Snorri Sturluson
Boston: Twayne Publishers, (1978). Stated First Printing. Small 8vo. 8-1/4" x 5-3/4". Green cloth covered boards stamped in gold. 188 pp. including index. Fine, as new condition. Item #850
Snorri's literary reputation rests primarily on his historic chronicle, Heimskringla, "Sagas of the Norwegian Kings," and to a lesser extent on the charmingly told myths in his mythological handbook, the Prose Edda. Despite the recognition that Snorri is one of the most imaginative, resourceful, and skilled writers of the Middle Ages, there is no literary analysis of his work in English except for discrete studies in handbooks and journals necessarily limited in scope or in approach. In general, studies devoted to Snorri's work have had a utilitarian rather than an esthetic objective. Scholars have investigated the historicity of Heimskringla and have traced the transmission of narrative motives Snorri had culled from earlier sources, both extant and lost. There have been some signal exceptions, works by Sigurdur Nordal, Halvard Lie, and Siegfried Beyschlag, whose investigations are distinguished by a wider and inspiring purview. No single monograph written in recent years surpasses in depth of learning, literary observation, and broad interest the studies written by Nordal and Lie in the 1920s and 1930s.
Price: $20.00