The Genre of Trolls - Doria

Holbek broaches a subject that will be prominent in my own thesis,
namely the question of intergeneric dialogue or intergenericity (for the
terms, see 1.4.3; cf. chapter 6 for analysis). My theoretical framework is
different, but Holbek is an important precedent in several ways. Firstly, he
points to the phenomenon of intergeneric dialogue itself, and demonstrates
that the generic ambiguity of texts does not have to be resolved, and that a
text need not necessarily be inserted into one, unambiguous slot in the
genre system. Secondly, Holbek indicates the import of norms and values
in the construction of the tale and the legend as genres, and I will be
touching on that topic as well, but from the perspective of distorted norms
and values in parodic narratives.
Bo Lönnqvist briefly surveys the relation between physical appearance
and cultural barriers in the article “Troll och människor” (‘Trolls and Humans’,
1996). The form of the body has been used as a criterion for distinguishing
between the normal and the abnormal, the human and the nonhuman
in many contexts for several centuries, as his material stemming
from the 17th century onward shows. One of these contexts is the supranormal
tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries, and especially the notion of
changelings. The changeling embodied what the human child should not
be like, possessing corporeal traits that were the object of derision in folk
culture. More generally, the physical attributes of supernatural beings could
be both positive and negative, and the meanings ascribed to them depend
on the situation, and the time and place at which they are encountered.
These traits might be turned into the inverse of the normal, substituting
oneeyedness for twoeyedness, an animal limb for a human one, etc. Apart
from such a conceptual delimitation, supranormal creatures are also subject
to a territorial demarcation, relegated as they are to the forest and the wilds,
the water or the subterranean world, separate from human habitation
(Lönnqvist 1996: 152–155). The ambiguity between human and animal characteristics
is an important one, recurring in traditional abusive terms, for
example. Lönnqvist stresses the duality of these features, and wonders
whether they are losing their ambivalence, becoming wholly negative, in
contemporary culture. In other words, is the nuanced perception of these
attributes giving way to increasing aggression resulting in greater humiliation
for the victim (Lönnqvist 1996: 157)? Thus, it is the symbolic properties
of trolls and changelings that are in focus, and they are regarded as manifestations
of a more general cultural pattern.
16
Introduction