Thor: Myth to Marvel--Coming Soon from Continuum

Thor: Myth to Marvel
by Martin Arnold

Imprint: Continuum
Pub. date: 21 Jul 2011
ISBN: 9781441135421
256 Pages, paperback
World rights
Translation Rights Available
$29.95

An exploration of how the legend of Thor has been adopted, adapted and transformed through history.

Description

The myths of the Norse god Thor were preserved in the Icelandic Eddas, set down in the early Middle Ages. The bane of giants and trolls, Thor was worshipped as the last line of defence against all that threatened early Nordic society.

Thor’s significance persisted long after the Christian conversion and, in the mid-eighteenth century, Thor resumed a symbolic prominence among northern countries. Admired and adopted in Scandinavia and Germany, he became central to the rhetoric of national romanticism and to more belligerent assertions of nationalism.

Resurrected in the latter part of the twentieth century in Marvel Magazine, Thor was further transformed into an articulation both of an anxious male sexuality and of a parallel nervousness regarding American foreign policy.

Martin Arnold explores the extraordinary regard in which Thor has been held since medieval times and considers why and how his myth has been adopted, adapted and transformed.
Table of Contents

Introduction:Reverberations throughout History \ 1. The Giant Killer: Thor in Old Norse Mythology \ 2. Damnation and Resurrection: Thor from the Christian Conversion to the Enlightenment \ 3. The Romancing of Thor \ 4. Distant Thunder: Thor and the Nationalists \ 5. The God of War: Thor and the Fascists \ 6. Marvellous Thor \ Appendix \ Bibliography \ Index

Author(s)

Martin Arnold is Professor of Scandinavian Literature at Hull University. He is the author of The Vikings (Continuum, 2006).