Download or read book The Medieval Saga written by Carol J. Clover and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in the thirteenth century, the Icelandic prose sagas, chronicling the lives of kings and commoners, give a dramatic account of the first century after the settlement of Iceland—the period from about 930 to 1050. To some extent these elaborate tales are written versions of traditional sagas passed down by word of mouth. How did they become the long and polished literary works that are still read today? The evolution of the written sagas is commonly regarded as an anomalous phenomenon, distinct from contemporary developments in European literature. In this groundbreaking study, Carol J. Clover challenges this view and relates the rise of imaginative prose in Iceland directly to the rise of imaginative prose on the Continent. Analyzing the narrative structure and composition of the sagas and comparing them with other medieval works, Clover shows that the Icelandic authors, using Continental models, owe the prose form of their writings, as well as some basic narrative strategies, to Latin historiography and to French romance.
Download or read book The Growth of the Medieval Icelandic Sagas 1180 1280 written by Theodore Murdock Andersson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andersson introduces readers to the development of the Icelandic sagas between 1180 and 1280, a crucial period that witnessed a gradual shift of emphasis from tales of adventure and personal distinction to the analysis of politics and history.
Download or read book The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas written by Ármann Jakobsson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-17 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last fifty years have seen a significant change in the focus of saga studies, from a preoccupation with origins and development to a renewed interest in other topics, such as the nature of the sagas and their value as sources to medieval ideologies and mentalities. The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas presents a detailed interdisciplinary examination of saga scholarship over the last fifty years, sometimes juxtaposing it with earlier views and examining the sagas both as works of art and as source materials. This volume will be of interest to Old Norse and medieval Scandinavian scholars and accessible to medievalists in general.
Download or read book The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition written by Gísli Sigurðsson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work explores the role of orality in shaping and evaluating medieval Icelandic literature. Applying field studies of oral cultures in modern times to this distinguished medieval literature, G sli Sigur sson asks how it would alter our reading of medieval Icelandic sagas if it were assumed they had grown out of a tradition of oral storytelling, similar to that observed in living cultures. Sigur sson examines how orally trained lawspeakers regarded the emergent written culture, especially in light of the fact that the writing down of the law in the early twelfth century undermined their social status. Part II considers characters, genealogies, and events common to several sagas from the east of Iceland between which a written link cannot be established. Part III explores the immanent or mental map provided to the listening audience of the location of Vinland by the sagas about the Vinland voyages. Finally, this volume focuses on how accepted foundations for research on medieval texts are affected if an underlying oral tradition (of the kind we know from the modern field work) is assumed as part of their cultural background. This point is emphasized through the examination of parallel passages from two sagas and from mythological overlays in an otherwise secular text.
Download or read book The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse Icelandic Saga written by Margaret Clunies Ross and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-28 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The medieval Norse-Icelandic saga is one of the most important European vernacular literary genres of the Middle Ages. This Introduction to the saga genre outlines its origins and development, its literary character, its material existence in manuscripts and printed editions, and its changing reception from the Middle Ages to the present time. Its multiple sub-genres - including family sagas, mythical-heroic sagas and sagas of knights - are described and discussed in detail, and the world of medieval Icelanders is powerfully evoked. The first general study of the Old Norse-Icelandic saga to be written in English for some decades, the Introduction is based on up-to-date scholarship and engages with current debates in the field. With suggestions for further reading, detailed information about the Icelandic literary canon, and a map of medieval Iceland, this book is aimed at students of medieval literature and assumes no prior knowledge of Scandinavian languages.
Download or read book Medieval Iceland written by Jesse L. Byock and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1990-02-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gift of Joan Wall. Includes index. Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-248) and index. * glr 20090610.
Download or read book The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason written by Oddr Snorrason and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oddr Snorrason, a Benedictine monk in northern Iceland in the late twelfth century, composed a landmark Latin biography of the legendary Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason (died 1000 C.E.). This biography was soon translated into Icelandic, and the translation (though not the Latin original) is preserved in two somewhat differing versions and a small fragment of a third. The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason is the first English translation of this text, augmented by an introduction and notes to guide the reader. There is a strong possibility that Oddr's biography was the first full-length saga of the Icelandic Middle Ages. It ushered in a century of saga writing that assured Iceland a unique place in medieval literature and in the history of prose writing. Aside from being a harbinger of the saga tradition, and indeed of the modern novel, The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason has its own literary merits, including an epic description of the great Battle of Svoldr, in which King Olaf succumbed. In significant ways the narrative of this battle anticipates the mature style of the classical sagas in the thirteenth century.
Download or read book An Introduction to the Sagas of Icelanders written by Carl Phelpstead and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining an accessible approach with innovative scholarship, this book provides up-to-date perspectives on a unique medieval literary genre. Carl Phelpstead draws on historical context, contemporary theory, and close reading to deepen our understanding of Icelandic saga narratives about the island's early history.
Download or read book Feud in the Icelandic Saga written by Jesse L. Byock and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1993-03-09 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byock sees the crucial element in the origin of the Icelandic sagas not as the introduction of writing or the impact of literary borrowings from the continent but the subject of the tales themselves - feud. This simple thesis is developed into a thorough examination of Icelandic society and feud, and of the narrative technique of recounting it.
