The Icelandic Sagas

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The Icelandic sagas represent an unparalleled flowering of imaginative prose literature in medieval Europe. They have been called the first modern novels, but their utterly distinctive voice arises from their position on the periphery of the known world at a time when story-telling was in a state of flux: oral traditions were blending into literate compositions; pagan mythology was being supplanted (though never effaced) by Christian doctrines. Icelanders were in the process of creating an entirely new nation in an entirely new environment, and the sagas record their successes, failures, fears and aspirations with great drama, humor, and insight. In this course, students will read extensively in the corpus of Icelandic sagas. We will gain an understanding of the various genres of sagas in existence and how they relate to one another and to other contemporary forms of literature. We will study the history of medieval Iceland and relate changing political situations to the development of new literary modes over time. While most of the texts will be approached through translations, we will also study one saga in detail in its original language. Students who have not completed ENGL 40203 Introduction to Old Norse must contact the instructor before registering for this course. Assessment will include two papers and a translation exercise.