De Looze, Laurence. The Concept of the Self in Egil’s Saga

• Author: De Looze, Laurence
• Title: The Concept of the Self in Egil's Saga: A Ricoeurean Approach
• Published in: Egil, The Viking Poet: New Approaches to 'Egil's Saga'
• Editors: De Looze, Laurence. Jón Karl Helgason. Poole, Russell. Torfi H. Tulinius
• Place, Publisher: Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
• Year: 2015
• Pages: 57-74
• E-text:
• Reference: De Looze, Laurence. "The Concept of the Self in Egil's Saga: A Ricoeurean Approach." Egil, The Viking Poet: New Approaches to 'Egil's Saga' , pp. 57-74. Eds. Laurence De Looze, Jón Karl Helgason, Russell Poole, Torfi H. Tulinius. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.

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• Key words:

Annotation

De Looze uses Jean-Pierre Vernant's definition of the individual in heroic cultures and epics and Paul Ricœur's theory on the self in narratives in order to show how Egill's identity is articulated within the saga, and more generally in the context of the skald-sagas corpus. Ricœur's defines the self as ipse (the core-being, what one is) and idem (the reiteration, what one acts like): within the overall concordance of the narrative, discordant events challenge the characters' core definition. Because of the heroic ethos that they embody, the characters of the íslendingasögur are at first glance immutable, and rigidly re-affirm their initial definition in front of discordant events that are seen as trials and potential perturbations to their value and their unity as selves. However, as a poet, Egill uses enunciation to have an agency on his idemité. His poetry has the function of a speech-act by which he shapes his own identity. Thus, altough he may be more ambiguous and unpredictable than the majority of íslendingasögur characters, he autonomously displays and enacts a consistent and particularly enduring personality.

See also

• Poole, Russell. Introduction
• Torfi H. Tulinius. The Construction of Egil’s Saga
• Guðrún Nordal. Ars metrica and the composition of Egils saga
• Clunies Ross, Margaret. Self-description in Egil’s Poetry
• Ármann Jakobsson. Thorolf's Choice
• Finlay, Alison. Elegy and Old Age in Egil’s Saga
• Falk, Oren. *Konutorrek: A Husband’s Lament
• Tangherlini, Timothy R.. Facebook for Vikings
• Svanhildur Óskarsdóttir. Egil Strikes Again
• Jón Karl Helgason. Bloody Runes

References

Chapter 31: öðrum ungmennum: "This introduction establishes the traits that will characterize the two men for the duration of the narrative. In Ricœurean terms, these introductions mark and almost complete overlapping of ipse and idem since one of the goals of the Sagas of the Icelanders is to show that there is no gap between the heroe's ipse and their idem." (p. 62).

Chapter 63: ósakaður: "The unexpectedness of Egil's saving of his "head" when by rights he should lose it goes against the normal pattern of the sagas... Only such an extraordinary "self" as Egil could impose language so effectively on events that, against all reasonable expectation, the escalating violence does not result in death." (p. 68).

Chapter 89: meðan svörður og hold fylgdi: "Egil's almost indestructible cranium is, of course, a humorous return to the Hǫfuðlausn... The "head-ransom" is one of the many instances of mêmeté in which the dispositions of Egil's character - his daring, his audacity, his agonistic stance - are reiterated. But the enduring, indestructible quality of the skull - the locus of speech - long after Egil is dead suggests that it is also an expression of Egil's core being, which is to say of his ipséité." (p. 70-71).

Links

• Written by: Ermenegilda Müller
• Icelandic/English translation: