Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Page 59

Women and Men in Laxdœla saga
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Hún var kvenna vænst er upp óxu á íslandi, bæði að ásjónu og vitsmunum.
Guðrún var kurteis kona svo að í þann tíma þóttu allt barnavípur er aðrar konur
höfðu í skarti hjá henni. Allra kvenna var hún kænst og best orði farin. Hún var
örlynd kona. (32:1578)
Most of this is of course justified, but the use of the words “kurteis” and
“örlynd” seems extravagant. Apart from this possible discrepancy, however,
most of the female characters are given “honest advertising” and are not
praised beyond their deserts. Of Jórunn, for example, we read:
Hún var væn kona og ofláti mikill. Hún var og skörungur mikill í vitsmunum ...
Vár það brátt auðsætt á hennar högum að hún mundi vera vitur og vel að sér og
mart vel kunnandi og heldur skapstór jafnan. (9:1543)
Þorgerður Egilsdóttir is described with equal frankness and fidelity to her
role in the saga:
Auðsætt var það öllum mönnum að hún var skörungur mikill en fáskiptin
hversdaglega. En það varð fram að koma er Þorgerður vildi til hvers sem hún
hlutaðist. (24:1568-9)
With the women in Laxdcela, though not with the men, there is harmony
between language and action. To use a cliché from the world of sales-
manship: “what you see is what you get.”
The “solidity” with which the female characters are presented, as
opposed to the hollowness in the presentation of the male characters,
strengthens the view that Laxdæla saga is a saga about heroines rather than
about heroes. It is a woman-centered saga in a positive sense, exhibiting in
rich abundance the ways that women can live and control their destinies. If
it can be called a feminist tract, it is of the positive sort that celebrates the
ingenuity and effectiveness of women, not of the negative sort that takes the
word “woman” to mean “person oppressed by a male power system”
(Vendler 1990).
Heimildaskrá
Bouman, A.C. 1962. Pattems in Old Englisb and Old Icelandic Literature. Leiden
University Press.
Conroy, Patricia 1980. “Laxdoela saga and Eiríks saga rauða: Narrative Structure.” Arkiv
för nordisk filologi 95, 116-125.
Conroy, Patricia, and Langen, T.C.S. 1988. “Laxdœla saga: Theme and Structure.” Arkiv
för nordisk filologi 103, 118-141.
Dronke, Ursula 1979. “Narrative Insight in Laxdœla Saga.” J.R.R. Tolkien, Scholar and
Storyteller, ed. by Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell (Cornell University Press),
120-137.