Story, World and Character in the Late Íslendingasögur: Rogue Sagas
By Rebecca Merkelbach
D. S. Brewer
ISBN: 978 1 84384 666 6
The Icelandic sagas written after the year 1300 tend to get classified as being not as good as the more famous Family Sagas. However, this book explains why these ‘rogue sagas’ are also very interesting, especially their superhero characters and paranormal encounters.
Excerpt:
The surviving corpus of saga literature constitutes one of the largest collections of medieval vernacular literature in Europe, and as such, it should not be surprising that that not all genres, narratives or themes have been studied to the same extent – that gaps remain in our knowledge. In some instances, however, it is indeed surprising how thoroughly neglected, underappreciated and understudied, a text or group of texts can be. This is, as will be shown, the case with the late medieval, or so-called ‘post-classical’, Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), whose very name betrays the prevailing attitudes of saga scholarships. A derogatory term, ‘post-classical’ denotes them as late, inferior, after – ultimately as less worthy of scholarly attention than “classical’ sagas have been. The presently study is therefore first and foremost an attempt at rectifying this opinion, at devoting proper attention to these neglected sagas, in the hope that future generations of scholars will more readily include them in their reading.
Who is this book for?
The corpus of works from medieval Iceland is quite extensive, but scholars have too often focused on just a handful of sagas. Works like this and the book by Valerie Broustin reveal that these lesser-known sagas are worthy of being read and studied. This book will be quite useful for those studying Iceland and its sagas, and offers those who research medieval literature more broadly a good example of how to engage with neglected stories.
The Author
Rebecca Merkelbach is Assistant Professor of Old Norse-Icelandic Studies and head of the department for Scandinavian Studies at the University of Tübingne. A self-described “Doctor of trollology” and “Saga fangirl”, Rebecca has written extensively about Norse literature and its monsters. You can follow her on Bluesky @beccamerkelbach.bsky.social
So many people coming to Bluesky! Welcome, everyone😊 And for the new followers who I haven't met elsewhere: Hi, I'm Rebecca, I work on medieval Icelandic literature at Tübingen in southern Germany. When I'm not doing that, I like lifting heavy things, watching Star Trek and playing video games.
Story, World and Character in the Late Íslendingasögur: Rogue Sagas
By Rebecca Merkelbach
D. S. Brewer
ISBN: 978 1 84384 666 6
The Icelandic sagas written after the year 1300 tend to get classified as being not as good as the more famous Family Sagas. However, this book explains why these ‘rogue sagas’ are also very interesting, especially their superhero characters and paranormal encounters.
Excerpt:
The surviving corpus of saga literature constitutes one of the largest collections of medieval vernacular literature in Europe, and as such, it should not be surprising that that not all genres, narratives or themes have been studied to the same extent – that gaps remain in our knowledge. In some instances, however, it is indeed surprising how thoroughly neglected, underappreciated and understudied, a text or group of texts can be. This is, as will be shown, the case with the late medieval, or so-called ‘post-classical’, Sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur), whose very name betrays the prevailing attitudes of saga scholarships. A derogatory term, ‘post-classical’ denotes them as late, inferior, after – ultimately as less worthy of scholarly attention than “classical’ sagas have been. The presently study is therefore first and foremost an attempt at rectifying this opinion, at devoting proper attention to these neglected sagas, in the hope that future generations of scholars will more readily include them in their reading.
Who is this book for?
The corpus of works from medieval Iceland is quite extensive, but scholars have too often focused on just a handful of sagas. Works like this and the book by Valerie Broustin reveal that these lesser-known sagas are worthy of being read and studied. This book will be quite useful for those studying Iceland and its sagas, and offers those who research medieval literature more broadly a good example of how to engage with neglected stories.
The Author
Rebecca Merkelbach is Assistant Professor of Old Norse-Icelandic Studies and head of the department for Scandinavian Studies at the University of Tübingne. A self-described “Doctor of trollology” and “Saga fangirl”, Rebecca has written extensively about Norse literature and its monsters. You can follow her on Bluesky @beccamerkelbach.bsky.social
Check out this Interview with Rebecca Merkelbach from Saga Thing
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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