Kings' sagas and Norwegian history : problems and perspectives / / by Shami Ghosh.

• Superior document: The northern world : North Europe and the Baltic c. 400-1700 A.D. Peoples, economies and cultures, v. 54
• Author: Ghosh, Shami.
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Northern world ; v. 54.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (269 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This book is an examination of some of the principal issues arising from the study of the kings’ sagas, the main narrative sources for Norwegian history before c. 1200. Providing an overview of the past two decades of scholarship, it discusses the vexed relationship between verse and prose and the reliability as historical sources of the verse alone or the combination of verse and prose; the possibility and extent of non-native influence on the composition of these texts; and the function of the past, in particular given that most of the historiography of Norway was produced in Iceland. This book aims to stimulate studies of medieval Scandinavian historiography with its critical perspective on the texts and the scholarship, while also providing a useful work of reference in order to make this area of research accessible to scholars in cognate fields.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Skaldic Verse and Saga Prose: Transmission and Reliability -- 3. Non-Native Sources and Influence -- 4. The Uses of the Past -- Chronology -- Bibliography -- Concordance of Cited Passages from the 1932 and 2011 Editions of Morkinskinna -- Index of Modern Scholars Cited -- General Index.