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THE SAGA MIND AND THE BEGINNINGS OF ICELANDIC PROSE

Author: 
Year:
Pages:148
ISBN:1-4955-0652-5
978-1-4955-0652-9
Price:$139.95
The book seeks to uncover roots of the Icelandic Sagas, considered to be the among the great masterpieces of of world literature. Dr. Liberman looks into their origin, possible authorship, and status as historical documents.

Reviews

“The book, I wish to repeat, will stir up a lively discussion and contribute to our better understanding of one of the thorniest problems of old literature. It will also throw new light on the nature of medieval mentality. … it will become a significant event in medieval Scandinavian studies.”
Professor Jurij Kusmenko,
The Russian Academy of Sciences


"Anatoly Liberman has written a learned, inspiring and provocative work, taking up fundamental issues in the Old Norse and medievalist scholarly debate and solving several classical problems in a new way. Since the problems discussed -- the sagas' relation to truth, the saga writer's status as 'author', the usefulness of the concept 'fiction' for the family sagas etc. -- belong to the core problems of Old Norse research his discussion is extremely important."
Professor Daniel Savborg,
Tartu University


"I think that Anatoly Liberman has improved Steblin-Kamenskij's theories and advanced our general understanding of the Islendingasogur as literature by discussing their presentation of truth, falsehood, and past history with a sharp analytical mind that places the sagas in a judicial and sometimes also a linguistic perspective."
Dr. Lars Lonnroth,
Journal of English and Germanic Philology


Table of Contents

Foreword by Jurji Kusmenko

Introduction

Chapter 1: Authorship

Chapter 2: Fact and Fiction

Chapter 3: The Saga Mind: Historia, Argumentum, and Fabula

Chapter 4: Between Freeprose and Bookprose: Theater

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index