Old Icelandic Literature and Society Clunies Ross Hardback 9780521631129

Old Icelandic Literature and SocietyAuthor(s): Margaret Clunies Ross\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521631129, 978-0521631129\nSynopsis\nFrom the period of settlement [tel] to the end of the fourteenth century, Icelanders produced one of the most varied and original literatures of medieval Europe. This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of Old Icelandic literature within its social setting and across a range of genres. An international team of specialists examines the ways in which the unique social experiment in Iceland, a kingless society without an established authority structure, inspired a wealth of innovative writing composed in the Icelandic vernacular. Icelanders explored their uniqueness through poetry, mythologies, metrical treatises, religious writing, and through saga, a new literary genre which textualised their history and incorporated oral traditions in a wri.