Instructor’s email: hengikepta@gmail.com

L&S Breadth:  Arts & Literature

This course is an introduction to the sagas, the most famous literary genre of medieval Scandinavia. While the course will emphasize reading, understanding, discussing and writing about the literature of this period, we will also learn about the roots of Scandinavian literature in the Viking Age, and about its material, historical and cultural contexts. Readings will include Egil’s saga, Hrafnkel’s saga, Eyrbyggja saga, The Vinland sagas, The saga of the Volsungs, Ynglinga saga, and selections from The Book of Settlements and The Book of the Icelanders.

Texts:
Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga. Cambridge. ISBN 978-0521735209. Required.

The Sagas of Icelanders with a preface by Jane Smiley. Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. ISBN 978-0141000039. Required.

Eyrbyggja Saga, tr. Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0140445305. Required.

Saga of the Volsungs, tr. Jesse L. Byock. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0140447385. Required.

Course reader. Required.

Prerequisites: None. Readings are in English.

Course load:Short in-class presentation, midterm test, term paper (5-6 pages, doublespaced), final exam.