| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 336 pages .) |
| Series |
Cambridge studies in medieval literature ; 42 |
|
Cambridge studies in medieval literature ; 42
|
| Contents |
Social institutions and belief systems of medieval Iceland (c.870-1400) and their relations to literary production / Preben Meulengracht Sørensen -- From orality to literacy in medieval Iceland / Judy Quinn -- Poetry and its changing importance in medieval Icelandic culture / Kari Ellen Gade -- Óláfr Þórðarson hvítaskáld and oral poetry in the west of Iceland c.1250 / Gísli Sigurðsson -- Conversation and reinterpretation of myth in medieval Icelandic writings / Margaret Clunies Ross -- Medieval Icelandic artes poeticae / Stephen Tranter -- Useful past: historical writing in medieval Iceland / Diana Whaley -- Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendinga sögur) and þættir as the literary representation of a new social space / Jürg Glauser -- Contemporary sagas and their social context / Guðrún Nordal -- Matter of the North: fiction and uncertain identities in thirteenth-century Iceland / Torfi H. Tulinius -- Romance in Iceland / Geraldine Barnes -- Bible and biblical interpretation in medieval Iceland / Ian Kirby -- Sagas of saints / Margaret Cormack |
| Summary |
"This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of Old Icelandic literature within its social setting and across a range of genres. An international team of specialists examines the ways in which the unique social experiment in Iceland, a kingless society without an established authority structure, inspired a wealth of innovative writing composed in the Icelandic vernacular. Icelanders explored their uniqueness through poetry, mythologies, metrical treatises, religious writing, and through saga, a new literary genre which textualised their history and incorporated oral traditions in a written form. The book shows that Icelanders often used their textual abilities to gain themselves political and intellectual advantage, not least in the period when the state's freedom came to an end."--Jacket |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Old Norse literature -- History and criticism.
|
| SUBJECT |
Iceland -- Civilization.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh94007700
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| Author |
Clunies Ross, Margaret.
|
| ISBN |
0511552920 (electronic bk.) |
|
9780511552922 (electronic bk.) |
|
