Hoffman, Ann Preston. Violence, Heroism, and Redemption

• Author: Hoffman, Ann Preston
• Title:
• Published in: Violence, heroism, and redemption. A study of changing moral norms in five Icelandic family sagas
• Place, Publisher: Ann Arbor (MI): UMI Dissertation Services
• Year: 2007
• Pages:
• E-text:
• Reference: Hoffman, Ann Preston. "Violence, heroism, and redemption. A study of changing moral norms in five Icelandic family sagas." Ann Arbor (MI): UMI Dissertation Services, 2007.

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• Key words:

Annotation

In her work, Hoffman purports to explore concepts of essential religious qualities in the apparently secular themes of the Icelandic family sagas. To this end, she states her intention to use the theory of religiosity and the sacred being present in cultural norms and actions, shown through the work of two scholars, Mircea Eliade and Clifford Geertz, to discuss what she views as the two main themes in family saga literature: the initiatory theme of character development and the heroic theme of establishing and maintaining honour for the self, family and society. Among the five family sagas Hoffman examines, she explores what appears to be the exception of Egils saga (pages 348-436). The saga defies the tradition of an initiatory theme because as a child Egill already possesses traditional heroic qualities, which Hoffman attributes to his inheritance of ancestral paradigms and presence in the Óðinnic tradition of his paternal forbears. In terms of the heroic theme, Egill holds a position of a 'dark hero' concerned only with his own honour and prestige. His redemption comes, however, after the death of his eldest son and with his recognition that he will be the end of his familial paradigm. Egils saga has the fewest ties to Christian culture of the family sagas, and Egill's actions lie outside the realm of social acceptability, however, the saga itself is extremely valuable if one views it as an attempt to "bask in the glory of the past for its own sake without attempting to justify what has become unacceptable [in the thirteenth century]" (p. 435).

Links

• Written by: Megan Pepin
• Icelandic translation: