Read online "The History of World Literature Vol. 2" by the author Berdnikov Georgy Petrovich RuLit Page 262
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The period from the intensive settlement of Iceland to its final Christianization (930-1030) in the Icelandic tradition is usually called the "age of sagas", since it acts as a kind of" heroic age " (epic time) in the ancestral sagas.
The heroes of the ancestral sagas are outstanding people from among the first settlers and their closest descendants.
The action is concentrated around these prominent figures, but hundreds of people appear as secondary figures in the sagas, especially in the five " big " sagas ("The Saga of Egil", "The Saga of the Inhabitants of the Sandy Shore"," The Saga of the People from Laxdal"," The Saga of Grettir","The Saga of Njala").
The characters are grouped according to family generic and, which almost largely coincides, territorial characteristics.
The sagas contain rich, often very accurate genealogical information that was of practical value for Icelanders in resolving various property and land conflicts.
The historical "memory" of ancestral sagas can only be compared with Polynesian genealogies.
Apparently, a significant number of oral ancestral and local (toponymic) legends were included in the ancestral sagas.
The connection with the oral tradition is also confirmed by the exceptionally simple spoken language of the sagas, the presence of variants and repetitive stylistic models.
At the same time, folklore sources dating back to the X XI centuries are certainly reworked and reinterpreted in the sagas from the point of view of everyday life and political relations of the XIII century.
(in the outline of Norwegian royal absolutism or the veche life of Icelanders).
The Icelandic ancestral sagas should be considered as a kind of post classical form of the heroic epic.
The favorite topics of the sagas are tribal feuds, accompanied, on the one hand, by traditional blood feuds, on the other — lawsuits on the ting, as well as successful Viking campaigns.
With a kind of epic objectivism, the saga describes what is happening, mainly the actions, not the feelings of people, without giving additional assessments.
The main characters of the sagas are heroic characters, in this sense, the saga continues the Eddic poetry in its own way.
For example, in the saga of the famous skald and Viking Aegid Skalagrimsson, both Egil and his relatives (especially Uncle Thorolf) are endowed with rage, pride, courage, obstinacy, which leads to acute conflicts with the Norwegian kings.
In this conflict (in principle characteristic of the heroic epic), the independent behavior of a freedom — loving Icelander at overseas "courts" (respectively, the behavior of his ancestors who left Norway out of freedom) is specifically national, where he is simultaneously valued as a brave, skilled warrior and a gifted skald.
Egil is a typical example of an epic heroic character in the refraction of the saga.
But the saga knows another, in fact, the highest, one might say, post classical and national type bold, but calm, always ready to fight in the name of justice and the preservation of peace, standing above narrow town interests.
This type includes the wise judge Njal and his friend Gunnar.
"The Saga of Njal" shows with epic thoroughness how in the conditions of a still largely "barbaric" society, where tribal remnants are strong, Njal and Gunnar cannot overcome the elements, are drawn, against their will, into tribal strife and die.
At the same time, they retain the greatness of the soul to the end.
Gunnar, out of love for his native land, refuses to go into exile and, outlawed, sits in his own house.
Njal refuses to leave the house set on fire by the bloodhounds who are taking revenge on his sons, and calmly goes to bed, knowing that he will burn alive.
Women, the wife of Njal and especially the wife of Gunnar, who brought grief and death to many, play an important role in inciting tribal enmity in the sagas, in particular in the "Saga of Njal".
When, before his death, Gunnar asked her to weave a new bowstring from his hair to defend himself from enemies, she refused him, remembering his slap in the face.
The image of the demonic female avenger, similar to the epic Brunhild, is vividly depicted in the image of Gudrun, the daughter of Osvivr from the "Saga of the People from Laxdal".
The plot of this saga as a whole repeats the main "eddic" collisions: Gudrun loves Kjartan (like Sigurd's Brunhild), but is forced to marry his twin brother Bolli and achieves Kjartan's death.
Bolli betrays his brother in law, like Gunnar Sigurd.
Subsequently, Gudrun seeks revenge for Bolli with all his might (as the epic Gudrun incites revenge for Svanhild), etc.
Actually, love motives play an insignificant role in the sagas.
The exception is the "Saga of Gunnlaug the Snake Tongue" and in particular the "romantic ""Saga of Fridtjof", the plot of which was later processed by the Swedish romantic Tegner.
Prophetic dreams, witchcraft, various beliefs, etc. occupy a well known place in the sagas, but they do not appear here in their mythological function, but as superstition, i.e. everyday phenomena.
There is incomparably less idealizing hyperbolism and poetic elation in prose sagas than in Eddic poetry.
But they recreate with great skill the pictures of everyday life and social life of Iceland during the independence era.
Making a significant step towards everyday verisimilitude, the sagas simultaneously mark the beginning of the movement from the epic to the novel (many plots of the "continental" novel were then retold in the form of sagas).
ANGLO SAXON EPIC POETRY
The Anglo Saxon (Old English) folk epic literature began to take shape during the conquest of Britain by the Germanic tribes of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians.
The conquest, which pushed the Celtic population to the west and north of the country, lasted from the 40s of the V century to the beginning of the VII century.
The small kingdoms created by the newcomers (the Angles — Mercia and Northumbria, the Saxons — Wessex, the Jutes — Kent) fought among themselves for political hegemony.
This hegemony was ceded to Mercia shortly after the conquest of Northumbria, and in the IX century.
- To Wessex.
The West Saxon dialect of Wessex became the classical dialect of Old English.
The upper chronological limit of literature in the Old English (Anglo Saxon) language is determined by the Norman Conquest (1066), which was accompanied by the penetration of the French language and French culture.
The Norman conquest was preceded by two centuries of struggle with the Danes, who seized a significant territory.
The Danes, of course, carried with them the Scandinavian cultural tradition.
The Anglo Saxon society of the V X centuries was a typical early feudal society with strong remnants of the tribal system.
The power of the tribal king in peacetime was limited to the council of the earls ("noble").
It gradually intensified and went beyond the tribal limits.
The bulk of the population was still made up of free farmers, warriors united in rural communities, but several social categories had already emerged, bearing, according to the Anglo Saxon "truths", various legal responsibilities.
In the process of political unification and feudalization of the Anglo Saxons, their Christianization (VII century), carried out by Roman missionaries who came into conflict with the local Celtic Christian centers in Northumbria, played an important role.
The Christianization of the Anglo Saxons was much earlier and deeper than the Christianization of the Scandinavians, which was essential for the literary process.
The folk epic "pagan" tradition, which existed in oral form, was processed in the form of written works by clerics or laymen who received a church education.
In addition, Anglo Saxon literature includes outstanding examples of a Christian epic on biblical themes, created in Old English, in a traditional folk stylistic manner,with an alliterative verse.
The story of the Venerable Bede in the "Church History of the Angles" about the shepherd Caedmon, who began to compose songs on biblical subjects after an angel ordered him to do it in a dream, strikingly resembles similar stories about the "vocation" of epic singers among other peoples.
Within the framework of this section, however, we will talk only about the epic, which develops the national heroic theme itself.
Along with folk singers, musicians (gleokud) and court advisers, keepers of wisdom tula, Anglo Saxon epic monuments often mention the osprey singer (scôp).
Apparently, in the pagan period, the ospreys were the creators and performers of alliterative songs of heroic content.
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