The Cambridge History of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature

The Cambridge History is voluminous, written by twenty-seven scholars, and divided into six parts, commencing with its contexts—that is, the history of Iceland—and continuing to its manuscripts and textual culture; its poetic language; theoretical approaches to its literature; its reception; and its landscape and material culture. It is a most impressive achievement.The introductory section, part I, entitled “Contexts” (pp. 11–132), contains six essays that are devoted to Icelandic society at the time when most of the literature was written down, and to its archeological and material culture. Two essays focus on the poetic language and on theoretical approaches, while the last two are concerned with the reception of this literature and the landscape and material culture of the time.Part II: “The Distant Past” (pp. 135–206) consists of three chapters focusing on the mythological and heroic poetry and the fornaldarsögur, that is, the heroic or adventure sagas, which are set in a legendary past and place. The three essays demonstrate how medieval writers and their audiences “continued to engage with a long-ago past of gods, giants and heroes” (p. 4).Part III: “The Saga Age” (pp. 207–87), in four chapters, is devoted to literature set in Iceland in the time from the settlement of the country to the period following its conversion to Christianity. The essays by four scholars focus on the Íslendingasögur, that is, the so-called family sagas; on the poets’ sagas, the skáldasögur; on prosimetrum in the Íslendingasögur; and on court poetry.In part IV: “The New Christian World” (pp. 291–390), the essays of four scholars consider the effect of the conversion on Icelandic literature: on saints’ lives; on Christian poetry; on homilies and Christian instruction; and on the biskupa sögur (sagas of bishops). Chapter 14, entitled “Conversion and Literature,” opens with the statement: “The history of Old Norse-Icelandic literature is a narrative of conversion, of a hybrid oral-traditional and epigraphic (or ‘runate’) culture becoming fully literate and adopting medieval Europe's pre-eminent text technology–the manuscript–as the medium for its preservation and dissemination of stories, ideas and information” (p. 291).Literature set outside of Iceland is the subject of part V: “Beyond Iceland” (pp. 391–473). Here four scholars address the kings’ sagas (konungasögur); diaspora sagas (of Viking Age migration); the riddarasögur (chivalric romances); and rímur (literally, rhymes), that is, metrical romances, which are largely set in Orkney, the Faroes, Vínland, and Norway. The riddarasögur, translations of continental romances and epics, and the rímur are based on both foreign and indigenous saga themes.The final section, part VI, is entitled “Compilations” (pp. 475–557), and four scholars present essays on the Prose Edda; the samtíðarsögur—that is, the contemporary sagas; learned literature; and Grágás and the legal culture of Commonwealth Iceland.The introduction concludes with the following observation: “Medieval Iceland may have been a relatively small and physically isolated society, but the imaginative landscape of Old Norse–Icelandic literature is vast and infinitely varied. That diversity of genre, style, thought and world view is what this volume aims both to introduce and to reflect” (p. 7). The contributors to this volume have eminently succeeded in doing so. The Cambridge History concludes with a most useful glossary (pp. 358–60); a bibliography of primary and secondary sources (pp. 561–612); and an index (pp. 613–34).A remarkable addition to a history of Old Norse-Icelandic literature is part I, entitled “Contexts” (pp. 72–90), in which Haki Antonsson's essay explores the history of Iceland from the Settlement to 1400 CE (pp. 11–32). Emily Lethbridge focuses on “Manuscripts and Textual Culture” (pp. 33–49), and “aims to introduce the vibrant and wide-ranging textual culture that grew up in medieval Iceland and generated the enormous variety of Old Norse-Icelandic written texts” (p. 33). R. D. Fulk addresses “Poetic Language, Form and Metre” (pp. 50–71). The reader is introduced to theoretical approaches in an essay by Torfi H. Tulinius (pp. 72–90), who highlights the diversity of questions, concerns, and methods that have evolved in recent years which underscore “the evolution from relative theoretical simplicity to sophistication and diversity” (p. 72). Similarly, Verena Höfig's contribution, entitled “Reception” (pp. 91–110), focuses “on the reception of Old Norse-Icelandic literature in the context of identity, race and (new) religion” (p. 91). She discusses how content from eddic poetry, heroic legends, and some of the Íslendingasögur has been appropriated by radical new religious movements and groups affiliated with the so-called New Right, which reflect contemporary debates, such as about race, gender, and sexuality. In an essay on “Landscape and Material Culture” (pp. 111–32), Jane Harrison posits that all manner of artifacts “can enhance our analyses of the literature” (p. 132), and she demonstrates this by examining the role played by swords, brooches, and combs (pp. 121–23); magic objects (pp. 123–24); hoards and ritual deposition (pp. 124–27); halls (pp. 127–30); and ships and mounds (pp. 130–32) in Old Norse-Icelandic literature.Most of the essays in The Cambridge History are written by scholars who are experts on the various types of literature: for example, Sif Ríkharðsdóttir on the riddarasögur; Judy Quinn on mythological poetry; Siân Grønlie on saints’ lives; and William Ian Miller on Grágás and the legal culture of Commonwealth Iceland. I found this last chapter, by William Ian Miller (pp. 537–57), the most enlightening of The Cambridge History, not because I have not encountered legal proceedings in the many Íslendingasögur I have read, but because of Miller's ability to spell out and vivify the complexities and intricacies of the actual workings of the law.The authors of various essays provide useful cross-references