Dating the Sagas: Reviews and Revisions

Anonymously written and transcribed from oral tales, the family sagas of Iceland are notoriously difficult texts to date. In this book, a host of contributors address the methodological problems inherent in dating the sagas, and in the process they offer insightful discussions of the saga form itself. Focusing on the several new written genres that developed in Iceland in the thirteenth century, they locate the dynamic position of the sagas at the intersection of oral and written traditions. In doing so, they highlight the crucial problems of philological research and the importance of accuracy in understanding literary history.