Pernille Hermann

Det er en saga blot, siger vi om det, der går i glemmebogen. Men det gør sagaernes blodige krigere og nådesløse kvinder ikke frivilligt. De har tilkæmpet sig en plads i verdenslitteraturen med slagkraftige historier om at være menneske. Nu bliver de ikke længere genfortalt i generationer ved knitrende ildsteder på en vulkanø, men genopstår som globale tv-serier på nutidens lysende skærme. For ifølge Pernille Hermann, fortælleglad litteraturforsker ved Aarhus Universitet, giver de os syn for sagn om livets store følelser og evige dilemmaer. Sorg og glæde. Tilgive ... eller hævne.

Saga

This book brings together Old Norse-Icelandic literature and critical strategies of memory, and argues that some of the particularities of this vernacular textual tradition are explained by the fact that this literature derives from, represents, and incorporates into its designs mnemonic devices of different kinds. Even if Old Norse-Icelandic manuscript culture is relatively silent about the mnemonic context of the literature, the texts themselves exhibit multiple reminiscences of memory. By showing that this literature reveals glimpses of mnemonic technologies at the same time as it testifies to a cultural memory, this study demonstrates how ‘the past’, and narrative traditions about the past, were constructed in a dynamic relationship with ideas that existed at the time the texts were written. Moreover, the book deals with the function of memory in early book-culture, with metaphors of memory, and with mnemonic cues such as spatiality and visuality. With its new readings of canonical texts like the Íslendingasǫgur, the Prose Edda and selected eddic poems, as well as of less widely studied branches of Old Norse-Icelandic literature, such as the sagas of bishops and religious texts, this book will be of interest to Old Norse scholars and to scholars interested in medieval Scandinavia and memory studies.

Mnemonic Echoing in Old Norse Sagas and Eddas

Stephen A. Mitchell

Jürg Glauser

In recent years, the field of Memory Studies has emerged as a key approach in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and has increasingly shown its ability to open new windows on Nordic Studies as well. The entries in this book document the work-to-date of this approach on the pre-modern Nordic world (mainly the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, but including as well both earlier and later periods). Given that Memory Studies is an ever expanding critical strategy, the approximately eighty contributors in this volume also discuss the potential for future research in this area. Topics covered range from texts to performance to visual and other aspects of material culture, all approached from within an interdisciplinary framework. International specialists, coming from such relevant fields as archaeology, mythology, history of religion, folklore, history, law, art, literature, philology, language, and mediality, offer assessments on the relevance of Memory Studies to their disciplines and show it at work in case studies. Finally, this handbook demonstrates the various levels of culture where memory had a critical impact in the pre-modern North and how deeply embedded the role of memory is in the material itself.

Interdisciplinary Approaches

Handbook of Pre-Modern Nordic Memory Studies

Jens Peter Schjødt

Amber J. Rose

The existing manuscripts of Old Norse mythology were written mainly by Christians, obscuring the pre-Christian oral histories. This book assembles comparisons from a range of analytical perspectives--examining the similarities and differences of the Old Norse mythologies with the myths of other cultures and within the Old Norse corpus itself.

Pernille Hermann

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