The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Side 9

SPRING/SUMMER 1995
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
INTERVIEW
with Alfrun Gunnlaugsdottir
By Evelyn Scherabon Firchow, University of Minnesota
Interviewed August, 1994, Reykjavik, Iceland
Alfrun Gunnlaugsdottir was born in 1938 in
Reykjavik, the daughter of Oddny Petursclottir
from Eidapingha in Sudurmulasysla and
Gunnlaugur Olafsson from Reykjavik. She has
been teaching world literature at the University
of Iceland since 1971. Apart from her disserta-
tion on Tristan, she has published a number of
scholarly articles dealing with medieval litera-
ture. Her literary work includes short stories (Af
manna voldum, 1982) and three highly ac-
claimed novels (Pel, 1984Hringsol, 1987;
Hvatt ad runum, 1993). Hitherto, none of her
work has been translated into English.
Evelyn: You’ve had an interesting life,
Alfrun, both here in Iceland and abroad.
Alfrun: Yes, if you mean travelling and
acquiring knowledge. Right after I finished
college here, I went to Barcelona to study
Romance languages and literatures. At the
time I was very interested in linguistics and
wondered whether I should write my dis-
sertation in this area. But then I worked
on a medieval literary topic instead. I was
in Spain for almost seven years and from
there I went on to Switzerland.
Evelyn: What were you concentrating
primarily on — Spanish, French or Italian?
Alfrun: Basically on Spanish, but at that
time we were still taught to read languages,
not to speak them. Apart from French, I
read a lot of Provencal, Old French and
Catalan. This background in the history of
languages provided me with a kind of para-
digm which made it easier to read modern
languages, even if I couldn’t speak them.
Still, if I had had a choice then as students
do now, I would never have selected Old
French. But what looks like a wrong move
can sometimes turn out to be the right one.
I had to study it, of course, and as it turned
out was lucky to have a very good profes-
sor in Spain. He taught me French medi-
eval literature and pointed out to me the
translations that were made of it in Nor-
way in the 13th century. I found all of this
very exciting . Then I moved to Switzer-
land, to Lausanne, where I learned to speak
the French that I could only read before. I
spent three and a half years there. When I
returned to Spain, I completed my disser-
tation, Tristan in the North, which I wrote,
and later published, in Spanish.
Evelyn: Does your interest in the Mid-
dle Ages have something to do with your
Old Norse studies in Iceland?
Alfrun: Perhaps when I was young I had
read a little more medieval literature than
most people of my generation. But the de-
cisive turning point for me was the fine
collection of Romance art in the Barcelona
Museum which I visited often. The simplic-
ity and the symbolism of the medieval paint-
ings appealed to me. Through this inter-
est in medieval art I moved closer to the
spirit of the Icelandic sagas. The realistic
approach in some scenes of the Icelandic
sagas had left a permanent impression on