Narrative in the Icelandic Family Saga: Meanings of Time in Old Norse Literature PDF
Preview Narrative in the Icelandic Family Saga: Meanings of Time in Old Norse Literature
Narrative in the Icelandic Family Saga ii Narrative in the Icelandic Family Saga Meanings of Time in Old Norse Literature Heather O’Donoghue BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 Copyright © Heather O’Donoghue, 2021 Heather O’Donoghue has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. viii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover Design: Ben Anslow Cover image: Kvöldvaka in Icelandic Farm House, H. Aug. G. Schiøtt (1823–1895) (© National Museum of Iceland) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permissions for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: O’Donoghue, Heather, author. Title: Narrative in the Icelandic family saga : meanings of time in Old Norse literature / Heather O’Donoghue. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Representative of a unique literary genre and composed in the 13th or 14th centuries, the Icelandic Sagas rank among some of the world’s greatest literature. Here, Heather O’Donoghue examines the singular textual voice of the Sagas while also exploring their important underlying ideas about the passage time. Bringing fresh and lively insights to the foundation texts of Old Norse and medieval Icelandic heritage, this book is an essential discussion the luminous oral tradition of a migratory people and an iconic canon of Western culture”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020039279 (print) | LCCN 2020039280 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788312875 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350211636 (paperback) | ISBN 9781786726254 (epub) | ISBN 9781786736314 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Time in literature. | Sagas–History and critcism. | Old Norse literature–History and criticism. | Narration (Rhetoric)–History–To 1500. Classification: LCC PT7193.T56 O36 2021 (print) | LCC PT7193.T56 (ebook) | DDC 839/.63–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039279 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039280 ISBN: HB: 978-1-7883-1287-5 ePDF: 978-1-7867-3631-4 eBook: 978-1-7867-2625-4 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters. For my students, past and present vi Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 The representation of external time 11 2 The management of narrative time: Duration 47 3 The management of narrative time: Order 75 4 The voice of the silent narrator 113 5 Withheld knowledge 153 Conclusion 183 Notes 187 Further reading 214 Index 216 Acknowledgements I am grateful to everyone who has helped me, directly or indirectly, with this book: family, friends and colleagues (especially Carolyne Larrington and Siân Grønlie, who have provided unstinting practical help and unfailing moral support in the often difficult circumstances of present-day academia), students, and my husband, Bernard. I owe particular thanks to Matthew Roby, who, with his technical expertise, wide knowledge of Old Norse literature and apparently limitless patience, has guided this book from messy script to print. Any remaining messiness is down to me. Introduction Icelandic family sagas – the Íslendingasögur – are a unique literary genre. Written in Iceland, for the most part in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they are lengthy prose narratives – sometimes interspersed with carefully positioned stanzas of poetry – which tell of people and events in Iceland in the period between its settlement in 870 CE and its Christianization, following conversion in the year 1000 CE. Although there is very little in the way of historical or archaeological record with which to compare these sagas, the indications are that at least some of the people and events within them have a basis in historical actuality, while others, and probably most of the dialogue, are invented. Certainly, the society depicted in the family sagas – their setting – is a plausible recreation of a possible reality. This is largely due to the subject matter of family sagas. Their focus is squarely on human society. Indeed, even when they portray supernatural or otherwise unrealistic phenomena, these tend to be limited to entities of human size and shape – such as witches or ghosts – rather than the dragons or giants common to other saga genres. Family sagas are very unlike myths or fairy tales. Instead of invention and fantasy, we are presented with a real-feeling world of deceptively familiar human characters in everyday and domestic – though often very dramatic – circumstances. And in part, this impression of actuality arises from the confident and comprehensive but above all remarkably consistent portrait of early medieval Icelandic society, as if saga authors were working with an authentic and detailed picture of their ancestral society accurately transmitted via oral tradition. So far, the characteristic literary mode of the family saga might appear very little different from that of the post-medieval historical novel. And indeed family sagas – as extended, secular, naturalistic prose narratives – have sometimes been compared with nineteenth-century European novels. But what sets apart – definitively – saga and novel is the distinctive narrative mode of the family saga, and this distinctiveness lies in its authors’ apparent avoidance of almost
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