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Romances, rimur, chapbooks. Problems of popular literature in late medieval and early modern Scandinavia.1 I The publication of Agnete Loth's pioneering five-volume edition of the Late Medieval Icelandic Romances (LMIR) (Copenhagen, 1962-65) and Inger M . Boberg's Motif-Index of Early Icelandic Literature (Copenhagen, 1966) finally forced Old Norse scholarship, which for decades had showed little interest in the literature of late medieval Scandinavia,toface the fact that the greater portion of saga Uterature was not produced in that classical period it had so assiduously researched and appreciated, the thirteenth century. A s a more or less direct consequence of Loth's edition of fifteen prose narratives from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries which, although their existence had been scarcely acknowledged by scholarship, had enjoyed highest popularity, a hitherto unseen area of research became prominent. In the last 20-25 years, a whole range of studies and editions dealing with Norwegian literature of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and Icelandic Uterature of the late thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries has appeared.2 The foundation for this activity has been the accessibility of narratives hitherto only available in unsatisfactory editions. Together with LMIR, the foUowing works, among others, have appeared in critical editions: Erex saga (1965), hens saga (1979), parts of Karlamagnus saga (1980), of the Strengleikar (1979), Mdttuls saga (1987), Partalopa saga (1983), Barlaams saga (1982), Gibbons saga (1960), Eiriks saga vidfdrla (1983), Sigurdar sagapdgla (in press). Even a short text like Gvimars saga was edited on its discovery. Editions of Tristrams saga, Parcevals saga, Bevers saga, Fldres saga ok Blankiflur, and Magus saga are in preparation, and have been so in some cases for a considerable time. Facsimde editions have facditated access to several important manuscript 1 This contribution is a heavily revised version of a paper presented at the University of Sydney within the framework of the Sydney Medieval Icelandic Fiction and Folktale Workshop. The following presentation, and in particular the concluding section, should be viewed as part of a larger project of the author's dealing with popular literature in Scandinavia between the Reformation and the Romantic period. 2 For references see Marianne Kalinke, Norse Romance (Riddarasogur), in Old NorseIcelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica X L V , Ithaca and London 1985, 316-63; Marianne E. Kalinke and P.M. Mitchell, Bibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Romances, Islandica XLIV, Ithaca and London, 1985; Bibliography of Old Norse-Icelandic Studies (BONIS), Copenhagen, 1963-. 38 /. Glauser compilations containing late medieval examples of fomaldarsdgur and riddarasogur; Perg. 4to. no. 6 of c.1400 (1972), DG 4-7,fol. of c. 1250 (1972), AM 586 4to. and 589 4to. from the fifteenth century (1977), AM 489 4to. of c. 1450 (1980), AM 180 a & b fol. from the fifteenth century. In addition four volumes of rimur editions have appeared, significantly improving the accessibility of this important late medieval Icelandic genre.1 The editors of these texts have, in connection with their editorial work, also performed valuable philological service in the stricter sense of the word, describing lost and preserved manuscripts, providing analyses of various Norwegian and Icelandic scribal hands and schools, examining relationships between individual manuscripts and groups, and so on.2 There can be no doubt that the saga conferences held in Munich (1979) and Toulon (1982) on the general subjects of fomaldarsdgur and riddarasogur respectively were a significant factor in encouraging more scholars to examine the various groups of post-classical saga literature. Since then it has been the translated (Norwegian) and original (Icelandic) riddarasogur in particular that have enjoyed significant attention (and after all, they had been hitherto the most neglected), while with a few notable exceptions scholarly interest in the fomaldarsdgur has been less perceptible. Here the closeness of the interdependence between accessibiUty through bibliographies and editions on the one hand and literary-critical assessment on the other becomes fully apparent. Where, as in the case of thefomaldarsdgur, the manuscript preservation of the whole corpus has not been examined, and no editions consonant with m o d e m requirements are available, it is scarcely possible to provide a reliable presentation of literary developments, to allocate genres, or...

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