Creating Time. The Saga Narrator as God

Abstract

We often perceive stories in a similar way to our real life: for a moment, man-made time is suspended, and we become part of a divine eternity in which we see the past, present, and future as a simultaneous whole. Boethius referred to this double temporality as totum simul (›all at once‹). The narrators of the Old Norse Íslendingasögur (family sagas) also adopt a totum simul perspective. In this way, they control both the narrative itself and the experience of the audience. The narrator thus actively shapes and curates the time of narration, a concept which Ricœur studied intensively. Despite their omniscience, the saga narrators rarely draw attention to themselves, and hardly intervene in a saga in a noticeable way. It is only when we are already familiar with a saga that it becomes possible to see how it has been shaped and directed by the narrator through various means.