Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1959, Blaðsíða 121
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tive power. Both fornaldarsggur and chansons de geste are essentially
popular literature. But the fornaldarsggur do not use some of the literary
devices usually found in the chansons de geste: soliloquies are practically
banned (except when they are meant to be overheard by somebody) ; con-
versations are short and to the point, and they are meant to convey infor-
mation, but are very seldom used to express sorrow or joy; exclamations
and expressions of any kind of feeling are on the whole avoided. Poetic
devices, like the use of epithets to create a special atmosphere (Charles li
reis, nostre emperere magnes), are never used in the sagas, and the nar-
rator never interposes his condemnation or approval, as he often does in
the chansons de geste.
If we look at the changes made by the Norse translators, even the hest
of them, we find that they affeet just these points. Meissner, in his book
on the Strengleikar, has discussed in detail the changes made by the trans-
lator of Marie de France’s Lais. The following are the more important:
A. Typical omissions:
a. Epithets and stereotyped descriptions (of anger, sorrow, etc., when it
is obvious from the context that a person is angry etc.), Meissner, pp.
149-52.
b. Repetitions, anticipations of things that are going to happen, Meissner,
pp. 263-64.
c. Long lists of unimportant names, Meissner p. 157.
B. Typical additions:
a. Necessary parts of the story, where the poet has left it to the reader
to infer what has happened, Meissner p. 241.
b. Correct titles and other polite formalities, cp. Meissner pp. 237—38,
251.
c. Explanations, Meissner pp. 241-44.
d. The beginning and end of stories and episodes, Meissner pp. 245-47.
C. Typical changes.
a. Pronoun for name or noun, and vice versa, cp. Meissner p. 154.
b. The sequence of events is more logical in the translations, Meissner
p. 258.
c. Gaps and sudden leaps in the narrative filled, Meissner pp. 241—44.
d. Direct instead of indirect speech, and vice versa, Meissner pp. 276—78.
e. A tendency to reduce exaggerations, Meissner p. 237.