ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a succinct overview of the core perspectives on feud in both historical and literary research. However, it seems necessary to start from a broader perspective, as scholarship on feud did not originate in historiography or literary criticism, but in ethnography. The chapter presents a well-established tradition in anthropological research, which precedes studies of Norse feud by roughly half a century. Medievalists began to study feud following the anthropological example in the 1960s. Important dimension of feud concerns its relationship with gender. Carol Clover has shown that, while generally considered male business, feuds could include women as targets of vengeance. The chapter focuses on both the structure and the meaning of feud, on the individual reactions to and the systemic constraints of feud, but also closely examined more specific themes, such as its link to gender and mythology.
