Stories Set Forth with Fair Words

Marianne E. Kalinke

Description

This book is an investigation of the foundation and evolution of romance in Iceland. The narrative type arose from the introduction of French narratives into the alien literary environment of Iceland and the acculturation of the import to indigenous literary traditions. The study focuses on the oldest Icelandic copies of three chansons de geste and four of the earliest indigenous romances, both types transmitted in an Icelandic codex from around 1300. The impact of the translated epic poems on the origin and development of the Icelandic romances was considerable, yet they have been largely neglected by scholars in favour of the courtly romances. This study attests the role played by the epic poems in the composition of romance in Iceland, which introduced the motifs of the aggressive female wooer and of Christian-heathen conflict.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Medieval

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 23 mars 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786830685
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

Stories Set Forth with Fair Words

Stories Set Forth with Fair Words The Evolution of Medieval Romance in Iceland

MARIANNE E. KALINKE

University of Wales Press 2017

© Marianne E. Kalinke, 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the cop- yright owner. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff CF10 4UP.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library CIP Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN eISBN

978-1-78683-067-8 978-1-78683-068-5

The right of Marianne E. Kalinke to be identiîed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Typeset by Mark Heslington Ltd, Scarborough, North Yorkshire Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham

Translation in Norway

Bibliography

Contents

1

9

vii

3

6

Stories Set Forth with Fair Words

Icelandic Romance as Critique and Sequel

142

180

166

162

Chansons de gestein Iceland

Icelandic Innovations

The Beginnings of Icelandic Romance

Preface

Index

Epilogue

Notes

2

114

9

3

4

1

187

Tinkering with the Translations

Preface

By the end of the thirteenth century Icelandic literature was both sizeable and varied, indeed quite extraordinary. Its proponents excelled in producing mythography, histo- riography, hagiography, biography and prose epic. The last is exempliîed by the uniqueÍslendingasögur, Sagas of Icelanders, also known as Family Sagas in the English-speaking world. Into this ourishing literary scene, translations of more or less contemporary French literature were introduced, that is, courtly lays and romances and the epic poems known aschansons de geste.The earliest renderings of these for- eign narratives occurred in the second quarter of the thirteenth century in Norway, and before long the translations were transmitted to Iceland. There they were copied, com- pleted, revised and adapted. In no time they inspired Icelanders to try their own hand at this imported narrative type. A new genre was born in Iceland, theriddarasaga, romance. The Icelanders’ enthusiasm for romance has not been shared by modern scholars. W. P. Ker lamented that foreign romance ‘came to Iceland just at the time when the native literature, or the highest form of it at any rate, was failing; the failure of the 1 native literature let in these foreign competitors’. This pronouncement was to be repeated with variation in the early decades of the twentieth century. The îrst and to this day most sweeping and still authoritative investigation of the foreign imports and competitors of Iceland’s indigenous literature is Margaret Schlauch’sRomance in Iceland.The scholar pointed out that ‘towards the end of the Middle Ages, Icelandic literature … was more cosmopolitan than any other in Europe. It was lamentably infe- rior to the older type of narrative, to be sure, but it was greatly varied; it had plundered 2 the whole world for themes.’ Schlauch’s study of Icelandic romance, based, for want of editions at the time, in large part on manuscripts, was catholic, including texts understood by many scholars as belonging to different genres, theriddarasögur(chiv- alric sagas) andfornaldarsögur(mythical-heroic sagas). As she noted, ‘the Icelanders were bafingly eclectic; the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries saw a veritable syncretism of romance in their literature’ (p. 16). When Schlauch stated that Icelandic romance is ‘lamentably inferior to the older type of narrative’, she was referring, of course, to theÍslendingasögur,Sagas of Icelanders, the failure of which Ker the mourned. Whether all romances are inferior to the traditional Icelandic sagas is debat- able; not all sagas of Icelanders evince a uniform high quality of narrative. The romances too are of varying quality, but they are not necessarily inferior narratives; rather, they are a different type of narrative.

