Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1977, Page 137

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Freiprosalehre and Buchprosalehre, and the ideas that are related
to them. Some modern scholars seem to believe that the truth lies
between the two theories, but I think that this offers an imperfect
solution. The correct approach, in my opinion, is to reject all such
theories and to regard the sagas in the same way as any other
written literature, following the judgement of the great pioneers
Konrad Maurer and Bjorn M. Olsen.
The first independent investigation of a single Icelandic saga
was the dissertation of Konrad Maurer Ueber die Hænsa-Poris saga,
which was published a hundred and six years ago, in 1871. This
dissertation merits the high praise it has received; let me quote
the recognition given by Theodore M. Andersson in his book The
Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins (p. 40):
Maurer’s essay represented an extraordinary advance in saga research.
It anticipated most of the techniques of present investigation, the
studious comparison of a saga with the available written sources,
especially Landnåma, the careful testing of the saga’s intemal logic
and probability, the assumption of the reworker’s if not the author’s
prerogative to innovate and speculate, the dating according to literary
interrelationships. There is even a hint of the latter-day Icelandic
typological dating when Maurer speaks of a “sehr gewandte Darstellung”
which forbids us to count the work among the first ungainly products
of saga writing. With Maurer we enter the stage of research which
does not have mere historie interest but brings us face to face with
the issues still under debate.
Maurer’s work has had tremendous influence on subsequent in-
vestigations, both direct and indirect. It was not least important
that his work largely provided the model for the next pioneer,
Bjorn M. Olsen. A very important part of Maurer’s work is his
comparison of Hænsa-Boris saga with Landnåmabok; and later
Bjorn M. Olsen also undertook this comparison in his own special
way in Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1905). In
similar papers he dealt with the relations of several other Icelandic
sagas with Landnåmabok. In the spirit of Maurer, Bjorn wrote a
short book on Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, and of especial note are
the leetures that he gave at the University of Iceland on all the
sagas of Icelanders in the years 1913-1917. The leetures have never
been printed in their entirety, but they have been mueh used by