Saga Emotions - (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture) by Gareth Lloyd Evans & Brynja þOrgeirsdóttir & Carolyne Larrington (Hardcover)

About the Book

A wide ranging discussion of emotions in the key historically oriented prose genres of medieval Iceland, explored through a range of case studies.

Book Synopsis

Focusing particularly on historically oriented sagas, Saga emotions identifies and examines a range of emotions from across Old Norse-Icelandic saga literature. Each chapter begins with a discrete emotion term, such as reiði (anger), gleði (joy), or the peculiarly Old Norse víghugr (killing-mood), exploring its usages within the broad saga corpus, and focusing on its contextual meanings and narrative purposes. The contributions explore the specifics of the lexical terms used for different emotion states and offer in-depth case studies that consider how various emotions manifest within particular examples of saga literature. The book offers the emotional granularity lacking in current studies of Norse emotion and serves as an essential foundation for future research and study into emotional depiction in Old Norse-Icelandic saga literature.

From the Back Cover

Saga emotions is an essential exploration of the representation and function of key emotional states in Old Norse-Icelandic saga literature.

Ranging widely across the sagas, each chapter takes as its starting point a particular Old Norse emotion term - such as reiði (anger), gleði (joy), or víghugr (killing-mood) - offering detailed accounts of its usage in the saga corpus. Illuminating case studies demonstrate the literary function of each emotion term. Avoiding anachronistic projections of modern emotional systems, it maps the native emotion models of Norse textual culture in fine detail, charting changes over time that reflect new historical and social conditions in medieval Iceland, particularly the impact of Christian emotional systems. Written by leading international scholars in saga and emotion studies, Saga emotions adds much-needed emotional granularity to the study of saga literature.

Breaking new ground, this important essay collection pioneers a lexically oriented approach to the textual representation of emotions as complex psychological and physical phenomena and provides a secure foundation for future research into the sagas, literature and history of medieval Iceland.

About the Author

Gareth Lloyd Evans is Associate Professor of Old Norse at the University of Oxford and Official Fellow and Tutor in English at St John's College, Oxford
Brynja þorgeirsdóttir is Assistant Professor of Icelandic Literature at the University of Iceland
Carolyne Larrington is Emeritus Professor of Medieval European Literature at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Research Fellow of St John's College, Oxford