Sagnadansar

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir (University of Iceland)

Ed. by Ármann Jakobsson, University of Iceland
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.4: Icelandic Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Ármann Jakobsson (University of Iceland), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Dates

Date of occurrence c.1400

Places

Iceland ()

Genres and Modes

Ballad

Traditional ballads are epic poems relating stories or individual episodes of known narratives and literary works, as attested by their Icelandic name, sagnadansar (lit. “narrative dances”). They were chanted as an accompaniment to dancing, and Nordic ballads are thus primarily descended from common European folk dancing and ballad traditions, as ballads seem to emerge among Western European nations between the 12^th and the 14^th centuries. While it is difficult to say when the first Nordic ballads were composed, it is natural to assume that this happened when, or shortly after, such poetry came into fashion in the more southerly parts of Europe. It has been argued, for example, that the …

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2133 words

Citation: Guðmundsdóttir, Aðalheiður. "Sagnadansar". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 September 2022 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19647, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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Sagnadansar

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

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