The origins of many of the Icelandic sagas have long been the subject of critical speculation and controversy. This book demonstrates that an investigation into the relationship between verse and prose in saga narrative can be used to reconstruct how Icelandic sagas were composed; to this end it provides a detailed analysis of the Kormáks saga, whose hero Kormákr is one of the most celebrated of Icelandic poets. Over 60 of his passionate, cryptic skaldic stanzas are quoted in the saga, and the way they and the saga prose are fitted together reveals that the Kormáks saga, far from being a seaml ... More

The origins of many of the Icelandic sagas have long been the subject of critical speculation and controversy. This book demonstrates that an investigation into the relationship between verse and prose in saga narrative can be used to reconstruct how Icelandic sagas were composed; to this end it provides a detailed analysis of the Kormáks saga, whose hero Kormákr is one of the most celebrated of Icelandic poets. Over 60 of his passionate, cryptic skaldic stanzas are quoted in the saga, and the way they and the saga prose are fitted together reveals that the Kormáks saga, far from being a seamless narrative of either pre-Christian oral tradition or later medieval fiction, is in fact a patchwork of different kinds of literary materials. This book offers a way of understanding not only the compositional method and distinctive aesthetic qualities of the Kormáks saga, but also the genesis of many other Icelandic saga narratives.