Gripla - 20.12.2009, Side 165

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more generally. These are that: a) what is uniquely Icelandic is more valu­
able and of greater intellectual and artistic worth than what is found in
Icelandic texts but largely derived from non­Icelandic sources; and that b)
Icelandic prose literature is more valuable than Icelandic poetry, even
though such a premise partly contradicts premise a), because it is clear that
skaldic poetry is uniquely Norse, and probably, at least after the twelfth
century, uniquely Icelandic.
These premises have led many modern scholars and the wider public to
a somewhat distorted view of the nature of medieval Icelandic textuality
when it comes to evaluating its relationship to the textuality of the medie­
val world in general, because what is uniquely Icelandic is seen to be better
than what is not, better both in terms of cultural importance and better in
literary terms. this position can properly be argued by the literary critic
but not by the textual historian. further, one tends to gain an inaccurate
sense of the importance of saga literature about native subjects in terms of
its actual quantity if one fails to compare it with the very substantial
amount of other textual material in vernacular prose, much of it also desig­
nated by the term saga in old Icelandic, including hagiography, translated
romances, didactic and encyclopedic works, sermons and translations of
historical and legendary works originally written in Latin. Old Icelandic
prose literature has been privileged over poetry, partly because in the form
in which it has been recorded, it has been embedded in prose as a form of
prosimetrum, but also because medieval Icelandic poetry is harder to
understand for a modern reader, even for a modern Icelandic reader, and,
until recently, people have found its convoluted style and largely conven­
tional subject­matter uncongenial. yet in the traditional culture of medieval
Iceland it is clear that poetry, not prose, was the privileged literary form
and the form of long standing and, as such, must be given full weight in
any discussion of medieval Icelandic textuality.
It is naturally open to anyone to judge a saga like Laxdœla saga, say, as
a better, more original or more interesting literary work than the Icelandic
prose life of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, which is based on non-Icelan­
dic sources. But, if we are to take a clear-eyed view of the whole range of
Icelandic textual production from the Middle Ages, we must acknowledge
that a great deal of it is the product of translation in the widest sense of
that term and thus a product of the mediation of one culture’s textuality,
MeDIevAL ICeLAnDIC teXtuAL CuLtuRe