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  • Francia et Germania. Studies in Strengleikar and Þiðreks saga af Bern ed. by Karl G. Johansson and Rune Flaten
  • Erin Michelle Goeres
Francia et Germania. Studies in Strengleikar and Þiðreks saga af Bern. Edited by Karl G. Johansson and Rune Flaten. Bibliotheca Nordica, 5. Oslo: Novus forlag, 2012. Pp. 390; 14 color illustrations. NOK 345.

This volume is witness to the growing scholarly interest in Old Norse translations of French and German romance texts during the later medieval period. the court of Hákon Hákonarson, king of Norway during the middle of the thirteenth century, provides the focal point for this and many other such studies; as the Introduction by Stefka Georgieva Eriksen and Karl G. Johansson reminds us, King Hákon is credited with commissioning the translation of five French-language works into Norse, while numerous other translated texts are associated both with his court and with those of his descendants (pp. 9–11). Drawing primarily upon work presented at conferences in Oslo in 2006 and 2007, the articles collected here focus upon two manifestations of this translation impulse: “Francia” is represented by the translation of the Anglo-Norman Lais of Marie de France into the Old Norse Strengleikar, while “Germania” is illustrated through the use of German source material in Þiðreks saga af Bern and related texts.

The Introduction, “Francia et Germania—Translations and the Europeanisation of Old Norse Narratives,” emphasizes the authors’ desire to “open up a new debate about the role of the translated literature from other vernaculars and inspire scholars to renew their acquaintance with this frequently neglected part of Old Norse literature” (p. 8). It is perhaps unsurprising that this introduction is the most useful section of the book in this respect, providing an accessible but detailed introduction to the histories, manuscripts, and major themes of Strengleikar and Þiðreks saga. Of particular use are the tables that match folios from the major manuscripts with pages in commonly used, modern editions. The Introduction summarizes a number of scholarly debates surrounding the two texts (focusing especially upon Þiðreks saga) and situates them within the wider context of medieval and postmedieval responses to the translated material.

The collection opens, appropriately enough, with an article by Robert Cook, whose 1979 edition of Strengleikar with Mattias Tveitane remains one of the most useful resources for those working on the text. In “Concepts of Love in the Lais and in their Norse Counterparts,” Cook takes as his starting point Marianne Kalinke’s well-known assessment that love episodes in Arthurian romance receive only the briefest attention when translated into Old Norse (King Arthur North-by-Northwest, 1981). Cook, however, argues that the translator of Strengleikar understood and sympathized with continental models of love. He notes that, despite some abridgements of the French text, the Old Norse translator includes and even amplifies descriptions of lovers’ emotions and inner lives; he concludes that the translator was careful to preserve the underlying conception of love as found in the French source-text even as he adapted his translation to suit the taste of his target audience. Cook’s article offers a useful thematic introduction to Strengleikar, while the article that follows, Hélène Tetrel’s “Lais and Strengleikar: A ‘Breton’ short Narrative Type in Old Norse?” raises important questions about the generic categorization of the French text and its Norse translation. Tetrel suggests that the translated lais differ from other Norse romance texts in their emphasis on the oral provenance [End Page 115] of the tales; somewhat paradoxically, she notes, the Old Norse translator evokes the imagery and idea of oral performance even as he writes the stories down in prose. She suggests that the tales’ audience may well have been aware of their oral provenance and that this link with the past may explain the regard in which the translated lais were held.

Having introduced Strengleikar in this way, the volume then turns to three articles on Þiðreks saga. In “Þetta slagh mun þier kient hafa þin kona enn æigi þinn fader—Hildibrand und Hildebrandsage in der Þiðreks saga af Bern,” Robert Nedoma compares the presentation...

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