SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

268 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
reveal character in order to describe conduct" For what we,
looking at it from a modern angle, call "characterisation" in the
sagas is usually, more strictly, motivation of the action of the
story, and it is from a study of personal relationships and tensions,
rather than from character as such, that the narrative derives its
strength. Mr Foote himself remarks on "the sustained dramatic
sequence of highly charged emotional relationships between the
central characters" (p. 107), and comments that "the relationships
could hardly be more complex" (p. 106), yet he sees Gisli
(somewhat uneasily) as "essentially a simplex character" (p. 109).
So he may be in terms of "characterisation", but in terms of
motive his conduct, especially in the central scenes of the saga, is
anything but simple (e.g. his hiding away of the spear he takes
from Vesteirr's body, the spear that he knows his brother Thorkell
will recognise if it is used to avenge the murder). It is only by
throwing away modern assumptions and getting as close as we
can to what these medieval writers were trying to do that we can
hope to evaluate adequately what they have done. And to do
this we must pay more attention to their methods. Perhaps the
most remarkable feature of the central part of Gisla saga is the
organic use of irony - both verbal irony in the speeches and
dramatic irony in the action - and of pattern in the sequence of
events. It is by these methods that the "highly charged
emotional relationships between the central characters" is
conveyed, and the close-knit quality given to this part of the saga
that is lacking in the rest of the saga. I t would have been
interesting to have had more analysis of the saga's techniques.
l. I,. GORDON
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF OLD NORSE-ICELANDIC STUDIES 1963. Edited
by HANS BEKKER-l\IELSEN and THORKIL DAMSGAAIW OLSEN
in collaboration with the ROYAL LIBRARY, COPENHAGE".
Munksgaard, Copenhagen, 1964. 64 pp.
It is pleasant to welcome this new bibliography covering the
field of Old Norse-Icelandic studies. As the editors rightly
point out, it fills a long-felt want. It has been produced with
exemplary promptness, and we must hope that the editors will
maintain the same speed and accuracy, so that this bibliography
will not falter or fail, appearing tardily or not at all, as so many of
its predecessors have done.
The bibliography sets out to be selective, not exhaustive, and
this spikes the critic's guns immediately, although he may choose
to quibble about the criteria employed in making the selection.