Book Description

Making the Middle Ages Making the Middle Ages is series of monographs, and occasionally of collections, which aims to open up the rapidly growing and relatively newly recognised field of medievalism - the post-medieval construction of the Middle Ages in scholarship and the arts - to a readership of academics, graduate students and , in the case of some volumes, undergraduates or the general reader. The series is devoted to scholarship in the cultural influence of the Middle Ages on England, mainland Europe, and North America from the sixteenth century to the present day. It focuses on two perspectives of medievalism: (i) Mediavistik the origings and history of medieval studies, both inside and outside the academy; and (ii) Mediavismus, the creation and recreation of the Middle Ages in post-medieval art, history, literature and popular culture. Few speakers of English have ever been able to read the Icelandic sagas in the original language, and published saga translations have played a major role in shaping attitudes towards Viking-Age Scandinavia and the great literary achievements of medieval Iceland in the English-speaking world. This book is the first publication to provide an extended examination of the history and development of Icelandic saga translations into English from their beginnings in the eighteenth century to today. It explores reasons for undertaking saga translation, and the challenges confronting translators. Chapters are devoted to the pioneering saga translations, the later Victorian and Edwardian eras, the often-neglected period of the two World Wars and their aftermath, and the upsurge of saga translation in the second half of the twentieth century. The contributions of individual translators and teams are reviewed, from James Johnstone in the 1780s through major Victorians such as Samuel Laing, George Webbe Dasent, and William Morris, distinguished twentieth-century figures such as Lee M. Hollander, Gwyn Jones, Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson, and George Johnston, and the great co-operative project which produced The Complete Sagas of Icelanders at the century's end. The book concludes with saga translation facing interesting new possibilities and challenges, not least those generated by information technology. Book jacket.