Iceland in Tolkien's Work?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Actually I think the "feel" of CoH is closer to the Eddic poems (the various Lays of Gudrun, the Lay of Atli, etc) than to the sagas. The date of the poems is disputed, as they are older than the date they were fixed to paper, but they are certainly at least three centuries older.

I suppose it depends on whether we're talking 'feel' or structure & style. Of course, as Hookbill points out, Tolkien drew on many sources, but if one is familiar with the Sagas, one can't help noting the basic structure of the story reflects the typical structure of a saga.

CoH starts with Turin's ancestry, grandfather & father, setting out the place of his family in the wider society. Then we have the hero's birth, his childhood, early deeds, his outlawry (again a popular topic for saga writers), his heroic feats, the suffering & destruction he brings on friends & kin, & ending with his death. Even his mother is typical of Saga mothers. Its a 'classic' saga in its structure. Of course, Kullervo was a major influence, as were the Eddas, Beowulf, the Volsungasaga et al.

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. So, I don't think it is germaine to point up similarities with other cultures/myths, because all that does is lead us to the dead end of 'Tolkien was influenced by lots of things'. This is about how 'X' may or may not have influenced Tolkien, not aboout pointing out that he was influenced by A, B, C, D, etc as well.

Also, I take Lalaith's point re the Eddas, but I'm not sure (personal feeling of course) that they were as great an influence on CoH as on some of his other works.