РЕЦЕПЦИЯ САГ ОБ ИСЛАНДЦАХ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ ИСЛАНДСКОМ ИСТОРИЧЕСКОМ РОМАНЕ
RECEPTION OF SAGAS OF THE ICELANDERS IN MODERN ICELANDIC HISTORICAL NOVELS

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with one particular aspect of the reception of the Old Norse literature and culture in the Icelandic fiction betweenthe 1990s and the 2010s – historical novels about the Icelanders from the period between the IX and the XIII centuries. Such textsin modern Icelandic fiction are quite rare, and have not yet been researched even in Iceland. This paper examines several novels bydifferent authors written between 1994 and 2015. There is a difference between the novels on medieval Iceland (and the Nordic landsin general) composed by non-Icelandic and Icelandic authors: in Iceland such novels are usually based not on significant historicalevents, but on symbolic texts. These are the “Sagas of the Icelanders”, which have a very high status in modern Icelandic culture. Theinterplay with these texts gives the authors freedom for new interpretations. It can be a story about some period of the hero’s life, notdescribed in a particular saga (Thorvald Viðförli by Árni Bergmann or Auður by Vilborg Davíðsdóttir); rewriting a particular sagafrom a marginal character’s point of view (Glæsir by Ármann Jakobsson); a stylistic experiment (Geirmund’s Saga by BergsveinnBirkison); or an attempt to reconstruct the lost ancient text (Here Lies the Scald by Thorarinn Eldjárn). There are very few historicalnovels describing these ages, which are not based on particular sagas (e. g., Korka’s Saga by Vilborg Davíðsdóttir). The necessity ofthe interplay with the texts of the sagas imposes certain restrictions on the authors of such historical novels, not known by historicalnovel writers of other countries: in Iceland, the sagas are regarded as a standart for the art of narration, and their plots are familiarto the most readers and are not modified. The interpretations of particular saga plots can be various, while the plot itself remainsunchanged. It puts the reception of the Old Norse literary heritage in modern Icelandic historical novels about the period between theIX and the XIII centuries into a unique situation in relation to such reception in other modern literatures of the countries of Europeanculture.

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