Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 12
GRIPLA12
and Gunnar and also discusses the views of scholars who were not present
at the conference, such as jón viðar Sigurðsson and certain anthropolo
gists. Gaskins notes that it is not possible to assume that there was a single
consistent system of values in the society depicted in the sagas. It is much
more likely that conflict between different ideas and values impelled the
development of Icelandic society. Sources for this position are, of course,
found in the sagas, where the self-reflection of society itself is expressed:
“It is often said that “heroic societies” are static places where reflection has
no place ... Perhaps an early Iceland can be seen as an exceptional case
study: a heroic society in the process of emerging from that static condi
tion, spreading out over four centuries, and recorded in singular fashion by
a contemporary literature of selfreflection.”
kirsten Hastrup also centres her discussion on Iceland but she consid
ers how the outside world perceived Iceland, and how Icelanders perceived
themselves, in the light of ideas about civilisation and concepts of centre
and periphery. In this context, literature and texts are of primary impor
tance. for both the ancient Greeks and for the Icelanders, literature—cer
tain ur-texts, to use her terminology—defines what civilisation is, and the
social status of groups within society. In this respect, Icelandic ideas about
civilisation were profoundly European and logocentric although the
Icelanders had very different ideas about themselves than the world beyond
them.
Being an archaeologist with his roots east of the Baltic, Przemysƚaw
Urbańczyk comes to the subject with a different perspective to those of the
other participants in this discussion. Urbańczyk is highly critical of the
traditional view held by Scandinavians of their own history, and he empha
sises how ideas about the unity and uniqueness of Nordic civilisation can
obscure multifarious internal differences, as well as the effects of contacts
with areas outside Scandinavia.
In the articles just summarised, a number of different approaches are
employed and general questions asked about the uniqueness of
Scandinavian, and especially Icelandic, civilisation in the Middle Ages. the
papers which come next in this volume restrict their focus to texts and
textual history to a greater degree than those that precede them, and with
one exception (joseph Harris’s contribution), they direct their attention
mainly towards medieval Icelandic texts. Margaret Clunies Ross signals