Rhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative prose
<p>This thesis proposes a new, or rather, old, approach to the study of Old Norse-Icelandic prose style. Rather than framing stylistic simplicity and complexity as ‘popular’ and ‘learned’ styles, respectively, I recontextualise the different modes of vernacular prose style within the education...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2023
|
| Subjects: |
| _version_ | 1826313151577063424 |
|---|---|
| author | West, DB |
| author2 | Grønlie, S |
| author_facet | Grønlie, S West, DB |
| author_sort | West, DB |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>This thesis proposes a new, or rather, old, approach to the study of Old Norse-Icelandic prose style. Rather than framing stylistic simplicity and complexity as ‘popular’ and ‘learned’ styles, respectively, I recontextualise the different modes of vernacular prose style within the educational traditions that shaped medieval Icelandic and Norwegian learning and the intellectual history that informed them. At the crux of this intellectual history is the Christian reception of the Classical Liberal Arts tradition, especially its first three components: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, collectively called the Trivium. This method of study was subsumed into the practice of exegesis, the study of the Bible, which shaped the Christian study of history and, therefore, of narrative. This synthesis of the study of words with the study of the word of God gave a conceptual <em>gravitas</em> to Christian writers’ use of style that has literary and theological implications for understanding their works.</p>
<p>Each chapter, then, presents different modes of prose style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative, the intellectual history of those styles, and a close reading of a text demonstrating their importance to both its verbal aesthetic and its literary themes. Chapter 1 shows how Christian reception of Classical learning favoured the <em>sermo humilis</em> (‘low style’) for narration and the <em>sermo sublimis</em> (‘high style’) for oratory. This establishes stylistic variegation as one of the most crucial components of our stylistic study. Each subsequent chapter addresses a new mode or element of style that can be added to that variegation, as well as the intellectual concepts that accompany it. Chapter 2 introduces the academic style, used for commentary within a narrative, and its relationship to medieval compilatory practices. Chapter 3 examines repeated hendiadyses, learned from biblical narratives, as a method of tying together related narratives within a large compilation. Chapter 4 explores the interaction of poetry and prose as a mode of stylistic variegation to show how they complement each other when compiled together. Chapter 5 explores the incorporation of narrative storytelling into oratorical frameworks for courtly performance and the corresponding historiographical principles that accompany those frameworks. Chapter 6 examines the North Icelandic Benedictines’ mastery of variegating multiple styles into a homiletic storytelling art.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:08:41Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:41820d33-d76e-4df6-b3fd-feb66bb2a282 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:08:41Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:41820d33-d76e-4df6-b3fd-feb66bb2a2822024-06-10T08:40:04ZRhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative proseThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:41820d33-d76e-4df6-b3fd-feb66bb2a282Old Norse philologyOld Norse literatureOld Norse prose literatureEnglishEnglishHyrax Deposit2023West, DBGrønlie, S<p>This thesis proposes a new, or rather, old, approach to the study of Old Norse-Icelandic prose style. Rather than framing stylistic simplicity and complexity as ‘popular’ and ‘learned’ styles, respectively, I recontextualise the different modes of vernacular prose style within the educational traditions that shaped medieval Icelandic and Norwegian learning and the intellectual history that informed them. At the crux of this intellectual history is the Christian reception of the Classical Liberal Arts tradition, especially its first three components: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, collectively called the Trivium. This method of study was subsumed into the practice of exegesis, the study of the Bible, which shaped the Christian study of history and, therefore, of narrative. This synthesis of the study of words with the study of the word of God gave a conceptual <em>gravitas</em> to Christian writers’ use of style that has literary and theological implications for understanding their works.</p> <p>Each chapter, then, presents different modes of prose style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative, the intellectual history of those styles, and a close reading of a text demonstrating their importance to both its verbal aesthetic and its literary themes. Chapter 1 shows how Christian reception of Classical learning favoured the <em>sermo humilis</em> (‘low style’) for narration and the <em>sermo sublimis</em> (‘high style’) for oratory. This establishes stylistic variegation as one of the most crucial components of our stylistic study. Each subsequent chapter addresses a new mode or element of style that can be added to that variegation, as well as the intellectual concepts that accompany it. Chapter 2 introduces the academic style, used for commentary within a narrative, and its relationship to medieval compilatory practices. Chapter 3 examines repeated hendiadyses, learned from biblical narratives, as a method of tying together related narratives within a large compilation. Chapter 4 explores the interaction of poetry and prose as a mode of stylistic variegation to show how they complement each other when compiled together. Chapter 5 explores the incorporation of narrative storytelling into oratorical frameworks for courtly performance and the corresponding historiographical principles that accompany those frameworks. Chapter 6 examines the North Icelandic Benedictines’ mastery of variegating multiple styles into a homiletic storytelling art.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Old Norse philology Old Norse literature Old Norse prose literature English West, DB Rhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative prose |
| title | Rhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative prose |
| title_full | Rhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative prose |
| title_fullStr | Rhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative prose |
| title_full_unstemmed | Rhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative prose |
| title_short | Rhetoric and style in Old Norse-Icelandic religious narrative prose |
| title_sort | rhetoric and style in old norse icelandic religious narrative prose |
| topic | Old Norse philology Old Norse literature Old Norse prose literature English |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT westdb rhetoricandstyleinoldnorseicelandicreligiousnarrativeprose |