to other chapters in which further information on the topic at hand can be found: for example, Judy Quinn in the chapter on “Mythological Poetry” (p. 135, n. 2); Heather O'Donoghue in her essay on prosimetrum in the Íslendingasögur (p. 248, n. 7); Diana Whaley in the chapter on court poetry (p. 270, n. 18). In chapter 10, devoted to the Íslendingasögur, Margaret Clunies Ross reenforces what Torfi Tulinius explored in his chapter 4, “Theoretical Approaches,” by remarking on the structural analyses undertaken by a number of scholars of the Icelandic sagas (pp. 218–20).In the introduction, the editors write that The Cambridge History “is designed to serve two kinds of reader: on the one hand, the scholar, student and reader who wants or needs to consult authoritative and up-to-date scholarship about a particular area of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. . . . and on the other, the reader who wants an overview of the whole extent of Old Norse-Icelandic literature” (pp. 6–7). I would add that it is also useful for someone merely interested in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, but without knowledge of the language. That person is well served, for throughout The Cambridge History this reader is given the English translation of a person's epithet: for example, “Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld (the Difficult Poet)” (p. 233); “King Eiríkr blóðøx (Blood-axe)” (p. 252); or “Haraldr Hálfdanarson hárfagri (the Fine-haired)” (p. 265). Moreover, Icelandic titles and labels are accompanied by English translations or by explanations of the meaning of a word. This is quite evident in the essay on “The Prose Edda,” where the reader is informed that “edda is an Old Norse word for ‘great-grandmother,’” and subsequently various parts of the Edda are elucidated, such as “Skáldskaparmál (The Language of the Poet's Craft)” and “Háttatal (List of Verse-Forms)” (p. 478). Furthermore, the author writes that “Snorri's Edda has naturally proved of interest to an astonishing range of academic as well as extra-academic parties and projects” (p. 479). For this reason I note that The Cambridge History of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature should be of interest even to readers who do not know the language.The Cambridge History is flawless in respect to facts, except in one instance where the author of the chapter entitled “Heroic Poetry” writes incorrectly that some of the heroes of the heroic poems “also appear in . . . Old High German poems” (p. 163)—the reference is to the Nibelungenlied—but subsequently this is corrected to “the Middle High German epic Das Nibelungenlied” (p. 164). There are a few errors in syllabification, but remarkably few typographical errors, although one long quotation from Grettis saga does not feature the o-hook, as in the edition that is cited, and instead has o and ö (p. 220).The only comparable work in the English language is A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, edited by Rory McTurk, and published by Blackwell in 2005. Whereas this volume addresses most of the topics found in The Cambridge History, it goes beyond the realm of Old Norse-Icelandic in some essays, such as on “Runes” (pp. 403–26), or on “The Post-Medieval Reception of Old Norse and Old Icelandic Literature” (pp. 320–37), or on “Continuity? The Icelandic Sagas in Post-Medieval Times” (pp. 64–81). Comparison of The Cambridge History and A Companion reveals how much scholarship on Old Norse-Icelandic literature has advanced in the last two decades. Whereas we read in the article on “Christian Biography” in A Companion that O. Widding, H. Bekker-Nielsen, L. Shook, “The Lives of the Saints in Old Norse Prose: A Handlist” (Mediaeval Studies 25 [1963]) “remains the most comprehensive catalogue of West Norse literature about saints” (p. 28), this is no longer the case with the publication in 2013 of Kirsten Wolf's bibliography, The Lives of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic Prose. The case is similar with the chapter on “Rhetoric and Style” in A Companion (pp. 354–71), which covers much of the same material as chapter 25, “Learned Literature” (pp. 518–36) in The Cambridge History. Here too Jonas Wellendorf's “Lærdomslitteratur” of 2013 brings newer findings, as does Gottskálk Jensonn's “The Lost Latin Literature of Medieval Iceland” (Symbolae Osloenses 79 [2004]). The Cambridge History brings us up to date and reveals the abundance of scholarly publications in several areas since A Companion was published.In A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture the riddarasögur are addressed in two chapters; the one entitled “Romance (Translated riddarasögur)” (pp. 372–87) is devoted solely to the translated romances and to current research on the translation process, the theory of translation, and the transmission of the translated texts. An earlier chapter, “Late Prose Fiction (lygisögur)” (pp. 190–204) deals with the indigenous riddarasögur, that is, the Icelandic romances inspired by the translations. This suggests that the translated and the indigenous riddarasögur constitute two different genres, albeit related, as intimated by calling them lygisögur. The article by Sif Ríkharðsdóttir in The Cambridge History, which is entitled “Riddarasögur” (pp. 435–51) discusses the entire genre, that is, both the translated and indigenous romances. The author focuses on the riddarasögur and their generic hybridity, and discusses “the role played by the Norse romance within the Old Norse-Icelandic literary corpus, its narrative functionality and potentiality for its medieval and postmedieval audiences” (p. 436). The author notes that the process from the translated romances to the production of indigenous riddarasögur offered up “new emotive scripts that in time became suggestive as generic markers of what became known as the indigenous romance” (p. 442). This essay, like the one on “Saints’ Lives,” reveals both the progress and diversity in research during the last two decades.

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