Quote:
Originally Posted by davem
The real point, I think, is that the influence of Saga literature on Tolkien's work has not been sufficiently explored. Tolkien was a member of a group, The Coalbiters, who gathered together to read the Sagas in the original Icelandic, & his love of Saga literature & the way it influenced his work should be taken seriously. Pointing out other influences is to sidetrack the thread. Of course those influences are there, but in order to discover the specific influence of the Sagas on Tolkien's work we have to put them on one side.
The question is, were the Sagas a major influence on Tolkien's Legendarium or not, & if so, how & in what way? To respond to that question with 'Well, there were lots of influences.' misses the point of the question.
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You're right here davem but I think also wrong. Your depiction of the story of Túrin in comparison to Egil's saga or parts of the fates of people in Njall's saga I feel compelled to accept and grant you - and Lal - a point here. There really is a similarity in the style and the structure of the narrative here. But whether it goes through all that Tolkien wrote, that I think is another question and brings back the things about other possible influences as well.
I mean it's hard to ask this kind of tightly defined question when any answers to it will so easily go off the limits. What would a comparison with the sagas actually give us if it's tightly defined to not jump outside the sagas themselves?
Were the sagas a major influence on Tolkien's legendarium? You can't answer that question without giving a somewhat grounded explanation what was the part of other mythologies in Tolkien's writing as well... Only then can you compare the relative weight of different mythologies...
Sorry to nit-pick on this.