Stories Set Forth with Fair Words

French courtly literature was introduced to the North with the rendition of Thomas de Bretagne’sTristan into Old Norse in 1226. Translations of other French works followed, of Arthurian and other types of romance, Breton lays andchansons de geste. Several translations are ascribed, likeTristrams saga ok Ísöndar,to the patronage of King Hákon Hákonarson of Norway (r. 1217–63), and unattributed translations of similar works are thought also to have been undertaken during his reign. Certain evidence in support of this is lacking, however, and it is not out of the question that some French texts were translated in Iceland. While this remains in the realm of spec- ulation, the role of Iceland in preserving and transmitting the translations of foreign literature is indisputable. With but very few exceptions, the translations are extant solely in Icelandic manuscripts. This book explores the foundation, growth and owering of romance in Iceland. It is a story of translation and transcription; of manuscripts imported to Iceland from Norway; of texts copied, redacted and revised in Iceland; of scribal intervention in plot, structure and style; of imported texts adapted to new ends; and, înally, of the creation of original romances. Icelanders imported a foreign genre, adopted it whole- heartedly, and at the same time adapted it to indigenous narrative conventions. Icelandic romance is the product of cultural transfer and acculturation, the outgrowth of an interlingual and intralingual process. The French lays, romances and epic poems translated in Norway were metrical compositions. The octosyllabic rhymed couplets of the lays and romances, and the alexandrines of the assonanced stanzas of thechansons de gestewere turned into an alliteratively ornamented prose in translation. Apart from theStrengleikar,the transla- tion of a collection of lays, andElíss saga ok Rósamundar,the rendering of a romance epic, which are preserved in a thirteenth-century Norwegian manuscript produced only a few decades after their translation, the other translations of French literature known or thought to have been undertaken in Norway are extant solely in consider- ably later Icelandic manuscripts. That is the case withTristrams sagaand the Arthurian Ívens saga,MöttulssagaandParcevals saga.Since theStrengleikarandElíss saga are our sole witnesses to the translation process in thirteenth-century Norway, this study commences with a consideration of the transformation of French verse into the courtly Norse prose. With but few exceptions, Icelandic copyists seem to have perceived their role, whether consciously or not, more as editors than scribes. They ampliîed or reduced texts; they modiîed their plot, distinct style or structure. The French source ofElíss sagawas defective, and when the Norwegian manuscript of the incomplete transla- tion reached Iceland, one ambitious author composed a continuation, but in a style strikingly at odds with that of the translator. In turn, the Norwegian translation with its continuation was repeatedly copied and redacted in Iceland. The case ofErex saga, which derives from Chrétien de Troyes’sErec et Enide, and which originally was

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Preface

most likely a fairly faithful translation from the French, is unique. The author of the text preserved in Iceland not only removed every aspect of what presumably had been a courtly prose style but also condensed and modiîed the plot. At the same time he interpolated additional episodes from another translation, thereby affecting the narra- tive’s structure and meaning. While some Icelandic copyists did not alter the substance of the Norwegian translations that were imported to Iceland, for example,Tristrams saga orÍvens saga,revised a transmitted text signiîcantly. Some narratives others deriving from French sources, such asPartalopa saga,acculturation as underwent they were transformed under the inuence of contemporary Icelandic literature. The oldest Icelandic codex transmitting both translated and originalriddarasögur dates from the very beginning of the fourteenth century. The manuscript is noteworthy for containing translations of threechansons de geste, that is,Elíss saga,Flóvents saga andMágussaga jarls, and three Icelandic romances,Bærings saga,Konráðs saga keisarasonar andHrólfs saga Gautrekssonar,last usually designated a the fornaldarsaga,although it is in fact a multi-tiered bridal-quest romance, ariddarasaga. The medieval codex is believed to have contained a fourth Icelandic romance, namely, Mírmanns saga,a copy of which survives in a seventeenth-century manuscript. The translations of thechansons de geste, unlike those of the courtly romances, are relatively unknown and have been considerably neglected in the study of Icelandic romance. The epic poems imported to Iceland played an important role, however, in the development of theriddarasögur,for they were the source of many a motif and theme that was subsequently adopted, adapted and developed by authors of romances. A remarkable aspect of Icelandic literature is the proclivity of copyists, better said, authors, to tinker with existing texts, to rewrite them with a view to telling a better story. No one addressed more compellingly the impulse of Icelanders to rework an existing text than the author of the longer version ofMágus saga jarls,which derives ultimately from achanson de geste.In an apologia the writer attributes the existence of variants of a tale to critical authors who considered an older version to be ineptly told and who therefore eloquently ampliîed the story. This occurred in two of the riddarasögurpreserved in the oldest codex of romances, the aforementionedMágus saga jarls andHrólfs saga Gautrekssonar. Both sagas are also found in another manuscript that postdates their earliest attestation by about two centuries, but in longer versions of the narratives presumed to have been composed in the late thirteenth century. The longer redactions evince a grappling with style and structure at the same time that they reveal their authors’ creative impulse to dramatise a story through extended dialogue and more penetrating characterisation. Several sagas investigated in this book are among the earliest indigenous riddarasögur,to judge by their inclusion in the same early fourteenth-century codex as the translations ofchansons de geste. They are the aforementionedHrólfs saga Gautrekssonar,Bærings saga,Konráðs saga keisarasonarandMírmanns saga.These

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