10 - Íslendingasögur

Summary

This chapter opens with a detailed definition of the Íslendingasaga, or ‘family saga’: stories about the lives and deeds of people living in Iceland from the Age of Settlement to the early eleventh century. The sagas’ mode of narration is described, with its thick description of the material culture and mental landscape of the saga world and its characters, its topographical specificity and apparently naturalistic depiction of saga society. The link between saga characters and the audience for whom the sagas were originally written is illustrated. An analysis follows of the emergence and development of Íslendingasögur and how they first came to be written down. The sagas are assessed as works of literature, with analysis of narrative voice, structure, themes and methods of characterization. The conclusion draws attention to how distinctive and innovative these sagas are, their appearance of reality disguising a highly selective manner. It is pointed out that although they are now amongst the best-known texts in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, they were not the first to be known outside Iceland, and the recent appreciation of ‘post-classical sagas’ is noted.