Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Manuscript Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Romance Contexts
- 1 Manuscript Witnesses: Different Versions, Different Worldviews
- 2 Intertextuality: Communicating with Other Romances
- 3 Setting the Scene: Geography and Space
- Part II Romance Characters
- 4 The Hero and her Rivals
- 5 Women Helping Women, and Other Minor Characters
- 6 Romance through the Eyes of the Narrator
- Conclusion
- Appendix Nítíða saga Text and Translation
- Bibliography
- Index
Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Manuscript Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Romance Contexts
- 1 Manuscript Witnesses: Different Versions, Different Worldviews
- 2 Intertextuality: Communicating with Other Romances
- 3 Setting the Scene: Geography and Space
- Part II Romance Characters
- 4 The Hero and her Rivals
- 5 Women Helping Women, and Other Minor Characters
- 6 Romance through the Eyes of the Narrator
- Conclusion
- Appendix Nítíða saga Text and Translation
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This book has considered the late medieval Icelandicromance Nítíða sagafrom a variety of perspectives. My overall aim hasbeen to demonstrate how this text explores andchallenges some of the norms of the Icelandicromance genre in which it finds itself. From itsunconventional portrayal of geography to its strongfemale hero and other important female characters,Nítíða sagaapproaches romance from a unique point of view andasks its audiences to reconsider not only what itmeans to be a romance in Iceland but also what itmeans to be an Icelander in Scandinavia and Europein the later Middle Ages, and even into thepost-Reformation era. The first two chapters of PartI discussed Nítíðasaga in terms of both its physicalmanuscript witnesses, which have preserved the sagaover hundreds of years, and the intertextualconnections demonstrating some of the relationshipsthe saga has with other Icelandic romances. InChapter 1, the value of textual variation amongNítíða sagamanuscripts from different times and different partsof Iceland was highlighted. The textual variationwas notable in the case of two groups ofmanuscripts, an earlier one originating in Iceland’sWestfjords and Dales, and a later one originating inthe Eastfjords. Also discussed was the diversity ofscribal attitudes towards and interpretations of themedieval saga through the case studies of threepost-medieval manuscript versions. Chapter 2considered some of the intertextual relationshipsevident in Nítíða sagathrough case studies of Clárisaga, which was an important influence onNítíða saga’sauthor; and Nikulás sagaleikara, which was in turn almostcertainly influenced by Nítíðasaga. I demonstrated how Nítíða saga relates to theseand other texts – both romance and religious – inthe Christian literary-cultural milieu in which itwas produced and from which its author drewinspiration. The romance’s setting and theworldviews it exhibits were considered in Chapter 3– different contextual aspects from within theromance – and it is here that Nítíða saga’s challenging of some of thenorms of romance comes to the forefront. I discussedhow the text’s portrayal of geography shifts themedieval world’s centre closer to Iceland, alongwith its presentation of public and private space ona smaller scale.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Popular Romance in IcelandThe Women, Worldviews, and Manuscript Witnesses ofNítíða saga, pp. 217 - 220Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2016