How Genre Governs Creation in the Medieval Icelandic Sagas
By Yoav Tirosh
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 978-3-031-89974-4
Icelandic sagas are a unique form of medieval literature that can be difficult to understand. This book uses ideas about genre, including some drawn from film studies, to offer new ways of reading and interpreting them.
Excerpt:
The book comprises four chapters. In the first, “Genre Governs,” I deal with the question of how to define genre. By going through my thought process with the reader, I hope to establish why I think that genre is so important, where my own thinking led me, and how talking about authorship and genre helps to better understand the artistic piece examined. In the second chapter, “The Íslendingasögur as Genre,” I discuss the set pieces that compose and are used to compose the Icelandic sagas, discuss Rick Altman’s concept of generic crossroads, and finish by offering my own thoughts on saga prosimetrum and the mixed modality it offers. In the third chapter, “Towards a History of the Sagas,” I try to determine how the concept of camp can help understand the so-called post-classical sagas, and chart out a history of the genre. Finally, in “Genre as Analytic Tool,” I offer analyses of Hreiðars þáttr, Ljósvetninga saga, and Hávarðar saga Ísfirðings through the lens of the generic observations discussed thus far. Most importantly, the idea of parody is emphasized as a way of thinking about texts and their generic affiliations.
Who is this book for?
This book offers an outside-the-box approach to examining the Icelandic sagas. Anyone reading these works will notice their matter-of-fact, plain-spoken style, which can make it easy to forget that they are carefully constructed works of literature. Approaching them from a different perspective can reveal new ways of understanding how they were written and how they work.
The book is intended for an academic audience that is already very familiar with the sagas, including some of the lesser-known examples. A strong background in literary and film studies would also be helpful. That said, scholars and students of the sagas, as well as medieval literature more generally, will find much here to consider about the role genre plays in shaping these texts.
“In conclusion, we are faced with an atypical study that reveals a fundamental idea: it is necessary to explore the term ‘genre’ in each context because its influence on literature and society is so great that ignoring it would be a mistake. Finally, it is worth highlighting that Tirosh’s style, at times irreverent and cheeky, does not preclude an effective methodology or prevent the author from approaching the primary sources with due respect. And I would venture to assert that no other book on medieval literature ends by reflecting on whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas film.” ~ review by Joan Dalmases Paredes, translated from Catalan, in Summa: Revista de Cultures Medievals
The Author
Yoav Tirosh is a postdoctoral researcher focusing on disability in the sagas of Icelanders at the Centre for Disability Studies, in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Iceland. He has been a columnist for Medievalists.net – check out his quirky and fascinating articles here.
We asked Yoav why he wrote this book:
During my doctoral thesis I tried to tackle the issue of genre, but I felt frustrated with the result. I didn’t produce a concrete definition of the term, I didn’t explain how it can be used to analyse literature, and most importantly – – – I didn’t explain why it was important. I always saw genre as one of the most important things in literature, film, and art more generally, and I felt like I needed to articulate this. So, when I finally got the spare time to write this book, I decided that I will dedicate it to trying to explain why I feel that genre is so important, and why it needs to be studied. While writing it, I realized that genre did not only impact how I create and interpret art, it also influences who I chose to hang out with as a kid, and how I define myself as a person. It also taught me to be a bit less snobbish about how I think about genres that I otherwise would dismiss as “lesser”. It was a challenging but fun book to write, and I hope that that comes across to the reader.
🔥Open Access – The Vinland Sagas and UFOs(ish)!!!🔥
doi.org/10.59661/001…
In case you are from the #UFO world and always wondered what my deal is, this article might give you a hint. I wrote this aimed at a general UFOlogist audience in mind, so I hope it is intelligible.
How Genre Governs Creation in the Medieval Icelandic Sagas
By Yoav Tirosh
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 978-3-031-89974-4
Icelandic sagas are a unique form of medieval literature that can be difficult to understand. This book uses ideas about genre, including some drawn from film studies, to offer new ways of reading and interpreting them.
Excerpt:
The book comprises four chapters. In the first, “Genre Governs,” I deal with the question of how to define genre. By going through my thought process with the reader, I hope to establish why I think that genre is so important, where my own thinking led me, and how talking about authorship and genre helps to better understand the artistic piece examined. In the second chapter, “The Íslendingasögur as Genre,” I discuss the set pieces that compose and are used to compose the Icelandic sagas, discuss Rick Altman’s concept of generic crossroads, and finish by offering my own thoughts on saga prosimetrum and the mixed modality it offers. In the third chapter, “Towards a History of the Sagas,” I try to determine how the concept of camp can help understand the so-called post-classical sagas, and chart out a history of the genre. Finally, in “Genre as Analytic Tool,” I offer analyses of Hreiðars þáttr, Ljósvetninga saga, and Hávarðar saga Ísfirðings through the lens of the generic observations discussed thus far. Most importantly, the idea of parody is emphasized as a way of thinking about texts and their generic affiliations.
Who is this book for?
This book offers an outside-the-box approach to examining the Icelandic sagas. Anyone reading these works will notice their matter-of-fact, plain-spoken style, which can make it easy to forget that they are carefully constructed works of literature. Approaching them from a different perspective can reveal new ways of understanding how they were written and how they work.
The book is intended for an academic audience that is already very familiar with the sagas, including some of the lesser-known examples. A strong background in literary and film studies would also be helpful. That said, scholars and students of the sagas, as well as medieval literature more generally, will find much here to consider about the role genre plays in shaping these texts.
“In conclusion, we are faced with an atypical study that reveals a fundamental idea: it is necessary to explore the term ‘genre’ in each context because its influence on literature and society is so great that ignoring it would be a mistake. Finally, it is worth highlighting that Tirosh’s style, at times irreverent and cheeky, does not preclude an effective methodology or prevent the author from approaching the primary sources with due respect. And I would venture to assert that no other book on medieval literature ends by reflecting on whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas film.” ~ review by Joan Dalmases Paredes, translated from Catalan, in Summa: Revista de Cultures Medievals
The Author
Yoav Tirosh is a postdoctoral researcher focusing on disability in the sagas of Icelanders at the Centre for Disability Studies, in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Iceland. He has been a columnist for Medievalists.net – check out his quirky and fascinating articles here.
We asked Yoav why he wrote this book:
During my doctoral thesis I tried to tackle the issue of genre, but I felt frustrated with the result. I didn’t produce a concrete definition of the term, I didn’t explain how it can be used to analyse literature, and most importantly – – – I didn’t explain why it was important. I always saw genre as one of the most important things in literature, film, and art more generally, and I felt like I needed to articulate this. So, when I finally got the spare time to write this book, I decided that I will dedicate it to trying to explain why I feel that genre is so important, and why it needs to be studied. While writing it, I realized that genre did not only impact how I create and interpret art, it also influences who I chose to hang out with as a kid, and how I define myself as a person. It also taught me to be a bit less snobbish about how I think about genres that I otherwise would dismiss as “lesser”. It was a challenging but fun book to write, and I hope that that comes across to the reader.
You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website.
You can buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
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