Dr Brittany Schorn

Brittany completed her PhD on Old Norse wisdom poetry at the University of Cambridge in 2012 (the basis of her 2017 monograph, published by De Gruyter, Speaker and Authority in Old Norse Wisdom Poetry). She subsequently held post-doctoral positions at the University of Oxford, studying Old Norse eddic poetry (see the 2016 Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia from Cambridge University Press) and the University of Cambridge, where she was Research Associate on the Gersum Project (2016–20). She has published widely on Old Norse and Medieval English poetry. Together with Richard Dance and Sara Pons-Sanz, she was awarded the Sir Israel Gollancz prize by the British Academy in 2021.

Brittany is interested in the poetry of medieval Britain and Scandinavia. Her research has focused in particular on Old Norse eddic poetry and the influence of Old Norse on the Medieval English poetic lexicon.

Brittany teaches Prelims paper 1 and 2, FHS paper Paper 2 (Course II Paper 3) and a Paper 6 option 'Myth, Legend and Saga in Old Norse Literature'. Her Faculty teachings also includes an Introduction to Old Literature lecture series in Michaelmas term.

‘Mythology within Bounds: Heroic Narrative in Eddic Poetry’, in Epic and Romance, a Guide to European Literature, ed. L. Neidorf (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer) [in press]

‘Wisdom’, in A Critical Companion to Genre in Old-Norse/Icelandic Literature, eds. M. Bampi, C. Larrington and Sif Rikharðsdóttir (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020)

(with Prof. R. Dance) ‘Tykes and Vikings: Looking for the Old Norse Influence on Northern English Vocabulary’, Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society (2018)

Speaker and Authority in Old Norse Wisdom Poetry: ‘How Can His Word Be Trusted?’ (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017)

(editor, with C. Larrington and J. Quinn) A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)

‘Eddic Modes and Genres’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, eds. C. Larrington, J. Quinn and B. Schorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 231–51

‘Eddic Style’, in A Handbook to Eddic Poetry: Myths and Legends of Early Scandinavia, eds. C. Larrington, J. Quinn and B. Schorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 271–87

‘Divine Semantics’, Scripta Islandica 64 (2013), 67–98

‘Eddic Poetry for a New Era: Tradition and Innovation in Sólarljóð and Hugsvinnsmál’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 7 (2011), 131–49