Gripla - 20.12.2009, Page 256

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SuMMARy
This paper explores two approaches to the literary history of the Icelandic com­
monwealth. Each uses the concepts of honour and shame to analyse morality and
society; and each compares the respective roles of these concepts in the medieval
Icelandic commonwealth and in Greek antiquity. One approach seeks to identify
those elements in the two literatures which give expression to their respective
understandings of ethics/morality and society; by doing so the role of ‘thick­
morality’ within each society is explained. The other approach seeks to dehistori­
cize these particular notions, arguing (perhaps with limited success) for the time­
lessness of these moral concepts.
Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson
Department of History and Philosophy,
School of Humanities
University of Iceland
svahra@hi.is