As she approaches marriage in The Bridal Wreath, Kristin must juggle honor and familial piety with passion and physical love. These men, and their wildly different approaches to wooing Kristin, embody the novel’s conflict, and lead to Kristin’s lifelong personal struggles. Over the course of its pages the reader meets Simon, the man Kristin’s father chooses as her spouse, and then Erlend, the man Kristin meets independent of her father. Undset’s first novel, translated as The Bridal Wreath, tells Kristin’s story from childhood to marriage it is the story of Kristin as maiden. While certainly fictionalized, Kristin’s life gives the reader an intimate view of the daily toils, concerns and struggles for people of fourteenth-century Norway from childhood to old age.Īmidst the harsh Norwegian landscape, Kristin comes of age. Throughout the three volumes, Undset blends various literary styles and folkloric traditions to reflect the beautiful, severe, and disciplined lives of medieval Norwegian families.
Undset begins the first volume of Kristin Lavransdatter- The Bridal Wreath-by cataloging Kristin’s lineage, thus setting her story among the medieval epics. These books propel the reader back to a time when social roles were strictly defined, when the medieval church touched nearly every aspect of life, but also when folklore traditions still held sway. Kristin Lavransdatter is a compelling heroine, even for the twenty-first-century reader, because she is strong-willed, but also because she is so steeped in her time. Undset’s three books demonstrate her study of medieval texts through her accurate portrayal of Kristin’s life in fact, these books led to Sigrid Undset winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928. From maidenhood to death, Kristin’s life weaves together details from northern Europe’s medieval history, politics, religion, and family life. Originally published in 1920-1922 as The Bridal Wreath, The Mistress of Husaby, and The Cross, Undset’s trilogy follows the life of its fourteenth-century Norwegian heroine. Kristin Lavransdatter is Sigrid Undset’s three-part epic chronicling the life of the titular character from early childhood to medieval old age.
0 kommentar(er)
