Saga - 2011, Síða 92

united, free, and federated Scandinavia“.112 Í formála bókar Jóns er
að finna lýsingu James Bryce sem nú má heita að sé orðin nokkuð
stöðluð:
Now Iceland is a country of quite exceptional and peculiar interest, not
only in its physical but also in its historical aspects. The Icelanders are
the smallest in number of the civilized nations of the world. … the is -
land … is a Nation, with a language, a national character, a body of
traditions that are all its own. Of all the civilized countries it is the most
wild and barren … Yet the people of this remote isle, placed in an
inhospitable Arctic wilderness, … has been from the beginning of its
national life more than thousand years ago, an intellectually cultivated
people which has produced a literature both in prose and in poetry that
stands among the primitive literatures next after that of ancient Greece
if one regards both its quantity and quality. Nowhere else, except in
Greece, was so much produced that attained, in times of primitive
simplicity, so high a level of excellence both in imaginative power and
in brilliance of expression.113
Þótt margir Íslendingar efuðust um pan-skandinavískar skoðanir
Jóns Stefánssonar tóku þeir þó fagnandi hugmyndinni um að bók-
menntaarfleifð Íslendinga frá miðöldum mætti réttilega bera saman
við forngrískar bókmenntir og gullöld Grikkja. Eftir fengið fullveldi
árið 1918 og sér í lagi eftir lýðveldisstofnunina árið 1944 var spurn-
ingin um þjóðlegan uppruna hinna norrænu miðaldabókmennta
sett á oddinn í opinskáum deilum við aðrar þjóðir Norðurlanda.
Þetta átti sér stað í deilunum um handritin milli íslenskra og danskra
valdhafa um þjóðlegt upphaf Íslendingasagnanna.114 Hvaða þjóð
gat eignað sér hinar dýrlegu íslensku eða norrænu miðaldir þegar
fornbókmenntir Norðurlandanna voru samdar?
clarence e. glad92
Victorians. Inventing the Old North in 19th-century Britain (Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer 2000), bls. 34.
112 Jon Stefansson, Denmark and Sweden with Iceland and Finland, bls. xxx.
113 Sama heimild, bls. x–xi.
114 Guðmundur Hálfdanarson, „Interpreting the Nordic past. Icelandic Medieval
Manuscripts and the Construction of a Modern Nation“, The Uses of the Middle
Ages in Modern European States. Ritstj. Guy Marchal og Robert Evans (London:
Palgrave Macmillan 2010), bls. 52–71.
Saga haust 2011 NOTA_Saga haust 2004 - NOTA 11/24/11 9:51 AM Page 92