Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World: Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross (review) (original) (raw)
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Reconstructing Old Norse Oral Tradition
The written residue of oral tradition from the medieval Nordic world encompasses a wide variety of pan-national genres, including charms, legends, and genealogical lore, but modern scholarly attention has generally focused on two areas: (1) the prose (and often prosimetrical) Icelandic sagas and (2) traditional poetry in its two dominant forms, eddic and scaldic.
Unwanted. Neglected Approaches, Characters, and Texts in Old Norse-Icelandic Saga Studies
2021
The 9 essays collected in this volume are the result of a workshop for international doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in Old Norse-Icelandic Saga Studies held at the Institute for Nordic Philology (LMU) in Munich in December 2018. The contributors focus on ›unwanted‹, illicit, neglected, and marginalised elements in saga literature and research on it. The chapters cover a wide range of intra-textual phenomena, narrative strategies, and understudied aspects of individual texts and subgenres. The analyses demonstrate the importance of deviance and transgression as literary characteristics of saga narration, as well as the discursive parameters that have been dominant in Saga Studies. The aim of this collection is to highlight the productiveness of developing modified methodological approaches to the sagas and their study, with a starting point in narratological considerations. Andreas Schmidt and Daniela Hahn are postdoctoral researchers, reading and teaching Old Icelandic literature from narratological perspectives. Both completed their PhDs in Scandinavian Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. Following Bad Boys and Wicked Women (Münchner Nordistische Studien 27), this is their second co-edited collection of essays.
The Grettis Saga through Time and Space: An Exploration of Topics in Old Norse Sagas
Academic Journal of Modern Philology , 2020
The paper provides a brief summary of the Old Norse Grettis Saga and examines it in terms of research aspects outside of the field of literary studies. It highlights the historical, cultural, social, and religious contexts of the work, giving explanation as to where indications of them can be found in the saga. At the same time it tries to explain some of the more obscure aspects, such as the supernatural elements, in order to give clarity to the method of interpretation. Vital information on the grouping of Old Norse sagas, as well as the importance of ancestry in the texts, are provided and elaborated. Definitions of key terms essential to understand the source material are provided and kept on a level clear to a reader not fluent in the topic. Categorizations of the mentioned saga genre are also provided, with the hope to spark interest in the vast variety of motifs and key aspects of the Old Norse sagas. Further suggestions for research outside of the field are presented; however, they are not taken up completely. The paper shows the Old Norse sagas as potent, yet often overlooked, literary works worthy of attention as possible research material in the field of humanities.
This article focuses on works attributed to Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson who were monks at Þingeyrar around the turn of the twelfth century. More specifically, the study examines their learned and creative use of biblical typology and symbolism in relation to King Ólafr Tryggvason and the Swedish Viking Yngvarr viðforli. These figures become especially prominent when the theme of salvation is touched on; this, it is argued, was of considerable importance to the Icelandic aristocratic and intellectual elite in the second half of the twelfth century. This, in turn, may shed light on the active participation of the chieftains Gizurr Hallsson and Jón Loptsson in this early phase of saga writing in Iceland.
An Introduction to Norse-Icelandic Literature
Based on a literary and historical perspective, this talk will explore what in actuality are the famous “Viking Sagas” in a way that is fitting both for complete newcomers and connoisseurs of Norse culture. The origin of the various subgenera of sagas such as kings’ sagas, legendary sagas and chivalric sagas will all be discussed, alongside the transmission of skaldic poetry, the historicity of saga narratives and much more. In addition, a special focus will be put on the place of supernatural and Heathen motives in this literary tradition and how much faith can modern Pagans and Heathens have in these age-old tales.
New Norse Studies, edited by Jeffrey Turco, gathers twelve original essays engaging aspects of Old Norse–Icelandic literature that continue to kindle the scholarly imagination in the twenty-first century. The assembled authors examine the arrière-scène of saga literature; the nexus of skaldic poetry and saga narrative; medieval and post-medieval gender roles; and other manifestations of language, time, and place as preserved in Old Norse–Icelandic texts. This volume will be welcomed not only by the specialist and by scholars in adjacent fields but also by the avid general reader, drawn in ever-increasing number to the Icelandic sagas and their world. Table of Contents Preface; Jeffrey Turco, volume editor: Introduction; Andy Orchard: Hereward and Grettir: Brothers from Another Mother?; Richard L. Harris: “Jafnan segir inn ríkri ráð”: Proverbial Allusion and the Implied Proverb in Fóstbrœðra saga; Torfi H. Tulinius: Seeking Death in Njáls saga; Guðrún Nordal: Skaldic Poetics and the Making of the Sagas of Icelanders; Russell Poole: Identity Poetics among the Icelandic Skalds; Jeffrey Turco: Loki, Sneglu-Halla þáttr, and the Case for a Skaldic Prosaics; Thomas D. Hill: Beer, Vomit, Blood and Poetry: Egils saga, Chapters 44-45; Shaun F. D. Hughes: The Old Norse Exempla as Arbiters of Gender Roles in Medieval Iceland; Paul Acker: Performing Gender in the Icelandic Ballads; Joseph Harris: The Rök Inscription, Line 20; Sarah Harlan-Haughey: A Landscape of Conflict: Three Stories of the Faroe Conversions; Kirsten Wolf: Non-Basic Color Terms in Old Norse-Icelandic