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IMC 2007: Sessions

Session 328: Sagas of Icelanders

Monday 9 July 2007, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Viking Society for Northern Research
Organiser:Alison Finlay, Department of English & Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London
Moderator/Chair:Hannah Burrows, Department of English & Related Literature, University of York
Paper 328-aChanging Literary Uses of Pagan Gods in the Sagas of Icelanders
(Language: English)
Bernadine McCreesh, Département des Arts et Lettres, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Pagan Religions
Paper 328-bFantasy in Njal’s Saga: History as Spectral Past
(Language: English)
Carolyn B. Anderson, Department of English, University of Wyoming
Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Social History
Abstract

This session addresses a range of aspects of the Sagas of Icelanders, in particular their development over time. The investigation of the changing representation of the pagan gods and the establishment of a nicknaming tradition build on the hypothesis of a literary development of this genre in the course of the 13th century, while the paper on Njáls Saga positions the sagas temporally by treating the attitude to the past, notably the pagan past, within the sagas themselves.