Egil, the Viking Poet: New Approaches to 'Egil's Saga'

by Laurence de Looze (Editor), Jon Karl Helgason (Editor), Russell Poole (Editor), Torfi H. Tulinius (Editor)

Overview

Egil, the Viking Poet focuses on one of the best-known Icelandic sagas, that of the extraordinary hero Egil Skallagrimsson. Descended from a lineage of trolls, shape-shifters, and warriors, Egil’s transformation from a precocious and murderous child into a raider, mercenary, litigant, landholder, and poet epitomizes the many facets of Viking legend.

The contributors to this collection of essays approach Egil’s story from a variety of perspectives, including psychology, philology, network theory, social history, and literary theory. Strikingly original, their essays will appeal not only to dedicated students of Old Norse-Icelandic literature but also to those working in the fields of Viking studies, comparative ethnology, and folklore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442621244
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	01/28/2016
Series:	Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Series (TONIS)
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Laurence de Looze is a professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Western Ontario.

Jón Karl Helgason is a professor in the Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland.
Russell Poole is a professor emeritus of the Department of English at the University of Western Ontario and the managing editor of the journal Viking and Medieval Scandinavia.
Torfi H. Tulinius is a professor in the Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Egil, The Viking Poet: New Approaches to Egil’s Saga (Russell Poole)

COMPOSITION

2. The Construction of Egil’s Saga (Torfi H. Tulinius)

3. Ars metrica and the Composition of Egil’s Saga (Guðrún Nordal)

IDENTITY

4. The Concept of the Self in Egil’s Saga: A Ricoeurean Approach (Laurence de Looze)

5. Self-description in Egil’s Poetry (Margaret Clunies Ross)

EMOTIONS AND AFFILIATIONS

6. Emotions and Moral Issues in a Dysfunctional Saga Family (Ármann Jakobsson)

7. Elegy and Old Age in Egil’s Saga (Alison Finlay)

8. *Konutorrek: A Husband’s Lament (Oren Falk)

9. Facebook for Vikings: Social Network Analysis and Egil’s Saga (Timothy R. Tangherlini)

RECEPTION

10. Egil Strikes Again: Textual Variation and the Seventeenth-Century Reworkings of Egil’s Saga (Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir)

11. Bloody Runes: The Transgressive Poetics of Egil’s Saga (Jón Karl Helgason)

12. A Selected Bibliography from the Online Annotated Bibliography of Egil’s Saga (Álfdís Þorleifsdóttir, Katelin Parsons, and Jane Appleton)