Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.12.1957, Blaðsíða 311

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ating figure in the major part of the story—and the one portrayed witli
the richest artistic understanding-—is, on the contrary, Oddr’s father
Gfeigr. The author points out that he is drawn with lively humour and
luxuriant imagination. The marked change of Cfeigr’s mental attitude and
his outward appearance, which develops pari passu with the course of
events—as seen with special clearness in text M—has been mentioned
already as an original and central feature of the saga. Above all, however,
the virtuosity of the saga-writer finds expression in a number of dialogues
between Ofeigr and other persons in the saga, where these characters like-
wise manifest richness of vivid individuality.
The remainder of the section dealing with the literary aspects gives a
detailed analysis of the syntax, style and composition of the two forms of
the saga.
As regards the syntax, the investigation shows that text M has a larger
proportion of hypotaxis and complex sentences, whereas text K tends to
prefer parataxis and polysyndetic constructions.
A major part of the section on style deals with the many varying types
of stylistic symmetry that are found in the saga, above all in text M. The
author maintains that much of this must be attributed to European literary
tradition inherited from antiquity. Of importance for the textual criticism
is the evidence that the stylistic peculiarities which seem to have been
especially relied on as grounds for asserting that type M contains inter-
polations—namely, the parallelisms, antithetical constructions and al-
literations—not only occur in many other parts of the saga than those
alleged to be interpolations, but also, at times, in corresponding passages
which are found both in M and K. It follows that stylistic tendencies of
this nature must have existed in the saga from the outset.
Another main part of the section on style deals with the many dialogues
in the saga. Among other things we find that the manner in which the
speeches are woven into the text differs to some extent in the two forms.
Thus the K text has many more cases than the M text in which a speecli
is introduced by more than one verbum dicendi, a method which as
a rule is typical of the oral style of narration.
Evidence which has an important bearing on the question whether both
forms of the saga arose from the same original literary text is the faet that,
in M and K alike, numerous figures of speech occur in the same position
in their context. This must be considered a proof of common literary
origin.
Main features of the composition of this saga is the relatively stringent
logical cohesion of the different parts of the story, and the tendency to
make all developments in outward circumstances or the inner life unfold
gradualty. In the portrayal of 6feigr the latter tendency is combined in
a special way with the interaction of mental and physical developments.
Another interesting feature is the manner in which some of the char-
acters of the saga appear to be delineated in a fashion which is meant to