The present study was undertaken several years ago for the purpose of providing the student of Germanic or medieval literature with a convenient synopsis of the controversy surrounding the origins of the Icelandic family sagas. In the meantime the need has become less acute. Marco Scovazzi's 'La Saga di Hrafnkell e il Problema delle Saghe Islandesi' (i960) compiles much of the material reviewed in Chapters 3 and 4, in addition to some material not included here, and gives an abundance of key quotations. Paul Schach has provided a translation (with bibliographical preface and notes) of Peter Hallberg's introduction to the saga under the title 'The Icelandic Saga' (1962) and has promised a review of research in Old Norse literature since 1930 to appear in a Modern Language Association handbook for students in medieval literature. Nonetheless it is hoped that this survey will still prove useful since, aside from the fact that Italian and English are not always interchangeable languages, it spans a longer period and is more synthetic in form than Scovazzi's book and more exclusively concerned with the central problem of origins than Hallberg's general essay.
Author(s): Theodore M. Andersson
Series: Yale Germanic Studies, 1
Publisher: Yale University Press
Year: 1964
Language: English
Pages: 198
City: New Haven
Preface v
1. From Humanism to the Enlightenment 1
2. The Romantic Era 22
3. Modern Trends 41
Historicity 41
Literary Analysis 50
The Irish Hypothesis 56
The 'Þáttr' Theory 61
4. Freeprose versus Bookprose 65
5. Critical Considerations 82
Genealogical Sources 83
Literary Sources 95
Oral Sources 108
Conclusion 116
Appendix I: The Genealogies in 'Gunnlaugs saga' 123
Appendix II: Variants 129
Hallfreðar saga 133
Bandamanna saga 135
Gísla saga 140
Harðar saga 146
Ljósvetninga saga 150
Other Variants 165
The Helgafell Episode 168
Þorgeirr Hávarsson's Death 172
lngólfr and Valgerðr 174
The Slaying of Galti Óttarsson 178
Select Bibliography 183
Index 187
