Cultural Memory in the Icelandic Contemporary Sagas : Constructing Continuity at a Time of Transformation

Abstract

This book presents an innovative approach to the Old Icelandic sagas depicting the social transformation of medieval Iceland in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, analysing them through the lens of cultural memory studies. It thus avoids the limitations of strictly historical or literary analysis and focuses on the development of knowledge about the recent past into stories from which a society facing change could derive a sense of continuity.