Constructing national identity: Imperialism and nationalism in Victorian Britain's northern scholarship

Throughout the nineteenth century, Victorian Britain maintained an unusual interest in the Vikings and Scandinavia. This fascination with the Vikings stems from Victorians' general interest in medieval subjects, yet there is more involved in their infatuation with the Norsemen than just appreciation for a remote age. The Vikings became a part of Victorian popular culture. Images of robust Northmen appeared in novels, paintings, music, and theater. The homelands of the Vikings became popular travel locations. This study, however, does not intend to examine the Vikings in Victorian popular culture, but the scholarly work produced by Britons in the nineteenth century. This involves reading numerous glossaries and dictionaries, some novels, and many prefaces and dissertations attached to English translations of the Norse sagas. In these texts, the popular image of the Viking certainly exists, but there are more political motives behind the material. The nineteenth century was an age rampant with imperial goals. Nationalism was on the rise, and Britain had to compete with its other European rivals for global supremacy. The Northern scholarship of the period quickly became politicized, and was manipulated to support the British nation. Fascination with the Vikings led to the study of the Norse tongue, which opened up the study of Teutonic ethnology, which was then used by the Teuton's descendants to imply racial superiority over the rest of the world. Britain struggled with France and Germany throughout Victoria's reign. Victorians needed a way to separate themselves, which presented a difficult task due to the fact that the English, French, and Germans were all descended from Teutonic and Indo-European peoples. The Victorians believed the Scandinavian branch of the Teutonic race to be the dividing line and focused their research on pointing out this difference.