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sequently stressed - by assonance, rhyme, and especially alliteration; the
latter is the chief ornamental characteristic of the riddarasogur. The re-
sultant language is rhythmical as well as euphonious, and it is not unrea-
sonable to suppose that the translators had thereby endeavored “å skaffe
en viss erstatning for verseformer.”15 In addition, the most unusual syn-
tactic feature of the riddarasogur - unusual because it is foreign to native
saga style - is the wide-spread occurrence of the present participle with
the verb vera to form a progressive tense, or in ablative absolute con-
structions.
We find in the riddarasogur two opposing but not mutually exclusive
tendencies: reduction and amplification. Some portions of French text -
not infrequently the very passages that are stylistically most characteristic
of the romances - are not transmitted in the riddarasogur. Yet, just as
often other portions of French narrative appear in augmented form in the
Old Norse-Icelandic romances. Two examples from Chrétien’s Yvain and
from Ivens saga will illustrate that the very stylistic techniques eschewed
by the saga authors in one section of the narrative may be applied liberal-
ly in another. The decision to employ rhetorical embellishments in one
scene as opposed to another, is at the same time a decision to stress one
passage over another. Through a redistribution of rhetorical weight - vis-
å-vis the French text - the very structure and meaning of a work are
affected. Among the stylistic means employed by Chrétien to emphasize
a scene are semantic as well as syntactic repetition and variation. One
particularly effective use of repetition and variation occurs in Lunete’s
speech in which she condemns the hero for having failed to keep his
promise to his wife to return by the appointed day. Lunete’s accusation
that Yvain is a thief for having stolen his lady’s heart and not returning
with it is highly dramatic, priiharily because of repetition and variation of
the one denunciation. The entire speech of 52 verses is in faet a develop-
ment of Lunete’s introductory condemnation of Yvain as faus et traitre et
15 E. F. Halvorsen, “Høvisk stil,” KLNM, VII, 317-18. See also the following for a
general discussion of the characteristics of this prose: M. Nygaard, “Den lærde stil i den
norrøne prosa,” Sproglig-Historiske Studier tilegnede Professor C. R. Unger (Kristiania:
Aschehoug & Co.s Forlag, 1896), pp. 153-70; Bjarne Berulfsen, Kulturtradisjon fra en
storhedstid. En kulturhistorisk studie på grunnlag av den private brevlitteratur i første halvdel
av det 14. hundredår (Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1948), especially pp. 251-71; E. F.
Halvorsen, “Lærd og folkelig stil,” KLNM, XI, pp. 118-23; Mattias Tveitane, Den lærde
stil. Oversetterprosa i den norrøne versjonen av Vitæ Patrum (Bergen & Oslo: Norwegian
Universities Press, 1968).
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