The Romantic Canon and the Making of a Cultural Saint in the Faroe Islands

Abstract

This article explores the role of literature and romantic nationalism in the creation of nations as this applies to the Faroese nation, in particular the case of the poet Nólsoyar Páll. It is the ambition to discuss how literature can be a medium of collective identity-making, as it involves the canonisation of what is termed cultural saints (i.e. the heroic, mythological, and legendary figures who are seen as founders of communities). The article will give an introduction to the research that considers the dynamics of selected vernacular writers, artists or scholars for inclusion into the canon of cultural sainthood. The following will link a hitherto underexplored part of European romanticism to the developing theory of how durable forms of memory, such as public monuments, banknotes, hagiographies, are constructed.