Theosophist and her translations epitomise an integrated system of Theosophical, feminist and socialist thought which arose in Britain during the 1880s. Treating Theosophy as a peripheral discourse of ‘rejected knowledge’ that stands in opposition to mainstream culture, the article discusses how Lord’s distinctive reading of Ibsen reflects its grounding in this social and intellectual periphery. It argues that such a reading demonstrates the value of re-assessing receptions of Ibsen which have taken place outside the mainstream and which – like the spiritual and social movements of which Lord’s translations are an expression – have continued to be sidelined by the classic Ibsen reception narrative.

Erin Michelle Goeres. _The Poetics of Commemoration: Skaldic Verse and Social Memory, c. 890–1070_ As its subtitle indicates, this study of commemorative skaldic verse in Norse-speaking royal and comital courts of the Viking Age is framed in terms of a ‘conception of memory as a social process, and of literary texts as expressions of that process’.

This article conceptualizes Kjartan Fløgstad’s novel _Grense Jakobselv_ as a literary site in the public process of collective remembering. Fløgstad’s stated intention for this novel was to challenge the received Norwegian memory of Nazism as an ‘unrefined’ mass phenomenon and to emphasize instead its basis in the cultured and educated elite. Drawing on James W. Wertsch’s work on the term ‘collective memory’ in the humanities and social sciences, the article explains the novel’s memory project and its contemporary political significance. After critically examining the novel’s portrayal of a connection between Nazism and bourgeois humanist culture, I look into aspects of its controversial reception. While acknowledging the flaws identified by some critics, I propose that Fløgstad’s ultimate aim is to promote a more self-critical use of political memory and history in the public sphere.

Ármann Jakobsson: A sense of belonging: Morkinskinna and Icelandic identity, c. 1220. Translated by Fredrik Heinemann. The Viking collection: studies in Northern civilization 22. University Press of Southern Denmark, Odense 2014. Pp. 406. ISBN 978-87-7674-845-6.

The Norwegian Constitution of May 1814 contained several radical provisions. Paragraphs 23 and 108 prohibited the king to create new nobility or bestow other hereditary privileges. While an overwhelming majority at the Constitutional Assembly voted to restrict aristocracy, existing noble families were allowed to retain some of their privileges. This article identifies these families and states what the privileges involved. In November 1814 Norway entered a forced union with Sweden. The remaining rights of the nobility and the institution itself caused dissent between parliament and the Swedish King. In 1816, 1818 and 1821 parliament voted to abolish aristocracy. On the first two occasions the King vetoed the bill, but he reluctantly sanctioned it in 1821. This was because the constitution had established a mechanism whereby parliament could override the royal veto. In return for the king’s sanction, parliament accepted the principle of compensation for lost noble rights and agreed to consider a proposal by the king to institute a new order of nobility without legal privileges. The latter was rejected in 1824 with reference to the constitution. The constitution was thus vital at every stage in abolishing the nobility.

This article argues that Norway’s political status at the point when it was pried from Denmark by the Great Powers in 1814 was that of a semi-core in an empire. The basic premise of the paper is that Denmark and Norway both were polities, with a polity being a social unit that has a distinct identity, a capacity to mobilize persons and a degree of institutionalization and hierarchy. The article begins with a nutshell conceptual history of ‘empire’ and concludes that Denmark was an empire in a conceptual sense. By applying the analytical literature on empire to Denmark, this study demonstrates that Denmark was also an empire in an analytical sense. Having established what kind of polity Denmark was, it goes on to determine the status of the Norwegian polity within it. Empires consist of a core, as well as of a number of peripheries whose closeness to the core varies. Norway was drawn closer to the imperial centre throughout the eighteenth century. It is, in fact, hard to imagine a part of an empire being closer to an imperial core than Norway was to Copenhagen. The article concludes by suggesting the term _semi-core_ to account for Norway’s place within the Danish empire.

Gabriel Scott’s comedy _Babels taarn_ (Babel Tower), first performed at the National Theatre in Kristiania in 1911, satirises the language controversy that was raging in Norway at the time. The play is regarded as important in linguistic and literary terms, but has been largely forgotten. This article argues that Scott was disillusioned by the politicisation of the language controversy and regarded the advance of _landsmål_ as an artificial and unwelcome phenomenon in the unfolding of Norwegian culture which failed to understand the complexities of inevitable cultural syncretism. _Babels taarn_ is discussed as a means by which Scott critiqued the defenders of _riksmål_ for their passivity. Finally, it is argued that _Babels taarn_ is a scathing indictment of what Scott perceived as misdirected and shallow nationalism.

Hans Christian Andersen’s tale _Nattergalen_ (‘The Nightingale’) has most often been understood in terms of Romanticism. Such a view, however, underestimates the ambiguity of the nightingale, especially its offer to become an imperial informant. This article takes as its point of departure the troubling inscrutability of the nightingale as located in its operations as voice. One of the ways this manifests itself in the tale is the constant tension between the nightingale’s body as a material thing and its voice as a non-material object. Hence Jacques Lacan’s theory of the voice as object cause becomes especially relevant in considering the disruptive effects the nightingale has on virtually all who come in contact with it. Furthermore, Lacan’s theory of the voice object as tied to desire and loss is helpful in articulating the tensions that manifest themselves throughout the tale. In the conclusion, I argue for a closer association between Andersen’s 1844 tale ‘The Shadow’ and ‘The Nightingale’ than one might initially suspect, given that both tales rest on a certain logic of spectrality.