Íslendingasögur, Anonymity, and Stylo: A Case of Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa
This talk will be focused on the application of Stylo (R) to an anonymous medieval text, one of the Old Icelandic sagas of Icelanders (Íslendingasögur). Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa has often been called «clumsily made» because at a certain point the narrative changes quite dramatically. A close reading research has shown that the point of change divides the saga into two parts that have the same plot pattern but differ in the narrator’s work with point of view, perspective, and characters’ representation as well as the narrative organisation. Thus, the possibilities are that Bjarnar saga, as we have it, is either a compilation of two different texts written by different authors or a representation of two different types of narrative based on a theme (setting in Norway/setting in Iceland) or pragmatics of composition (introduction/main story).
In this talk I want to present the current results of approaching this problem by means of Stylo as well as to discuss their possible interpretation and further research strategy in this case.
The transmission will be available on our YouTube channel: