Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-012
Margrét Eggertsdóttir
Identifying the anonymous authors of the Icelandic family sagas has been a popular preoccupation and a never-ending task, not least in modern scholarship. As has often been pointed out, any information about the author of a work will most likely have direct influence on how its readers interpret and under stand it. Some scholars believe that the sagas were created by individual authors, whereas others read the sagas as written accounts based on an oral tradition. Yet when did the quest for the author begin, and why was it important? This chapter takes its point of departure in Árni Magnússon’s (1663–1730) notes on the sagas. Árni was not only a famous manuscript collector and scholar but may also be seen as the first author of a literary history of Iceland; in his notes he discusses the characteristics of the author of Njáls saga and of other medieval authors, both known and unknown. The present chapter is an attempt to throw light on early-modern Icelandic ideas of saga authors and other medieval authors, mainly as they are presented in the first purposeful attempts at writing a literary history of Iceland – that is, Jón Ólafsson ’s (1705–1779) Safn til íslenskrar bókmenntasögu , recently edited by Guðrún Ingólfsdóttir and Þórunn Sigurðardóttir; the literary history by Jón Þorkelsson (1697–1759) entitled Specimen Islandiæ non barbaræ (forthcoming in a new edition); the account of Icelandic writers and poets by Páll Vídalín (1667–1727); and a literary history by Hálfdan Einarsson , Sciagraphia historiæ literariæ Islandicæ , published in Copenha gen in 1777. These histories show different emphases in their approaches, but it seems that the need to find and identify authors of the sagas was felt most urgently by Icelandic scholars who found it necessary for the reputation of Icelandic literary history to have ‘real’ authors, comparable to the classical scriptores . Article 25. The following is the last part of Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar in Resen’s manuscript collec tion: So the brothers Gunnlaugur and Oddur say: that these individuals told them the largest part of what they later composed and gave an account of King Ólafur Tryggvason: Gellir Þorgilsson, Asgrímur Vestlidason, Biarni Bergþorsson, Ingunn Arnórsdóttir, Herdís Dadadóttir, Þorgerdur Þorsteinsdóttir, and then Gunnlaugur says he showed it to Gissur Hallsson. 93
{"title":"The Best-Written Saga and the Absence of its Author","authors":"Margrét Eggertsdóttir","doi":"10.1515/9783110725339-012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725339-012","url":null,"abstract":"Identifying the anonymous authors of the Icelandic family sagas has been a popular preoccupation and a never-ending task, not least in modern scholarship. As has often been pointed out, any information about the author of a work will most likely have direct influence on how its readers interpret and under stand it. Some scholars believe that the sagas were created by individual authors, whereas others read the sagas as written accounts based on an oral tradition. Yet when did the quest for the author begin, and why was it important? This chapter takes its point of departure in Árni Magnússon’s (1663–1730) notes on the sagas. Árni was not only a famous manuscript collector and scholar but may also be seen as the first author of a literary history of Iceland; in his notes he discusses the characteristics of the author of Njáls saga and of other medieval authors, both known and unknown. The present chapter is an attempt to throw light on early-modern Icelandic ideas of saga authors and other medieval authors, mainly as they are presented in the first purposeful attempts at writing a literary history of Iceland – that is, Jón Ólafsson ’s (1705–1779) Safn til íslenskrar bókmenntasögu , recently edited by Guðrún Ingólfsdóttir and Þórunn Sigurðardóttir; the literary history by Jón Þorkelsson (1697–1759) entitled Specimen Islandiæ non barbaræ (forthcoming in a new edition); the account of Icelandic writers and poets by Páll Vídalín (1667–1727); and a literary history by Hálfdan Einarsson , Sciagraphia historiæ literariæ Islandicæ , published in Copenha gen in 1777. These histories show different emphases in their approaches, but it seems that the need to find and identify authors of the sagas was felt most urgently by Icelandic scholars who found it necessary for the reputation of Icelandic literary history to have ‘real’ authors, comparable to the classical scriptores . Article 25. The following is the last part of Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar in Resen’s manuscript collec tion: So the brothers Gunnlaugur and Oddur say: that these individuals told them the largest part of what they later composed and gave an account of King Ólafur Tryggvason: Gellir Þorgilsson, Asgrímur Vestlidason, Biarni Bergþorsson, Ingunn Arnórsdóttir, Herdís Dadadóttir, Þorgerdur Þorsteinsdóttir, and then Gunnlaugur says he showed it to Gissur Hallsson. 93","PeriodicalId":258637,"journal":{"name":"In Search of the Culprit","volume":"272 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124208616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-016
