http://game-of-you.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] game-of-you.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] fandomhigh2006-01-26 11:09 am
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Foreign Lit, 1/26, Period 2

"Good morning.

In our discussion of French literature, we mostly talked about more modern works. We will now step back in time to learn about Norse sagas.

These are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, early Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between Icelandic families. One of them, the Gutasaga, was written on Gotland and deals with the early history of the Gotlanders. They were written in the Old Norse language.

The texts are epic tales in prose, often with stanzas or whole poems in alliterative verse embedded in the text, of heroic deeds of days long gone, tales of worthy men, who were often Vikings, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian. The tales are usually realistic (except, of course, legendary sagas, sagas of saints, sagas of bishops and translated or recomposed romances), sometimes romanticised and fantastic, but always dealing with human beings we can understand."

Dream continues to lecture for about half of class. "For homework, please select and read one saga from this collection. Be prepared to discuss it and the form on Tuesday."