Icelandic Sagas

✍ Scribed by Paul Schach

• Publisher: Twayne Publishers
• Year: 1984
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 244
• Series: Twayne's World Authors Series, 717. Scandinavian Literature
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

My method is eclectic. Emphasis is on individual sagas. This procedure brings with it a certain amount of repetition, especially in comments on saga style and structure. Several sagas that are not available in modern English translations are treated at greater length than would otherwise be the case. Questions of sources, manuscript transmission, and the like are touched on briefly in a few cases to give the general reader or the beginning student of Old Norse an inkling of the complexity of some of the problems connected with the study of this fascinating literature.

✦ Table of Contents

About the Author
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chronology
CHAPTER ONE. From the Discovery of Iceland to the Fall of the Commonwealth 1
CHAPTER TWO. The Beginning of Historical Writing 23
CHAPTER THREE. The First Biographies 48
CHAPTER FOUR. Early Stories about Icelanders 71
CHAPTER FIVE. Major Sagas about Icelanders 97
CHAPTER SIX. Shorter Sagas about Icelanders 131
CHAPTER SEVEN. Late Sagas about Icelanders 155
CHAPTER EIGHT. Summary and Conclusions 172
Notes and References 179
Selected Bibliography 198
Index 208