Concepts of Memory and Approaches to the Past in Medieval Icelandic Literature

Abstract

Compared produced a literature that distinguished itself in its extensive use of the vernacular language and in its capacity to develop new genres, among them the Icelandic sagas and Snorri Sturluson's Edda.1 This literature displays an intense interest in the traditional past and bears witness to the fact that the Icelanders took advantage of the possibility to record the memories of the past in writing. In the following pages, I will investigate the preoccupation with the past in medieval, primarily, Icelandic literature and will refer to studies of memory and point to two concepts of memory that apparently were used in Iceland when the first records of the traditional past were made. The first kind of memory that will be emphasized depicts it as a storehouse of experiences of the past (e.g. Rigney 11-14). Inherent in this model is the fact that memories are static entities formed in the past. Memories can be forgotten, the storehouse is imperfect, and strategies are developed to preserve the memories that would otherwise disappear. The second

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