Literary History of Old Norse - 3 major areas
1. Transition from orality to literacy
2. Movement from poetic traditions to literary genres
3. Extent to which paganism is coded in Old Norse texts and how this fosters a culture of tolerance and antiquarianism

Colonization
- Danes dominated England's colonization
- Norway dominated Iceland's colonization - and was perhaps spearheaded by political refugees

Most of the settlers in Iceland were heathen
(only a small number had become Christian via early stops in Ireland en route)

999/1000 - Christianity accepted in Iceland after three conditions were met
1. paganism could be practiced in private
2. infants could continue to be exposed
3. horseflesh could continue to be eaten (why this was important is something of a mystery)

Iceland is a republic from the beginning
(only public official was the law speaker who was charged with reciting Iceland's laws of the people over a three year period)
(he was the single repository of legal knowledge)

When Christianity is accepted we hear the lawgiver goes into his tent, covers his head, stays there for some time, and then emerges reciting revised laws which were now adapted for an officially Christian people

1030 - death of St. Olafr, who straddles two poetic traditions
(one sees him as cruel)
(another sees him as a holy Christian man)

1110-1120 - we get the first writings from Iceland
(laws from 1117-1118)
(don't have the original document - just later redactions)
(law code moves within a clerical context)
(a hierarchy develops for certitude - when there are two conflicting laws, the longest is the valid; if they are equally long, the bishop's copy prevails; if more than one bishop owns a copy, the bishop of Skalaholt's prevails)

Vernacular tradition soon begins
(Ari the Wise - places a great emphasis on a genealogy of memory)

Landnamabok ("The Book of Land Takings") - 12th century
(contains over 3,500 names and about 1,500 farmsteads)
(lists each parcel of land and who holds it)

1133 - first monastery established in Iceland

1150 - earliest Icelandic manuscript fragments dated

c. 1150 - various Latin vitae are translated into the vernacular

Hryggjarstykki - first king saga
(lost saga that probably had some hagiographic elements, raising the question to what extent did hagiography have an effect on saga genres?)
(current thinking about this question: probably not much)

Two mainstays of the structure of the saga genre:
1. provides genealogical information
2. contains copious poetic quotations

Icelanders have a reputation for prolific memories, known for knowing a great many texts orally)

c. 1190-1210, Sverris saga - first full saga extant
(king dictated a good deal of this saga to the court poet who probably finished it)
(the king may have gotten his idea from hagiography, histories, or accounts of other kings that were circulating)

Literary Skaldic poetry begins to be composed in the late 12th century - though most is preserved from 15th century onwards

1199 - Bishop Porlakr of Skalaholt is declared a saint
1200 - Bishop Jon of Holar declared a saint
(Latin lives were probably composed for both)

14th century - another bishop is proclaimed a saint - but a Latin vita was probably not composed for him
(this suggests to some scholars that the vernacular probably took over early as the medium through which hagiographical literature was delivered)

Snorri Sturluson
- lawspeaker
- murdered September 23, 1241
- at the heart of Icelandic politics
- visits Norway twice (1218-1220 and 1237-1239)
- writes Skaldskaparmal - on the language of the creation of poetry; it is a treatise on the diction of Skaldic poetry and draws on a pre-Christian tradition of poetry
- some think he might have written kings' sagas as well
- 1226 - Tristram's Saga translated into Norwegian - marking the emergence of romance genre in Iceland

Snorri's nephew, Sturla, write a saga of Icelandic politics which is massive and documents the feuding and warring in Iceland
(has copious quotations from Skaldic verse and shows how vital it was and how it was a form of political expression)
(also interested in landownership)
(also interested in Christian institutional history)

sagas of districts (English scholars refer to them as "family sagas")
(some focus on pre-Christian period though others straddle the pre-Christian and Christian periods)
(also some focus on individuals)
(all set in Iceland - though often with a prelude in Norway)
(often include a long and detailed description of Icelanders abroad - e.g., Egil's Saga follows characters to York, England)
(draw on oral traditions)

No Skaldic poems survive in toto - we have sections often surviving as quotations in other literary works

1275 - Codex Regius of Eddic poems

Whether a distinction between Skaldic poetry and Christian poetry can be made is debatable

Learned prose begins with Islendigabok
(saints' lives begin soon after)
(kings' sagas begin c. 1150)
(bishops' sagas begin c. 1200)
(family sagas come into written record c. 1200)
(heroic sagas come into written record c. 1225 - though they draw on early oral tradition)

Snorri's term "Edda" is known in a list of poetic terms as a name for "great-grandmother" (may be due to a corruption of the word)
(its earliest extant manuscript is Upsala MS c. 1300)
(in the 17th century, when the Eddic poems are discovered by scholars, the edda is called Saemundr Edda)

Snorri's poetry is NOT like Eddic poetry
- Eddic is usually anonymous, set in the distant past and fairly simple
- whereas Skaldic is the opposite: includes named poets, historical events, is dramatically self-conscious and has a very complicated meter and diction
SO WE HAVE A VERY UNSATISFACTORY NAMING OF THE POETIC TRADITION
they are more a continuation of poetic styles rather than 2 separate things - not completely distinct

The difficulty is knowing the range of Skaldic poetry is due to not having an anthology of it
(so we're not sure exactly what Skaldic poetry is - there could have been other genres of it that did not survive and perhaps were even suppressed)
N.B.: Keep an eye on the project at http://www.skaldic.arts.usyd.edu.au

Two different kinds of historical evidence offered by Snorri
1. historical Skalds
2. Eddic - distant past
Is Snorri preserving a pagan oral tradition - or is he Christianizing his material? scholars debate

The most prestigious of Skaldic poetry is court meter - and was preferred by Snorri
- 8 line stanza
- 2 syntactically complete halves
- lines are 6 syllables long
- contains pairs of lines linked by alliteration
- alliterates regularly
(court meter is similar to some Old English meter)
(it is sometimes made more elaborate by internal rhyme - and end rhyme comes later on)
(adalhending - true internal rhyme, rhyming of vowel and consonants in penultimate syllable with an earlier syllable in the same line)
(scothending - in lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 rhyming of consonants of penultimate syllable with earlier one to achieve a chiming effect

Many thanks to Judy Quinn for the knowledge she generously shared.