The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, edited by Ármann Jakobsson and Sverrir Jakobsson. London and New York 2017, pp. 198-209., Feb 17, 2017
Although ‘fate’ should be an obvious topic of investigation in medieval Old Norse-Icelandic liter... more Although ‘fate’ should be an obvious topic of investigation in medieval Old Norse-Icelandic literature, especially the sagas, there has been remarkably little research done on the subject in the last decades. Most of these newer studies have focused on fate’s religious or philosophical aspects, and because eddic poetry (eddukvæði) forms the basis for most of the scholarship, there is particularly little to be found on the literary function of fate in the sagas. Nevertheless, this previous scholarship provides a good starting point for introducing the concept of fate in the the sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur).
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https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Research-Companion-Medieval-Icelandic/dp/0367133652/
The last fifty years have seen a significant change in the focus of saga studies, from a preoccupation with origins and development to a renewed interest in other topics, such as the nature of the sagas and their value as sources to medieval ideologies and mentalities.
The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas presents a detailed interdisciplinary examination of saga scholarship over the last fifty years, sometimes juxtaposing it with earlier views and examining the sagas both as works of art and as source materials.
This volume will be of interest to Old Norse and medieval Scandinavian scholars and accessible to medievalists in general.