Eddas and Sagas: Iceland’s Medieval Literature

✍ Scribed by Jónas Kristjánsson

• Publisher: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 456
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Translated by Peter Foote.

This book presents the history of Icelandic literature from the earliest times to the Reformation. Because no comparable work has hiterto been published in a major international language, it fulfills a pressing need.

For Icelanders the Eddas and sagas are still an accessible body of living literature. They were a high point in the literary achievement of the European Middle Ages and are Scandinavia's most important contribution to world literature.

The author, Dr. Jónas Kristjánsson, is an internationally recognized scholar and author. He is Director of the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík, which is responsible for the study and preservation of the Old Icelandic manuscripts.

The translator, Dr. Peter Foote, Professor emeritus at University College, London, a distinguished scholar and writer, is widely known for The Viking Achievement, written in collaboration with Sir David Wilson, Director of the British Museum.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface 7
A new land 9
The major periods 21
Eddaic poetry 25
Skaldic poetry 83
An age of learning 115
Hagiography. Saints' lives 135
Kings' sagas 147
Contemporary sagas 179
Sagas of Icelanders 203
Íslendinga þættir 299
Sagas of chivalry 211
Heroic sagas 341
Jónsbók 363
New forms 369
Bibliography 401
Index 415