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‘Á Kálfskinni’: Sagas and the Space of Literature

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Published/Copyright: September 14, 2017

Abstract

The “space of literature” is a metaphor for literature introduced by the French writer and critic Maurice Blanchot to express the specificity of literary discourse, which says what otherwise cannot be said. In this it produces a community around the unsayable. This ability to say something previously unsaid makes literature to some extent akin to scientific inquiry. In the last decades, research in Old Norse-Icelandic studies has not focussed on this aspect of the saga literature. The study of the sociological conditions for literary production in medieval Iceland can explain why the self-conscious pursuit of literary expression resulted in the emergence of a unique literary genre, the Saga about early Icelanders (Íslendingasögur). This group of sagas projects on a particular temporal and spatial construct, that of Iceland during the Settlement and Conversion periods, the unspoken concerns of their time of writing, the Sturlung age and its aftermath.

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Published Online: 2017-9-14
Published in Print: 2017-4-25

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Scolding the Skald: The Construction of Cultural Memory in Morkinskinna’s Sneglu-Halla þáttr
  4. What did the Future hold for them? Different Types of Foreshadowing in Various Saga Genres
  5. Spieler oder Schachfigur? Schach als epistemologisches Modell bei Solvej Balle
  6. Beundring og opposisjon. Forholdet mellom Knut Hamsun og Johannes V. Jensen
  7. Når forfatteren snakker med. Metalepsis og disclosure i Karen Blixens fortællinger
  8. „Henne ensam lagen fällde“. Zur literarischen Verhandlung der Kindstötung und der Frage nach der (Mit-)Schuld der Väter
  9. Changierender Artist. Zu Carl Larssons Positionierung im bildkünstlerischen und literarischen Feld
  10. Saga Conference
  11. Sagas and Space – Thinking Space in Viking Age and Medieval Scandinavia
  12. ‘Á Kálfskinni’: Sagas and the Space of Literature
  13. Runes and Verse: The Medialities of Early Scandinavian Poetry
  14. The Mind’s Eye: The Triad of Memory, Space and the Senses in Old Norse Literature
  15. Mythical and Metaphorical Landscapes in Skaldic Poetry
  16. Book Reviews
  17. Klaus Düwel:Runica minora. Ausgewählte kleine Schriften zur Runenkunde
  18. Lasse Mårtensson:Skrivaren och förlagan: Norm och normbrott i Codex Upsaliensis av Snorra Edda
  19. Lill-Ann Körber, Ebbe Volquardsen (eds.):The Postcolonial North Atlantic. Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands
  20. Jenny Wikström:Fotografiet bleknar, hon försvinner. Materia, begär och Gilles Deleuzes litteraturfilosofi i Henry Parlands ’Sönder’
  21. Michael Schäfer/Werner Schäfke:Sprachwissenschaft für Skandinavisten. Eine Einführung
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