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The reality of the fantastic : the magical, political and social universe of late medieval saga manuscripts / Hans Jacob Orning.

The reality of the fantastic' combines a 'new philological' close study of a fifteenth-century Icelandic manuscript compilation of fifteen fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur, AM 343a 4to, with an historically-based analysis of the manuscript's various contents, demonstrating how fic...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Orning, Hans Jacob (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Odense : University Press of Southern Denmark, 2017.
Series:Viking collection ; v. 23.
Subjects:
Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi. > Manuscript. > AM 343a 4to.
Sagas > History and criticism.
Iceland > History > To 1262.
Sagas.
Iceland.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History.
Table of Contents:
  • Acknowledgments
  • Abbreviations
  • Introduction
  • Using 'unhistorical' sagas as historical sources
  • The genre concept : gain or pain?
  • What is a saga? : the philological challenge
  • The reality of the fantastic? : the historical challenge
  • The historical background
  • Centre and periphery
  • Magic
  • The political universe
  • Social hierarchy
  • Three modes of reading
  • Sagas as stories : vehicles of ideology
  • Sagas as structures : vehicles of myths
  • Sagas as dynamics : vehicles of negotiation
  • The setup of this book
  • AM 343a 4to
  • Introduction
  • Short summary of the sagas in AM 343a 4to
  • Stories
  • A story of the suppression of magic
  • A story of the formation of a political realm
  • A story of the establishment of social hierarchy
  • The Hrafnista story : conclusions and limitations
  • Oppositions
  • The magical aspect : the periphery as alien
  • The political aspect : the periphery as subordinate
  • The social aspect : the ideal order
  • Conclusion : Us vs. them
  • Dynamics
  • The magical aspect : the periphery as similar
  • The political aspect : the powerful periphery
  • The social aspect : a contested order
  • Conclusion : self-governed communities
  • The literary and historical context of AM 343a 4to
  • Otherness
  • Power
  • Order
  • Synchronic analysis : AM 471 4to and AM 343a 4to
  • The magical aspect : the periphery as similar
  • The political aspect : the powerful periphery
  • The social aspect : a contested order
  • Tensions between magnates and kings
  • Magnate rivalry and community
  • The king and the people : a distant relationship
  • Conclusion
  • Diachronic analysis : holm perg 7 4to and AM 343a 4to
  • The magical aspect : the periphery as similar
  • The political aspect : the powerful periphery
  • The social aspect : a contested order
  • Conclusion
  • The fantastic and the real
  • From text to manuscript
  • Sweet dreams are made of this
  • Scary monsters (and super creeps)
  • You can't always get what you want
  • From manuscript to textual community
  • From textual community to fifteenth-century Iceland
  • 1A chaotic society
  • A feuding society
  • From free state to statefree Iceland?
  • A new society
  • An elite society
  • Bibliography
  • Index of manuscripts
  • Index.

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