How Genre Governs Creation in the Medieval Icelandic Sagas

"This thoughtful and provocative study takes the current debates over genre in Old Norse literature to the next level."

—Shaun Hughes, Professor, Purdue University-West Lafayette, USA

This book sets out to answer why genre matters when analysing sagas, medieval literature, and creation in general. How Genre Governs Creation in the Medieval Icelandic Sagas applies theoretical observations on the workings of genre to saga literature analysis, including media and film genre theory, as well as observations from reader-response theory. The text primarily focuses on Íslendingasögur, a group of prose or prosimetric texts that concern the medieval Norse world, usually taking place in the period between the end of the ninth and the mid-eleventh centuries and focusing on Iceland. Tirosh proposes new interpretations to several sagas, but more importantly provides a fresh perspective on the importance and application of genre theory to medieval literary studies.

Yoav Tirosh is an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department for Scandinavian Studies and Experience Economy at Aarhus University, Denmark.