L’immagine del nano nel Medioevo letterario germanico: da spirito immateriale a figura antropomorfa

Abstract

Among the fantastic creatures of the Germanic literary traditions, a prominent place undoubtedly belongs to the dwarfs, usually described as small anthropomorphic beings living underground and inside the rocks, skilled metalworkers and experts in magical arts. However, the image of the dwarf in romantic folklore and fairy tales, culminating in Tolkien’s mythology, is the result of a long evolutionary process that sees the layering of heterogeneous motifs inherited from the Germanic traditions, as well as from other cultural areas of Western Europe (such as, for example, the Celtic one). The present study aims to analyse and compare nature and characteristics of the dwarfs in the various Germanic literary sources, from Old English to Old Norse texts, to Middle-High German heroic epics, trying to reconstruct (as far as possible) the development of the portrayal of the dwarf in the ancient and medieval Germanic world, in particular the shift from the image of an immaterial spirit to that of an anthropomorphic figure, and to recognize any mutual influences and interferences between the different literary traditions.