Saga as a myth: the family sagas and social reality in 13th-century Iceland

• Main Author: Torfi H. Tulinius
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.548.1055; http://sydney.edu.au/arts/medieval/saga/pdf/526-tulinius.pdf

penetrating and important study of myth in Old Norse society of the Middle Ages, she argues that the sagas are a special genre within European medieval literature. She also argues that all of the sagas constitute one single genre, albeit with sub-genres, rather than the sagas being constitued of several distinct genres as we have been accustomed to viewing them (Clunies Ross 1998, 50-51). I agree with what I believe to be her major arguments in favor of this idea, i.e. that all types of sagas (legendary sagas, king’s sagas, family sagas or sagas of Icelanders, contemporary sagas) have respective positions within a shared historical continuum and that all of them are to different extents multi-modal, i.e. blend different modes of narration, mainly fantastic and more realist modes (Clunies Ross 1998, 100-102). However, I think it is more useful to consider the sagas as belonging to different genres rather than a single one, and that these different genres interact in what could be called a literary system. If this is not done, what I believe to be the specificity of the family sagas does not become sufficiently clear.