![]() ![]() It is also thought to have exerted considerable influence on Old Norse-Icelandic narrative literature. 10 For a survey of this, see Barnes, 2011.Ĩ Tristrams saga has received a good deal of scholarly attention, both as it is the most complete representative of Thomas’s Tristan extant and also owing to its assumed position as the earliest of the Old Norse translations of French romances 10.En Broder Robert efnade og uppskrifade epter sinne kunnattu, med þessum Ordtökumm sem epterfilger i Sógunni. Var þä lided frä hingadburde Christi 1226 Aar, er þessi Saga var a Norrænu skrifud, epter befalningu og skipan Virduglegs herra Hakonar kongz. Hier skrifast Sagann af Tristram og Jsónd Drottningu j hvórri talad verdur umm Obærelega Ast er þau hófdu sijn a Millumm. The oldest Tristrams saga manuscript to preserve the prologue containing the attribution to Brother Robert is Copenhagen, Arnamagnæan Collection, AM 543 4to (fig. 1), a paper manuscript dated to the seventeenth century. There are two vellum fragments from the late fifteenth century, while the rest are paper manuscripts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Tristrams saga ok ÍsöndarĥThe earliest of these is likely to be Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar (The saga of Tristram and Ísönd), a translation of the romance Tristan by the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman poet Thomas of Britain, produced, according to the prologue, by one “Bróðir Róbert” (Brother Robert) in 1226 at the behest of King Hákon Hákonarson of Norway (r. 1217-1263).Ħ Tristrams saga survives in eight manuscripts, all of them Icelandic. These translations, known as riddarasögur (lit. sagas of knights) 6, are for the most part thought to have been made in Norway, but nearly all survive chiefly or exclusively in Icelandic copies 7. Maclean, 1972, Kalinke, 1985, Barnes, 1993, Thorleifsdóttir, (.)ĤAbout twenty Old Norse-Icelandic 5 translations of European courtly romance, most of them from French, survive from the medieval period. 7 On these translated romances see e.g. ![]() 6 The same designation is applied to slightly younger indigenous Icelandic works which were (.).5 ‘Old Norse-Icelandic’ denotes the common language of Norway and Iceland (and th (.).The medieval legacy: From romans courtois to riddarasögur In the present essay, I will examine a selection of the French literary works that survive in Icelandic translations, primarily handwritten but some also in print, the routes by which they travelled there and their later fates in Iceland once they were there 4. The Icelanders’ appetite for good stories was voracious, and it is clear that pretty much anything that was known on the continent was likely eventually to find its way to Iceland. But many works were translated, too, both from Latin and the various European vernaculars, not least French 3. Although Latin learning was certainly not unknown in Iceland, the bulk of this literature was in Icelandic, and was the product of the indigenous Icelandic imagination. 4 The selection of texts treated here has not been made on any scientific basis rather I h (.)ĢThe range of types of literature preserved is vast, from sombre works of religious devotion to romping romances and tales of derring-do.3 A preliminary list of Icelandic translations and adaptations from French is fou (.). ![]()
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