This book explores various forms of cultural influence and exchange between Britain and the Nordic countries in the late eighteenth century and romantic period. Broadly new-historicist in approach, but drawing also on influential descriptions of genre, discipline, mediation, cultural exchange, and comparative methodologies, these essays not only constitute a substantial and innovative contribution to scholarly understanding of the development of romanticisms and romantic nationalisms in Britain and the Nordic countries, but also describe a pattern of cultural encounter which was predicated upon exchange and a sense of commonality rather than upon the perception of difference or alterity which has so often been discerned by critical descriptions of British romantic-period engagements with non-British cultures. The volume ought to appeal to a broad and genuinely international academic audience with interests in eighteenth-century and romantic-period culture in Britain and Scandinavia as well as to undergraduates taking courses in eighteenth-century, romantic, and Scandinavian studies.
1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. 'Imaginary circles round the human mind: bias and openness in Mary Wollstonecrafts Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) - Christoph Bode.- Chapter 3. From enlightened expectations to romantic fulfilment: British travellers visiting Finland - Leena Eilitt?.- Chapter 4. Constructing and classifying the North: Linnaeus in Lapland - Annika Lindskog.- Chapter 5. Inventing Jutland for the Golden Age: Danish artists guided by Sir Walter Scott - Gertrud Oelsner.- Chapter 6. The dance all under the greenwood tree: British and Danish romantic-period adaptations of two Danish elf ballads - Lis M?ller.- Chapter 7. The North and the East: the Odin migration theory in the eighteenth century and romantic pelch