Unnr’s Story. Interaction between Prose and Poetry in ›Njáls saga‹

Abstract

›Njáls saga‹ is one of the most famous works of the Icelandic Middle Ages, yet very little scholarship on the saga deals with it as a prosimetric text or considers the stanzas preserved in its narrative. Although the combination of verse and prose has been acknowledged as a generic feature of saga literature, stanzas are not often considered as an integral element of their narrative aesthetic. By comparing two ver­sions of ›Njáls saga‹, my article demonstrates how the stanzas influence the narrative aesthetic and structure of the text, and how verse and prose interact both in their immediate context and in the broader picture of the saga.