Key Aspects of Memory and Remembering in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature

Sites of memory in the Irish landscape? Approaching ogham stones through memory studies

“…Glauser (2007) argues that in Icelandic saga literature ‘it is first and foremost the landscape and the events localised in it which play the decisive role as guarantors of memory’(p. 20). Hermann (2014) adds that mnemonic places in Old Norse-Icelandic literature most obviously reflect the spatial environment of the Icelandic landscape, and it is not least the topography of saga-texts and their literary mapping of the natural and cultural landscape which is crucial when considering the relation of saga-texts to mnemonic places. (p. 28)…”

“…In all of these examples, ogham stones are part of formulaic descriptions of pre-Christian burial rites, marking an ancestral presence embedded in the landscape and inviting remembrance of the ‘deep time’ of which the texts narrate. 2 The aim is to map the ‘ workings of cultural memory’ in premodern and early modern Irish culture by outlining the texts’ engagement with the past and the landscape embodying it, an approach that has recently transformed our understanding of medieval Scandinavian culture (Glauser, 2000, 2014; Hermann, 2014; Lethbridge, 2016).…”

I: 1 Rhetoric

“…Even to a casual observer it quickly becomes apparent that all studies which specifically and jointly address rhetoric and memory of Old Norse narrative sources are of a more recent date. Such recent studies may be concerned with aspects of mediality, a fundamental category for theories both of rhetoric and memory (Glauser 2007;Heslop 2014Heslop , 2018, or with diverse rhetorical methodolo gies which both classical and Old Norse mythological poetry employ to gener ate memory and enable remembering, such as, for example, rhetorical aspects of space, the senses, or memory (Hermann 2014(Hermann , 2017b. Others analyse the impres sive and thus mnemotechnically especially suitable imagery of skaldic kennings (Bergsveinn Birgisson 2010; Malm 2016) or (even more recently) the permuta tion of linguistic theories, relations of texts and imagery, performativity and the resulting creation of memory in the Second Grammatical Treatise (Schneeberger forthcoming).…”

“…Carruthers 1990Carruthers , 1998; see Buchholz 1980 for an early discussion of oral performances in Old Norse liter ature). In more recent years, such observations have also been discussed in rela tion to the importance of unconventional, explicitly 'rhetoricised' verbal imagery for memory (Bergsveinn Birgisson 2010;Malm 2016;Hermann 2009Hermann , 2014Hermann , 2015Hermann , 2017bHeslop 2014;Schneeberger forthcoming). Aby Warburg formulated a cor responding concept for art history in his 'pathos formulae' (see below), but the concept itself has not yet been explored sufficiently in skaldic studies.…”

The Mind’s Eye: The Triad of Memory, Space and the Senses in Old Norse Literature

“…Another component of Óðinn's vision which underlines the poem's preoccupation with memory, or more specifically with recollection, is the reference to the two ravens, Huginn and Muninn. In the ravens' connection with Óðinn we see the most distinct vernacular expression of the two collaborating resources of the mind, thought and memory (Mitchell forthcoming, with This reference to Huginn and Muninn shows that Óðinn is aware of the risk of forgetting, or of losing his mind: Óðinn fears that Huginn (thought) will not come back, yet he is trembling because he also fears that Muninn (memory) will not return (Hermann 2014). His fear is expressed on two interrelated levels: fear of his own personal dementia and apprehension of his inability to handle the required arts of memory, which -with regards to his function as the god of wisdom -would be identical to amnesia at a cultural level.…”