Audun and the Polar Bear
Author | : William I. Miller |
Publisher | : BRILL |
Total Pages | : 167 |
Release | : 2008-10-31 |
ISBN-13 | : 9789047443445 |
ISBN-10 | : 9047443446 |
Rating | : 4/5 (46 Downloads) |
Download or read book Audun and the Polar Bear written by William I. Miller and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-10-31 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Audun’s Story is the tale of an Icelandic farmhand who buys a polar bear in Greenland for no other reason than to give it to the Danish king, half a world away. It can justly be listed among the finest pieces of short fiction in world literature. Terse in the best saga style, it spins a story of complex competitive social action, revealing the cool wit and finely-calibrated reticence of its three main characters: Audun, Harald Hardradi, and King Svein. The tale should have much to engage legal and cultural historians, anthropologists, economists, philosophers, and students of literature. The story’s treatment of gift-exchange is worthy of the fine anthropological and historical writing on gift-exchange; its treatment of face-to-face interaction a match for Erving Goffman.