Involuntary physical manifestations of emotions: implications for concept of the body and saga style
Abstrakt
Examples of physical displays of emotion in Old Norse literature show that emotions are depicted as physical changes taking place in connection with an emotional state. The argument that feelings in Old Norse literature are expressed through actions, mediated by speech and physical manifestations-that this is the only possible stylistic means for expressing an inner life-has repeatedly been shown to be a simplification. Laconic reactions in the sagas are thus not caused by a lack of literary methods to express emotion and an interconnection between body and soul might be understood as one of the factors resulting in the "objective" style of Old Norse literature.Physical manifestations of emotions are in many places used without comments, explanations or exaggerations implicating that psycho-physical connections were obvious for readers or listeners of those works. The protagonists swell up, change colour and lie down in bed, even die, but the literature is often not interested in the internal mechanism of emotional, cognitive or physiological processes; idioms and stories do not indicate an unambiguous mechanical concept for what is happening deep in the human body during these experiences. The emotion is not perceived as a pre-existing object that can be manipulated and its physical displays can be, in some cases, a way to mediate it without involving any attempt to suppress, mask, or transform it.
The expression of emotions through the body was used in the given emotive script without further explanation, and therefore the body-mind connection, also formulated as outside-inside connection, must have been evident to the reader. If the psycho-physical reactions are understood as a logical consequence of the holistic concept of man, it might be also seen on the level of style. The so-called objectivity that seems to us as describing the immaterial through its material manifestations can reflect the interconnection between body and soul in which a physical expression is at same time expression of a mental state and to describe in our view a mental condition as a sickness is an evident possibility. As this is not due to the mere absence of other means of expression, this style should be understood as result of a way of thinking and it is relevant to ask why it has evolved. This will be ilustrated on examples from Jomsvíkinga saga, one of the oldest sagas.