Gripla - 01.01.2003, Side 71

INTERPRETATION OR OVER-INTERPRETATION
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Literary relations are at least more concrete than judgements about style.
In his discussion of ‘artistry’, Einar Olafur cautiously advances the theory that
a clumsily written saga is likely to be early (see above). But he continues,
speaking of conventions that developed to preserve the ‘illusion of reality’,
‘there are some sagas in which these rules are more flagrantly broken than
others. These sagas might perhaps be called “archaic’” (115-16; the first
example to be named is Heidarvíga saga). This term inevitably implies age,
although he later questions, ‘We may ask whether archaic sagas are neces-
sarily old sagas, and whether these archaic characteristics are enough for us to
conclude that a saga is old’ (119), and instances Reykdœla saga as an excep-
tional case of a saga which is not dated early despite apparently ‘archaic’
features. Nevertheless he confirms that in the case of Heiðarvíga saga and
Fóstbrœðra saga archaic style is a criterion which, if supported by other
considerations, may be used as an indication of early date. The inconsistencies
of this discussion reveal the unreliable assumptions that tend to be made about
archaic style. I pass over here the larger questions of how archaic style is to be
defined, and indeed, how we are to know what the style of a genuinely early
text was like, since few survive in anything like their original form.
Bjami Guðnason is on safe ground, then, in pointing out the inadequacy of
definition in these notions of primitive style to justify his scepticism about the
early dating of Heiðannga saga: ‘frávik frá staðli stíltegundar eru í sjálfu sér
ekki aldursmerki’ (1993, 206) [deviations from a particular type of style are in
themselves no indication of age]. His arguments are less convincing, however,
when he uses this rejection of conventional typology to assert the individuality
of the author, whom he then attempts, on ideological grounds, to place in a
specific historical context. I tum now to a more detailed consideration of
Bjami’s arguments in favour of the late dating of these two texts. I shall focus
first on the question of literary relations, taking the example of connexions he
asserts between both sagas and Laxdœla saga\ then on his arguments about
literary echoism; and finally his attempt to locate Heiðann'ga saga in a specific
cultural and ideological context.
Literary Relations
Sigurður Nordal in his edition of Bjarnar saga found little or no specific
dependence on earlier written texts, though the saga’s use of established con-
ventions led him to believe that it was not among the very earliest of the Is-