Gripla - 01.01.1975, Blaðsíða 183

THE RISE OF LITERATURE IN 'TERRA NOVA’ 179
fied and historical writing as the only appropriate literary occupation
for a man in politics. History was conceived as a model, above all the
history of tlie beginning, ‘ab urbe condita’. Livius states this quite
clearly in the preface to his historical work.
In the mind of the Romans ‘ab urbe condita’ constituted the actual
starting point for the initial impulse that led to the Imperium Roman-
um. In Roman literary tradition over and over again the recollection
of the origin of the city becomes apparent. For our purposes it is of
minor importance whether the description of the origin of Rome re-
flects in a condensed form historical realities or whether mythical
paradigms are taken as its basis, as has been presumed occasionally.
This search for the origins, the tum towards the time when the
actual impulse for the entire further development was given, is always
combined with the first constitution of political and legal orders.
Apparently the process of the creation of a state or a nation virtually
begins with such an initial establishment of laws.
Another manner of inquiring after origins goes even further back
in time. Very often it starts with the—generally legendary—tradi-
tion of a people’s immigration. Rome’s greatest epic poem, Vergil’s
Aeneid, dealt with the origin of the people depicting how Aeneas
came to that country and thus established a point of origin.
One can gather similar evidence from Hebrew literature. The Penta-
teuch, the five books of Moses, can never be estimated too highly for
their significance in the selfconsciousness and selfcomprehension of
the Jewish people throughout thousands of years. This great book,
revised by a redactor, goes back to many individual traditions, which
were passed on orally throughout a longer period of time. The whole
process of gathering and revising the separate traditions into the pre-
sent book took almost one thousand years. Here again we find two
very characteristic events as points of culmination: the establishment
of a—today still compulsory—legal order by Moses and the appropri-
ation and settling of the Promised Land. These are factors which can
be regarded as typical for such a literature referring back to the origin
of a people.
Let us return to Iceland.—
Once again I want to point out that in an attempt to determine what
motives have led to a certain phenomenon in literary development,