Margar hliðar tímans: Útreikningur, framsetning og skilningur tímans á Íslandi á miðöldum

This work investigates the multivalent and dynamic portrayal of time in a selection of early Old Icelandic texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The main objective is to map out the representations of time in terms of the patterns conveyed, and to examine how the authors configured time through narrative. An extension of this goal is to build up a theoretical understanding of how the people involved in the production of the texts, and possibly their contemporaries as well, reckoned, organized, and understood time. The primary texts analysed for these purposes are Íslendingabók and two Íslendingasögur, Eyrbyggja saga and Laxdæla saga. Íslendingabók is a concise history of Iceland from its settlement, ca. 870, to 1118, written by the priest Ari Þorgilsson inn fróði (“the Learned,” 1067/68–1148) between the years 1122–33. The two Íslendingasögur, Eyrbyggja saga and Laxdæla saga, date from the thirteenth century, but, like Íslendingabók, are narratively set in the Settlement Period, although Íslendingabók continues further. The treatment of time in each text, especially the sense of the past, along with the explicit and implicit connections that can be established between the texts, allows for a comprehensive comparative analysis of the time patterns they convey. Alongside this analysis, a focus on the historical period of the writing of the texts leads to a deeper understanding of how medieval Icelanders of that time at once measured, managed, and understood time. This in turn allows for a better appreciation of the ideological foundations that influenced the representations of time and the mechanisms involved in reconstructing the past in these texts. The analysis is conducted by tackling the issue from different theoretical perspectives: narrative, sociological, and philosophical. Such an analytical approach aims to do justice to the multiplicity of times that concurred in medieval Iceland. This approach also attempts to bridge gaps that currently exist within this research area, paving the way for further explorations of the subject of time in medieval Icelandic literature and society, and, more broadly, of time as an existential concern and human experience in the Middle Ages.Þessi doktorsritgerð fjallar um hvernig gerð er grein fyrir margþættum og síkvikum tíma í þremur íslenskum ritum frá miðöldum. Meginmarkmið rannsóknarinnar er að kortleggja hvaða mynstur má lesa út úr framsetningu tímans í textanum og hvernig tímanum er gerð skil í formi frásagnar. Annað markmið, sem leiðir af hinu fyrra, er að byggja upp fræðilegan skilning á því hvernig þau sem stóðu að þessum ritum, og væntanlega samtímamenn þeirra, reiknuðu, skipulögðu og skildu tímann. Frumheimildarnar sem greindar voru í þessum tilgangi eru Íslendingabók og tvær Íslendingasögur, Eyrbyggja saga og Laxdæla saga. Íslendingabók er gagnorð saga Íslands frá landnámi um 870 til ársins 1118. Hún var samin af prestinum Ara Þorgilssyni fróða (1067/68–1148) á árunum 1122–33. Eyrbyggja saga og Laxdæla saga eru báðar frá 13. öld, en segja frá atburðum frá landnámi fram yfir Kristinitöku, árið 999/1000. Þær eiga þennan tíma sameiginlegan með Íslendingabók, þótt frásögn Íslendingabókar nái töluvert lengra. Í ritunum þremur má skynja svipaða tilfinningu fyrir fortíðinni, og þau lýsa og sviðsetja tímann þannig að víðtækur samanburður á tímamynstrum er mögulegur. Auk þess eru bæði bein og óbein tengsl milli textanna. Samhliða þessari greiningu, er litið til ritunartíma textanna í leit að dýpri skilningi á því hvernig Íslendingar á miðöldum mældu tímann, stjórnuðu honum og skildu hann. Þetta gerir kleift að meta betur hugmyndafræðilegar forsendur fyrir framsetningu á tímanum í þessum textum og þau ferli sem bjuggu undir þeirri endursköpun á liðnum tíma sem þar átti sér stað. Í greiningunni er viðfangsefnið nálgast frá ólíkum fræðilegum sjónarhornum, í senn frásagnarfræðilegu, félagslegu og heimspekilegu. Þessi greiningaraðferð miðar að því að gera grein fyrir fjölþættu og samsettu tímahugtaki á Íslandi á miðöldum. Enn fremur leitast hún við að brúa bil milli fræðigreina sem fást við þetta viðfangsefni og leggja grunn að frekari rannsóknum á tíma í íslensku samfélagi og bókmenntum á miðöldum, en jafnframt í reynslu og tilvist miðaldafólks.Rannsóknamiðstöð Íslands (Icelandic Centre for Research

The Practice of Feasting in Medieval Iceland

The practice of feasting appears recurrently in Old Norse-Icelandic literature, notably in sagas such as konungasögur (‘Kings’ sagas’) and Íslendingasögur (‘Sagas of Early Icelanders’). Having been studied as valuable ethnographic sources, these texts portray feasting primarily as an instrument of social action, an action which serves, among else, to publicly make and break bonds, notably friendship. Exemplary in this regard is Eyrbyggja saga (‘Saga of the People of Eyri’), a thirteenth-century Íslendingasaga which is typically set in Iceland from the beginning of its Settlement, in the late ninth century, up to the first decades of the eleventh century. Drawing from this saga, the practice of feasting in medieval Iceland will be described and discussed, with special reference to the historical time in which the text was probably composed

The Malleability of the Past: Íslendingabók as Narrative History

Íslendingabók (Book of Icelanders) is the earliest surviving history of Iceland, written by the priest Ari Þorgilsson sometime between 1122 and 1133. Despite spanning the period from the Settlement in the ninth century to 1118, the work is concise, which suggests that a specific selection of information was made by the author during the composition process. This hypothesis is supported by the quality of the information conveyed, which seems to favour Ari himself and his patrons, and by Ari’s omission of material that would compromise his view, evidence of which is nevertheless present in other sources. Being the first to write such a history, Ari took a certain liberty in recounting the past, by appropriating from oral tradition that material which was more relevant to him in the present and by organizing it into a narrative whole that would suit present needs and expectations. This article explores Íslendingabók as a careful reconstruction of the Icelandic past, thus as narrative history; the focus will be on the strategies and aims that lay behind the author’s project, not least on the ideological foundations that shaped Ari’s views. This approach will allow for a better appreciation of the text and its production context, as compared to the influential but often uncritical methods used to study the work that flourished during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and which still reverberate today, within both scholarly discussions of the work and popular contemporary attitudes in Iceland towards the country’s medieval history and culture. These methods have centred more on the work as a historical text of the period it describes rather than of the time during which it was written, overlooking the cultural contingencies surrounding Íslendingabók’s composition and their ideological underpinnings. Thus, the uncritical consideration of the work as a simplistically truthful account of the first centuries of Icelandic history has obscured Ari’s skill at reconstructing and manipulating the past, and the example of the transformative power of historiography which Íslendingabók provides

Paranormal Tendencies in the Sagas: A Discussion about Genre

Observable tendencies in Old Norse-Icelandic sagas to portray the paranormal are analyzed from a genre perspective. This assessment confirms the feasibility of approaching genre in saga studies using descriptive and dynamic methods. The value of this approach is anticipated and emphasized in a brief survey of the current debate about genre in the sagas

Postfazione

Postfazione alla traduzione della saga antico islandes