Gísli Súrsson: A Drama and the Woman Question

Abstract

Gísli Súrsson: A Drama is a play by the late-Victorian author Beatrice Helen Barmby. This largely overlooked adaptation of the Old Norse Gísla saga Súrssonar is representative of the nineteenth-century British appreciation of the medieval North. In the thesis, the play is analysed in the light of the late Victorian debate of women’s rights. The main aims of this thesis are to reintroduce Beatrice Helen Barmby’s authorship and interpret the saga heroines of Gísli Súrsson: A Drama as potential conduits of progressive feminist ideas in Victorian Britain. The analysis is inspired by the new historicist method of approaching literary works through the study of the author’s background alongside contemporary social, cultural, and historical realities. The thesis consists of two major parts: the first part introduces Beatrice Helen Barmby’s biographical and literary background, her politically active family and the subtleties of the Woman Question of the late nineteenth-century Britain; the second part is an analysis of the play’s main female characters Aud and Ásgerd and the standpoints of women’s rights debate from which those characters can be interpreted, namely division of gender roles and marriage. The results of this thesis show that Gísli Súrsson: A Drama is infused with the consciousness of the women’s rights debate and that it favours the reformist side of the debate, where increased opportunities and respect for women are advocated for, but separate gender roles are maintained.