Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1992, Page 257

Reykjahólabók
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that deviations in detail from the Passionael derive from different sources. So
far, the illustrative material has dwelled on minutiae of content. Major
discrepancies between the Icelandic and Low German legendaries also exist
on a formal level. In general the difference between the legends in
Reykjahólabók and those in the Passionael consists not only in what is told
— that is in deviations, additions, and omissions - but also in how it is told,
that is, in narrative technique. The Passionael is laconic, the development of
plot abrupt and insufficiently motivated, while the voice of the narrator
predominates; in comparison, the style of Reykjahólabók is verbose; the plot
is developed gradually with attention to detail and an eye to developing
dramatic tension; the actions of the characters are fully motivated and
explained, while they are permitted to voice their own thoughts in both
monologue and dialogue. In the Passionael we encounter the short didactic
form of the legend, or of the exemplary tale, but in Reykjahólabók the
longer, novellistic form exemplified by medieval romance and a new type of
prose novel, the Volksbuch, which was contemporary with Reykjahólabók
in the German-language realm and the oldest attestations of which in Iceland
fall shortly after the composition of Reykjahólabók.29
The narratives found in these two legendaries, the Low German and
Icelandic compilations, were produced from rather different perspectives
and had different objectives. The legends of the Passionael were addressed to
those belonging to a community of faith. They were not meant to entertain
but to edify. The narrator did not need to infuse tension or uncertainty into
his account, since the happy end - in a Christian sense - was assured in the
sacred legend. The prose legends express a sober taste that disdains the love
of form evident in such earlier verse legends as Hartmann’s Gregorius.30 In
this respect, however, the narratives in Reykjahólabók go their own way, for
they are generally told in a manner bound to attract and rivet the attention of
the reader or listener. Instead of the voice of the all-knowing narrator, who
controls events in the Passionael, we hear the characters speak for
themselves. Instead of the simple, calm account of the exemplary tale we
meet what one might call legends on the way to becoming novels - or at least
novellas - in the Icelandic legendary. This is in fact a tendency that
developed with the advent of printing on the continent: legends that had
29 Cf. Hubert Seelow, Die islandischen Ubersetzungen der deutschen Volksbiicher.
Handschriftenstudien zur Rezeption und Uberlieferung auslandischer unterhaltender
Literatur in Island in der Zeit zwischen Reformation und Aufkldrung (Reykjavík:
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, 1989).
30 “Dem niichternen, die Form verachtenden Geschmack der Zeit entsprach die
Prosaauflösung der Verslegende, wie sie jetzt ... . Hartmanns Gregorius ... und
Ebernands Heinrich und Kunegunde ... erfuhren” (Reallexikon der deutschen
Literaturgeschichte, 2nd rev. ed. Werner Kohlschmidt and Wolfgang Mohr [Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1965], 11:22).