Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Page 36

Women and Men in Laxdæla saga
ROBERT COOK
It is a commonplace that the world of the Icelandic commonwealth was a
man’s world, characterized by political intriguing, foreign travel, thing
meetings, battles, and the like (Jochens 1986:46), though it can be argued that
women had more respect and protection, more of a share in domestic
economy, than their continental counterparts (for two sides of this argument
see Ólafía Einarsdóttir 1984 and Gunnar Karlsson 1986). In the literary
world of the Sagas of Icelanders, on the other hand, with its memorable
gallery of strong and influential women, the picture seems to be slightly
different, though this too has been called a man’s world:
íslendingasögur eru karlabókmenntir, sem lýsa mönnum og málefnum frá
sjónarhóli feðraveldis og yfirstéttar. Algengustu minnin lúta að hetjudáðum
karlmanna, sem felast framar öðru í harðsnúnum deilum um eignarétt og þeim
bardögum, málaferlum og vígum, sem af þeim leiða, að ógleymdum
viðburðaríkum ferðalögum innanlands og utan og viðurkenningu erlendra
stórhöfðingja. I þessum frásögnum, sem hlíta föstum formúlum og ákveðnu
mynstri, er lítið svigrúm fyrir konur og eignalausan almúgann. Slíkum
persónum er ekki lýst vegna þeirra sjálfra, heldur sem viðföngum karlhetjanna,
og viðhorf til þeirra fara gjarnan eftir því hvernig þær samræmast hugmyndum
sagnahefðarinnar um hetjuskap og karlmennsku. (Helga Kress 1980:97)
Here we face a problem: somehow we must try. to account for the
contradictory impressions produced by the male-centered nature of the
saga world on the one hand and the powerful female figures who are
prominent in that world on the other hand. Helga Kress’s response has been
to find two sagas to be exceptions to the rule of male-centeredness: Laxdœla
saga, which she finds to present a feminine point of view (HK 1980), and
Fóstbrœðra saga, which she describes as a parody of male heroics (HK
1987).
Another way of dealing with the strong feminine presence in a male-
dominated literature is to accept a distinction between the social world
traceable in a fiction and the attitude expressed in that fiction. Such a
distinction, with its resulting focus on the literary values of the text, would
be more likely to encourage a reading free of the polarities of sexual politics.
SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL 2 (1992)
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