Gripla - 20.12.2006, Page 144

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source-analysis, and studies in folklore. In Prolonged Echoes, Clunies Ross
has discussed Sørensen’s approach as a new historicist one, as he attempts to
define a social picture, drawn from a range of texts, for juxtaposition with
literary texts. This approach enables us to differentiate self-conscious literary
aims of saga authors and the underlying values in their work, or the uncons-
cious authorial self-expression that helps to shape, at a fundamental historical
level, the interpretive nature of saga authorship.
In this regard, a key aspect of a secondary authorship approach is that it
suggests that the authorial function is capable of great variety, that it is multi-
functional, a conception of saga authorship that dovetails with new histori-
cism’s insistence that the social energy in literature speaks, not as ‘blazing
genesis’ but through ‘complex, ceaseless borrowing and lendings’ (Greenblatt
1998:7) – there can be a more detailed understanding of the historical past
which coexists with our differentiation of past perspectives and an apprecia-
tion of the distortions that may arise when scholars attempt to create unified
historical narratives. This is a powerful development for approaches to Old
Icelandic literature and one that reminds us of Middleton’s comments above:
these point the way for a discussion of cultural practices, such as authorship,
in positive terms, despite the texts’ uncertain relation to tradition, historical
reality, and social developments of the thirteenth century. Although ‘there can
be no single method, no overall picture, no exhaustive and definitive cultural
poetics’ (Greenblatt 1998:19), there does remain the possibility of analysis and
discussion of authorship and its relation to an historical period. While it may
not be possible for us to trace the development of a classic style which
embodies a single definition of saga authorship, a meaning remains, apart
from our own, which informs our interpretation of the sagas and the concepts
of authorship they reflect. Variation in the narrative voice supports the identi-
fication of diverse functions of saga authorship: the way that sagas characters
represent themselves and their world can assist us in developing a nuanced
view of these functions.
Our approach to the sagas should not be premised on the notion that the
literary quality of the sagas can be subtracted during the search for reality it-
self: there the question ceases to be about the outlook behind saga composi-
tion, and instead asks how to account for the sagas’ literary affectations in the
process of the greater goal of describing a culture. Approaches which insist
that ‘behind genre there is life’ (Hastrup 1986:9) are in danger of re-writing
the sagas. The agency of the audience and the strengths of saga conventions
gave historical power to certain incidents, for instance, the warrior-poet Egill’s