{"title":"Index of Manuscripts","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9783110725339-016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725339-016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258637,"journal":{"name":"In Search of the Culprit","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129336042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-013
S. Björnsson, S. P. Kárason
{"title":"Figures and Charts","authors":"S. Björnsson, S. P. Kárason","doi":"10.1515/9783110725339-013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725339-013","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258637,"journal":{"name":"In Search of the Culprit","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121255554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-003
Lukas Rösli
{"title":"The Primal Scribe","authors":"Lukas Rösli","doi":"10.1515/9783110725339-003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725339-003","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258637,"journal":{"name":"In Search of the Culprit","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131523808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-011
Madita Knöpfle
{"title":"Conceptions of Authorship","authors":"Madita Knöpfle","doi":"10.1515/9783110725339-011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725339-011","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258637,"journal":{"name":"In Search of the Culprit","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122271896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-002
Jürg Glauser
{"title":"“… who is the author of this book?”","authors":"Jürg Glauser","doi":"10.1515/9783110725339-002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725339-002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":258637,"journal":{"name":"In Search of the Culprit","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127265839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-009
Gudrun Bamberger
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Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-004
S. Gropper
Despite the fact that all Icelandic family sagas are anonymous and, in most cases, preserved in more than one version, the idea of tracing each saga to a specific author is still strong in contemporary scholarship. The author is thought to be necessary as a reference point for the interpretation of a text within a certain historical context, as well as the creative agency behind the text as a literary artwork. The sagas’ anonymity is thus considered to be a deficit of the corpus, since from our modern per spective it is difficult to regard a text without an identified author as a truly literary artwork. Tracing texts back to a specific historical person could remove the blemish of anonymity and allow us to use extratextual information for interpretation, but this process works against the qualities of mouvance and variance that are characteristic of the sagas’ long process of transmission and dissemination. This chapter will first present various approaches to medieval authorship, before discussing the related concepts of ‘weak’ and ‘heteronomous authorship’ and the rhizomatic character of medi eval literature. Sneglu-Halla þáttr will serve as a representative product of heteronomous authorship; it will be shown that the application of these concepts to that text neither results in a neglection of its aesthetics nor in the disintegration of its ‘identity’ as a literary work. It is the objective of this chapter to demonstrate that anonymity and an idea of heteronomous authorship are generic features of the Icelandic sagas. 1