Download or read book The Saga of r ur Kakali written by D.M. White and published by punctum books. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Heroic Saga and Classical Epic in Medieval Ireland written by Brent Miles and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2011 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the ways in which works of Classical literature influenced and were received by the native Irish tradition. Original, innovative work which elucidates a number of individual narratives; but more significantly, by placing these texts in their proper intellectual context, the author demonstrates how the world of learning in eleventh- andtwelfth-century Ireland really worked. He illuminates a world of medieval education and scholarship; he tells us (as no-one has done previously) what medieval Irish classicism was all about. Dr Máire ni Mhaonaigh, St John's College, University of Cambridge. The puzzle of Ireland's role in the preservation of classical learning into the middle ages has always excited scholars, but the evidence from the island's vernacular literature - as opposed to that in Latin - for the study of pagan epic has largely escaped notice. In this book the author breaks new ground by examining the Irish texts alongside the Latin evidence for the study of classical epic in medieval Ireland, surveying the corpus of Irish texts based on histories and poetry from antiquity, in particular Togail Troi, the Irish history of the Fall of Troy. He argues that Irish scholars' study of Virgil and Statius in particularleft a profound imprint on the native heroic literature, especially the Irish prose epic Táin Bó Cúailnge ("The Cattle-Raid of Cooley"). BRENT MILES is a Fellow in Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork.
Download or read book Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland written by Oren Falk and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the history of violence in medieval Iceland, testing theoretical tools by applying them to a series of case studies drawn from the Icelandic sagas.
Download or read book The Saga of the J msvikings written by Alison Finlay and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-08-05 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unique among the Icelandic sagas, part-history, part-fiction, the Saga of the Jómsvikings tells of a legendary band of vikings, originally Danish, who established an island fortress of the Baltic coast and launched and ultimately lost their heroic attack on the pagan ruler of Norway in the late tenth century. The saga's account of their stringent warrior code, fatalistic adherence to their own reckless vows and declarations of extreme courage as they face execution articulates a remarkable account of what it meant to be a viking. This translation presents the longest and earliest text of the saga, never before published in English, with a full literary and historical introduction to this remarkable work.
Download or read book Medieval Epics and Sagas written by and published by . This book was released on 2005-06-01 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The thousand year gap between the fall of Rome and the dawn of the Renaissance is sometimes dismissed as a cultural wasteland, a benighted period aptly called the Dark Ages. While it's true the arts and sciences didn't ... thrive during this time, the gift of literacy brought by Christian missionaries to the various tribes of Europe kept one literary form alive: the epic. Part poetry, part adventure story, the epic celebrated the deeds of heroes and dramatized a nation's cultural and religious ideals..."--Preface.
Download or read book Faroe Islander Saga written by Robert K. Painter and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new English translation of the Faroe-Islander Saga (Faereyinga saga)--a great medieval Icelandic saga--tells the story of the first settlers on these wind-swept islands at the edge of the Scandinavian world. Written by an anonymous 13th-century Icelander, the saga centers on the enduring animosity between Sigmundur Brestirsson and Thrandur of Gota, rival chieftains whose bitter disagreements on the introduction of Christianity to the Faroe Islands set the stage for much violence and a feud which then unfolds over generations of their descendants. Making the saga accessible to a wider English readership, the translation is accompanied by a brief introduction, explanatory notes, genealogical and chronological tables, detailed maps and an excerpt from Jomsvikings' Saga which informs missing passages from the Faroe-Islander Saga manuscripts.
Download or read book Morkinskinna written by and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-11 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Morkinskinna ("rotten parchment"), the first full-length chronicle of the kings of medieval Norway (1030-1157), forms the basis of the Icelandic chronicle tradition. Based ultimately on an original from ca. 1220, the single defective manuscript was written in Iceland ca. 1275. The present volume, the first translation of Morkinskinna in any language, makes this literary milestone available to a general readership, with introduction and commentary to clarify its position in the history of medieval Icelandic letters. The book is designed to be used by readers with no knowledge of Icelandic. The translation is keyed to, and may be used in conjunction with, the existing diplomatic editions. Notes on the manuscript problems, as well as introductory and appended matter, augment the text. Above all, Kari Ellen Gade's edition of the skaldic stanzas provides a substantial initial step toward a future edition of the Icelandic text: Morkinskinna is the first large-scale repository of skaldic verse. Morkinskinna also includes many semi-independent tales that recount the adventures of individual Icelanders at the Norwegian court. These tales, with their often humorous or ironic inflections, shift the focus of the chronicle from the deeds of the kings to the Icelandic perception of Norwegian royalty.
Download or read book Heroic Sagas and Ballads written by Stephen A. Mitchell and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Heroic Sagas and Ballads, Stephen A. Mitchell examines the world of the medieval Icelandic legendary sagas and their legacy in Scandinavia. Central to his argument is the view that these heroic texts should be studied in the light of the later Icelandic Middle Ages rather than that of the Viking age, although the stories, the tellers, and the audiences are clearly concerned with exactly this period of Scandinavian history. Viewing these sagas as the products of highly diverse forms of inspiration and creation—some oral, some written—Mitchell explores their aesthetic and social dimensions, demonstrating their function both as entertainment and as a literature with a more serious purpose, one with deep roots in Nordic literary consciousness. The traditions that these sagas relate possessed an importance beyond the temporal and geographical confines of medieval Iceland, and Heroic Sagas and Ballads considers the process by which these heroic materials were subsequently recast as metrical romances in Iceland and as ballads throughout the rest of Scandinavia. It is ultimately concerned with much more than just those stories that inspired such modern writers as Richard Wagner and H. Rider Haggard; its anthropological and folkloric approach to the legendary sagas shows how the extraliterary dimensions of medieval texts can be explored. Heroic Sagas and Ballads addresses issues of central importance to medievalists, folklorists, comparatists, Scandinavianists, and students of the ballad.
