Creative practice as research in Old Norse-Icelandic studies: Ancillary characters as storytellers

Abstract

This article is a discussion between two writer-academics about projects that re-imagined medieval Icelandic sagas from the perspectives of female characters in these works, and in ways that adopted conventions of interiority and point of view associated with modern creative writing. The discussion examines the potential for creative practice to form a research methodology within Old Norse-Icelandic studies. In particular, the contingent or open-ended nature of creative practice makes it a vehicle by which to raise new questions in relation to texts that have been the subject of extensive prior study. While creative practice as research is to some extent limited by its personal and often quite individual nature, it does offer methods by which imagination and the deeply engaged act of making and re-telling can form part of our understanding of Old Norse-Icelandic texts.