{"title":"The ‘Heteronomous Authorship’ of Icelandic Saga Literature","authors":"S. Gropper","doi":"10.1515/9783110725339-004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725339-004","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the fact that all Icelandic family sagas are anonymous and, in most cases, preserved in more than one version, the idea of tracing each saga to a specific author is still strong in contemporary scholarship. The author is thought to be necessary as a reference point for the interpretation of a text within a certain historical context, as well as the creative agency behind the text as a literary artwork. The sagas’ anonymity is thus considered to be a deficit of the corpus, since from our modern per spective it is difficult to regard a text without an identified author as a truly literary artwork. Tracing texts back to a specific historical person could remove the blemish of anonymity and allow us to use extratextual information for interpretation, but this process works against the qualities of mouvance and variance that are characteristic of the sagas’ long process of transmission and dissemination. This chapter will first present various approaches to medieval authorship, before discussing the related concepts of ‘weak’ and ‘heteronomous authorship’ and the rhizomatic character of medi eval literature. Sneglu-Halla þáttr will serve as a representative product of heteronomous authorship; it will be shown that the application of these concepts to that text neither results in a neglection of its aesthetics nor in the disintegration of its ‘identity’ as a literary work. It is the objective of this chapter to demonstrate that anonymity and an idea of heteronomous authorship are generic features of the Icelandic sagas. 1","PeriodicalId":258637,"journal":{"name":"In Search of the Culprit","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130080566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-06DOI: 10.1515/9783110725339-001
Lukas Rösli, S. Gropper
Over fifty years after Roland Barthes’ essay La mort de l’auteur (‘The Death of the Author’) and Michel Foucault’s Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur (‘What Is an Author?’) were first published, the concept of authorship is still central to literary studies, with medieval literary studies being no exception. The last two decades have brought with them a huge number of publications about the concept of authorship in general, as well as more specifically about concepts of medieval authorship. Whilst Alastair Minnis based his great book about medieval theories of authorship on the scholastic perspectives on the subject that existed in the late Middle Ages themselves, thereby putting forward a predominantly emic analysis of the topic, other scholars – such as Rüdiger Schnell, Sonja Glauch, and Eva von Contzen, to name but a few – have taken more etic approaches, in that they have primarily sought to tease out medieval assumptions about authorship by interpreting case studies that do not so explicitly foreground such ideas. Despite their different approaches to the subject of authorship, all these scholars have demonstrated that the ideas of authorship, or of the special functions of authorship, that we bring to a text have a significant impact on our reading and interpretation of it. Indeed, the category of ‘author’ seems indispensable for the contextualisation of texts and the organisation of literature. In many cases, the search for an author results in a vicious circle: the search for an actual historical person to whom authorship can be attributed relies on the texts themselves, while the information we have about such persons comes from other texts that are themselves equally unclear in terms of their authorship. At best, this search may provide us with an authorial character or an imaginative authorial subject constructed from a few anecdotes derived from other narrative sources. Yet even if we cannot find the empirical producers of medieval texts, we can still search for theoretical entities or authorial agencies that are all involved in the texts as aesthetic artefacts.
在罗兰·巴特(Roland Barthes)的论文《作者之死》(La mort de l ' auteur)和米歇尔·福柯(Michel Foucault)的《什么是作者?》(Qu ' est-ce Qu ' un auteur)首次发表50多年后，作者身份的概念仍然是文学研究的核心，中世纪文学研究也不例外。在过去的二十年里，他们出版了大量关于作者身份概念的出版物，以及更具体的关于中世纪作者身份概念的出版物。虽然阿拉斯泰尔·明尼斯的伟大著作是基于中世纪晚期对这一主题的学术观点，从而对这一主题提出了一种主要的主位分析，但其他学者——如r迪格·施内尔、索尼娅·格劳赫和伊娃·冯·孔岑，仅举几例——采取了更多的逻辑方法，因为他们主要是通过解释案例研究来梳理中世纪关于作者身份的假设，而这些案例研究并没有如此明确地突出这些观点。尽管他们对作者身份这一主题的研究方法不同，但所有这些学者都表明，作者身份的概念，或作者身份的特殊功能，对我们对文本的阅读和解释产生了重大影响。事实上，“作者”的范畴对于文本的语境化和文学的组织来说似乎是不可或缺的。在许多情况下，寻找作者会导致一个恶性循环:寻找一个真实的历史人物，他的作者身份可以归功于文本本身，而我们对这些人的信息来自其他文本，这些文本本身也不清楚作者身份。在最好的情况下，这种搜索可能会为我们提供一个作者角色或一个富有想象力的作者主题，这些主题是由来自其他叙事来源的一些轶事构建而成的。然而，即使我们找不到中世纪文本的经验生产者，我们仍然可以寻找理论实体或权威机构，它们都作为美学人工制品参与文本。
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