Artikel
Europe's northern periphery and the future of women in the travel narratives of Ethel Tweedie
Verfasst von:
Ryall, Anka
in:
Nora
Oslo:
2009
,
273 - 288 S.
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| Einrichtung: | Ariadne | Wien |
|---|---|
| Verfasst von: | Ryall, Anka |
| In: | Nora |
| Jahr: | 2009 |
| Sprache: | Nicht einzuordnen |
| Beschreibung: | |
| Among the writers who defined the European northern periphery for British readers towards the end of the nineteenth century, Ethel Brilliana (Mrs Alec) Tweedie was a significant figure. In addition to numerous articles about various aspects of Fenno-Scandinavian culture, she published three book-length narratives based on her northern journeys, A Girl's Ride in Iceland (1889), A Winter Jaunt to Norway (1894), and Through Finland in Carts (1897). Though almost forgotten today, these books were widely read at the time, and Tweedie came to be regarded as an authority on the north. What makes Tweedie's Nordic travel narratives unique and of interest today is their conflation of discourses of northernness and female emancipation. This article outlines two different and apparently contradictory representations of the European north in Tweedie's travel narratives of the 1890s. On the one hand, they primitivize Fenno-Scandinavia by emphasizing the arctic climate and the area's distance both culturally and geographically from metropolitan European centres. On the other hand, Tweedie's Nordic travel narratives give the peripheral countries of Fenno-Scandinavia a symbolic centrality in the development of Europe. In some respects, particularly women's participation in social life, the northern nations are represented as models of progress. My focus is on Tweedie's final and most ambitious Nordic travel narrative, Through Finland in Carts, which equates northernness with modernity and the future of women. Compared to this exemplary north it is Britain that lags behind, and the contrast implies a fundamental critique of British culture at the fin de sicle. Finally, I trace the personal circumstances informing Tweedie's interest in Finnish women and discuss why they are deliberately concealed in the text itself. | |
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