Hrafnkel or the Ambiguities: Hard Cases, Hard Choices

Author/Contributor(s):	Miller, William Ian
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Date:	01/22/2022
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

William Ian Miller presents a close reading of one of the best known of the Icelandic sagas, showing its moral, political, and psychological sophistication. Hrafnkel tells of a fairly simple feud in which a man rises, falls, and rises again with a vengeance, so to speak. The saga deals with
complex issues with finely layered irony: who can one justifiably hit, when, and by what means? It does this with cool nuance, also taking on matters of torture and pain-infliction as a means of generating fellow-feeling. How does one measure pain and humiliation so as to get even, to get back to
equal? People are forced to set prices on things we tell ourselves soporifically are priceless, such as esteem, dignity, life itself. Morality no less than legal remedy involves price-setting. This book flies in the face of all the previous critical literature which, with very few exceptions,
imposes simplistic readings on the saga. A translation of the saga is provided as an appendix.