Le Goff, Jacques. Laughter in Brennu-Njáls saga

• Author: Le Goff, Jacques
• Title: Laughter in Brennu-Njáls saga
• Published in: From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland
• Editor: Gísli Pálsson
• Place, Publisher: Middlesex: Hisarlik Press
• Year: 1992
• Pages: 161-167
• E-text:
• Reference: Le Goff, Jacques. “Laughter in Brennu-Njáls saga.” From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, pp. 161-167. Ed. Gísli Pálsson. Middlesex: Hisarlik Press, 1992.

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Annotation

In his contribution to From Sagas to Society, Jacques Le Goff explores instances of laughter in Njáls saga. He begins by summarizing scholarship regarding laughter in the Middle Ages. He identifies two fundamental types of laughter in Christian culture: positive laughter which expresses the vital affirmation of the person laughing, and negative laughter, which he subdivides into mocking laughter meant to deride an individual, and malevolent laughter or sniggering which reveals fundamental character traits of the person laughing. He goes on to argue that laughter in the Early Middle Ages was seen in a negative light in ecclesiastical, particularly monastic, thought. Laughter was a thing of the flesh, base and associated with paganism. It is from this perspective, he argues, that laughter should be viewed in the context of Njáls saga. Within the saga itself, Le Goff establishes a further typological model. He divides the types of laughter as follows: 1. Black humor based on understatement. 2. Derision, goading, and provocation. 3. Sardonic laughter., the “grin of the unfortunate.” 4. Foresight, laughter at ones own impending death or prophesies of the deaths of others. For each of these types, Le Goff cites examples from the body of Njáls saga. He concludes that “laughter here is an introduction to the connection of a society with its past”, that it represents an engagement with paganism by Early Christian writers.

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• Written by: Colin Scott McKinstry
• Icelandic/English translation: