Leslie, Helen Frances

Foto: UiB

Phone: (+47) 55 58 80 91
E-mail: Helen.Leslie@cms.uib.no


Project Title:
Prose Contexts of Eddic Poetry

Project Summary:
In my project I examine the relationship between prose and eddic poetry in the Old Norse Eddas and the legendary sagas as part and product of oral tradition. The project looks at the major interpretative and aesthetic differences of the various prose contexts of eddic verse , and will particularly contribute towards research on the evolution of the Icelandic legendary sagas and to what extent oral transmission of both verse and oral material was a part of this process.

The project falls into two natural sections. The first is an analysis of the Snorra Edda and the Poetic Edda as written Old Norse prosimetra. Addressing theoretical aspects of the study of the quoted material in the Prose Edda, I examine and undertake diachronic modes of interpretation within the broader framework  of analysing the rhetorical strategy of Snorra Edda. The second half of my project focuses on texts closer to the oral end of the oral-written spectrum, the four legendary sagas focusing on the men of Hrafnista (Ketils saga hængs, Gríms saga loðinkinna, Áns saga bogsveigis and Örvar-Odds saga). Here my work focuses on elements of the respective stories that point to their being conserved in an oral environment, and manuscript layout as possible indicators of the process of transition of these sagas into their written form.

Other interests:
Translation (Old Norse, Old English or Icelandic into English).
The Retrospective Methods network (an initative founded by Eldar Heide).
Sacred groves in Germanic religion.
Landscape and the other-world in legendary sagas.
Palaeography and codicology.
Old English language and literature.
Middle English romance.


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