Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 227

227
readings usually disregard this distinction. Byock writes that “Iceland
exhibits many aspects of a shame society, in which the conviction of mem­
bers of the peer group and public opinion at large carried significant
influence.”38 to flesh out his point he refers to the episode in Njáls saga
when Hrútur gives a precious ring to a boy who ridicules him. Byock
writes: “Though Hrut is the object of the joke and is shamed by the chil­
dren’s antics, he is able to prevent utter disaster to his reputation by dem­
onstrating both restraint and generosity. With a sense of graciousness and
a largeness of spirit, which he is wise enough to know will be held in high
regard and spoken of long after the event, he gives the boy a fine gift.”39
There is a striking shift in this passage, which goes to the heart of the
question I am pondering. In one sentence, Byock describes Hrútr’s action
as exemplifying “a sense of graciousness and a largeness of spirit” which
Kristján takes to indicate the moral excellence of the one who desires to be
virtuous and not merely to be seen as virtuous.40 (It might be noted here
that in a purely social conception of sœmd or virðing, seeming to be virtu­
ous could be sufficient; cf. the etymological relations between “seem” and
“sœmd”, “virðing” and “virðast”.) In the next sentence, Byock threatens to
undermine Hrútr’s largeness of spirit by explaining it in terms of his wis­
dom of knowing that his noble acts “will be held in high regard and spoken
of long after the event.” this makes the nobility of Hrútr’s act dependent
on its social reception rather than being the fruit of his fine character and
exercise in self­improvement. this and other examples indicate that
Byock’s shrewd analysis of medieval Iceland shares, to some extent, the
shortcomings of sociological readings when it comes to evaluating the
moral dimension of the sagas.
It is instructive to make use of jóhann Páll Árnason’s civilizational
analysis to evaluate the shortcomings of all three interpretations of saga
morality that we have considered. He writes: “it seems appropriate to dis­
tinguish between economic, political and ideological spheres of the social
world. The task of civilizational analysis would then be to show that the
constitution, differentiation and interaction of these recurrent clusters of
38 Byock, Viking Age Iceland, 226.
39 Ibid, 227.
40 kristján kristjánsson, “Liberating Moral traditions”, 415.
An etHoS In tRAnSfoRMAtIon