Skáldskaparmál - 01.01.1997, Page 262

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Umsagnir um bakur
would not need this help. Only familiarity with the texts, in fact, justifies Helga’s
heavy use of citations as headings. MM, in other words, suffers from a discrepancy
between content and form.
Literary scholars may be free to interpret individual texts as they wish, but
when they proceed to draw sweeping historical, even universal, conclusions from
these, a more historically-minded reader may protest. Máttugar meyjars most
serious problem concerns the inferences Helga draws from her evidence. At first
she claims that she is not interested in the historical truth, ‘what in fact happened’.
Nonetheless, when she proceeds to state that she wants to get to ‘the origin and
meaning of the text, to the event from which it emerged and which propelled it’,
because this information ‘says a great deal about culture and society’, she is
approaching New Historicism, recently in vogue among literary scholars in the
United States who are interested in cultural and historical subjects in a specific
social setting. Helga goes one step further, however, as she boldly claims that her
conclusions are ‘universal and are found in patriarchal societies around the world
although their manifestations may vary’ (9).
Her sweeping literary generalization is evident from her subtitle, Islensk
fornbókmenntasaga. Surveying the entire medieval Norse literature, she siphons
offthe vignettes that suit her purpose and which are found mainly in lesser known
texts. With these she builds an image of female poetic creativity and power, leaving
the reader with the impression that she has revealed merely the tip of an iceberg.
Helga must be given credit for her thoroughness, but novices and non-specialists
need to be told that she has collected every bit of evidence of use for her theme.
Because of the paucity of the documentation, therefore, her work does not
amount to a history of ancient and medieval Icelandic literature, as is obvious
from its size. In other words, many literary critics and historians will be uncom-
fortable with this thesis. Furthermore, Helga damages her own theory by shaping
her texts to make them fit her theory. I shall give two examples which are not
found in her articles but which are enlarged in this book from the version in NK;
therefore, I assume they present her latest thinking.
The first concerns the lovely story of the young woman Ingunn described in
one of two main versions of Jónssaga helga. While bishop at Hólar, Jón established
a school to which ‘both women and men flocked,’ as the text states (Biskupa sögur,
1858, 239 (Bs )). The students were instructed mainly by foreign teachers in the
liberal arts, the usual curriculum at a cathedral school. The medieval author lists
a number of pupils (larisveinar) who became famous, among them Klængr, later
bishop of Skálholt, who was brought to Hólar by his mother at the age of twelve
in order to study (til frœðináms). Having mentioned about a dozen men, the
author of the saga turns to Ingunn. She was also there í frœðinœmi (in order to
learn). Nonetheless, Helga insists that she did not learn to read and write, and
that she was not there to learn, but to teach. It is true that the author continues
by stating that Ingunn did so well í sögðum bóklistum (in the above-mendoned