An examination of what dialogues and direct speech in Old Norse literature can convey and mean, beyond their immediate face-value.


The vast and diverse corpus of Old Norse literature preserves the language spoken not only by the Vikings, kings, and heroes of medieval Scandinavia but also by outlaws, missionaries, and farmers. Scholars have long recognized that the wealth of verbal exchanges in Old Norse sagas presents the modern reader with the opportunity to speak face-to-face, as it were, with these great voices of the past. However, despite the importance of verbal exchanges in the sagas, there has been no book-length study of discourse in Old Norse literature since 1935.

This book meets the need for such a study by offering a literary analysis based on the adjacent field of pragmatic linguistics, which recognizes that speakers often rely upon cultural, situational, and interpersonal context to communicate their meaning. The resulting, context-dependent meaning often deviates from the base semantic and syntactical components of an utterance: speakers hedge, imply, deflect to save face, or obscure meaning to damage an opponent's self-worth. Saga writers, this book argues, were masters of this type of indirectness in speech. It aims therefore to unlock the depth and subtlety of discourse in Old Norse literature and to leave readers with an understanding of how principles of pragmatics were employed throughout the sagas. A wide body of Old Norse materials is examined, including some of the best examples of Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders), such as Brennu-Njáls saga, Laxdœla saga, and Gísla saga Súrssonar, while also giving due attention to Konungasögur (kings' sagas), fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas), and other literature from the medieval North.

Contributor: Eric Shane Bryan ERIC SHANE BRYAN is Associate Professor of English at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Eric Shane Bryan's Discourse in Old Norse Literature is a fascinating book that explores direct speech in the Old Norse (ON) sagas through the linguistic field of pragmatics. [T]his book makes multiple arguments of interest to the fields of pragmatics and literary study, not the least being the value of using the two together. --- In this remarkable volume, Bryan has laid down a challenge for the Old Norsiverse: we who are less familiar with the concepts of historical pragmatics should welcome the challenge and embrace the toolkit he offers. Our field will be the stronger for it. --- A good introduction to pragmaphilology that would benefit from being read by all those interested in Icelandic sagas, because it offers points of reference for understanding dialogues that are often obscure for current readers. --- This book is a veritable toolkit of terms useful for identifying and describing many of the
subtleties of Old Norse-Icelandic literature, by no means all of which are recognisable on first reading. --- There can be little doubt of the value of this work to the study of Old Norse literature. This book is exceptionally learned and well referenced, and successfully opens up the field of pragmatics for Old Norse literary scholars. It will surely occupy a vital place in the discussion of Old Norse dialogue.