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It is the object of this thesis to present the chief stylistic and structural characteristics of five thirteenth century Norse sagas selected as representative of Sturla Þórðarson's literary background; to show in what ways and to suggest why he did or did not follow their examples; and on the basis of this, to offer a new interpretation of the style and structure of Sturla's Íslendinga Saga. The five sagas are considered chronologically in the order they are believed to have been written. Sverris Saga is a partisan record of an unconventional Norwegian king's reign (1177-1202) based on the king's personal experience and contemporary witness. Knytlinga Saga (c. 1260), a celebration of Danish Christian princes (940-1187), has an unadorned style, at times not unlike Sturla's, but its concentration on the single theme makes it too constricted for Sturla's complex material. In Heimskringla (c. 1230), a history of Norwegian kings up to 1177, Snorri Sturluson freely adapts and selects from his source material to produce a wellreasoned pattern of events. Sturla's material for Íslendinga Saga was too close to him to be manipulated in this fashion. He probably learned most from his own experience of writing Hákonar Saga in 1263. Although this was written under the constraints of diplomacy, Sturla was confronted with the task of ordering a mass of virtually contemporary material. Njáls Saga, an almost wholly fictional work, depends for its unity on complex interactions between figures motivated by their inner temperaments. Sturla also records diverse human emotions, but his narrative must depend on actual happenings and therefore lacks the contrived flawlessness of Njáls Saga. Yet Sturla's selection and arrangement of his authentic material - a dense mass of facts - show that his control is perfect. He writes with awesome sobriety and psychological insight, and he rejects any artificial structure.

This thesis examines masculinities in the Íslendingasögur. It attempts to uncover the dominant model of masculinity that operates in the sagas, outlines how masculinities and masculine characters function within these texts, and investigates the means by which the sagas, and saga characters, may subvert masculine dominance. The thesis applies to men and masculinities in saga literature the same scrutiny traditionally used to study women and femininities. The first - introductory - chapter reviews the limited scholarship that presently exists on masculinities in Old Norse literature. It then proposes a new model for the critical study of saga masculinities, drawing on sociological theories of hegemonic and subordinated masculinities. The second chapter ranges across the entire Íslendingasaga corpus in order to demonstrate how masculinity inflects homosocial relationships (and thus virtually all aspects of saga texts). It also suggests that almost all masculine characters have a problematic relationship with masculinity as a result of the intersectional nature of subject formation. The third chapter, focusing on Njáls saga, argues that the male body is used to undermine the prevailing model of masculinity. It is argued that the Njála author purposefully deploys somatic indices that have gendered significance to show embodied resistance to the demands of masculinity. The fourth chapter examines the representation and treatment of a character (Grettir Ásmundarson) that embodies masculinity to an exceptional degree, but who nevertheless - or perhaps for that reason - experiences a problematic relationship with masculinity. Finally, an epilogue briefly investigates some of the ways in which female characters may undermine and problematize the masculinity of men and the category of masculinity itself. Ultimately, this thesis shows that masculinity is not simply glorified in the sagas, but is represented as being both inherently fragile and a burden to all characters, masculine and non-masculine alike.

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No description available.