Abstract
The article introduces Old Norse material into the ongoing critical discussion about resistance to closure in medieval literature, a discussion traditionally dominated by Old French and Middle English texts. The failure of narrative accounts of the Old Norse Hildr legend to resolve is embodied by the tableaux of the eternal battle at the legend’s climax, an impasse which nevertheless functions as a closural device and unites the retellings of the legend around the theme of battle. The open nature of the impasse, however, encouraged medieval authors to work on constructing narrative closure within their own accounts of the legend, not only by writing new endings but also new beginnings for the battle, elaborating on the motivations behind it. Such a strategy confirms that in Old Norse texts, as in wider medieval literature, concepts of closure involved more than merely the ending of a narrative but embraced its broader structure and invites further comparison with other medieval European texts. Finally, in taking as its starting point not a text but a legend, the article aims to explore how issues of openness versus closure can be usefully applied to a narrative unconfined by a single text but represented rather in a nexus of texts with little in common besides a brief overlap in subject matter. The article argues for the necessity of the legendary perspective, in spite of its methodological challenges, in order to distinguish between closure on a textual and closure on a narrative level.
Highlights
McGerr (1998, p. 43) highlights how, contrary to many modern assumptions, “[r] esistance to closure did, occur in medieval literature”. She emphasizes the similarities between the medieval and the modern approaches: “it is clear that medieval discussions of the structure and composition of literature do suggest the importance of strong literary closure, but for many of them, as for many modern theorists, closure involves a complex set of ideas about the entire structure of a text and not just what appears in the conclusion per se” (McGerr 1998, p. 26)
By taking as my starting point not a text but a legend, I wish to explore how issues of openness versus closure can be usefully applied to a narrative unconfined by a single text, but represented rather in a nexus of texts with no unity of purpose or form and little generically in common besides a brief overlap in subject matter
When it comes to a broad definition, most scholarship on closure, including McGerr’s, has operated in the shadow of Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s influential explanation that, “the sense of closure is a function of perception of structure” (1968, p. 4), or, to put it another way: the occurrence of the terminal event is a confirmation of expectations that have been established by the structure of the sequence, and is usually distinctly gratifying
Summary
It has been convincingly demonstrated in recent scholarship that the medieval period abounded with texts which either struggled or deliberately experimented with ideas of closure versus irresolution. Reed (1990) has identified what he called an “aesthetics of irresolution” in Middle English debate poetry. Hult (1982) has drawn attention to the contradictory and cyclical ending of the Oxford Roland, which ends with Charlemagne being sent on a new Crusade, and has explored the possibility that the closing line may be scribal rather than authorial. Griffin (2005) has discussed the cyclical structure and multiple endings of the French (Arthurian) Vulgate Cycle, while Tether (2012) has examined the many responses to the unfinished romance, Perceval, both those which seek to provide closure and those which have no drive towards completion. Bruckner (1993) has explored issues of closure in relation to twelfthcentury French romance more broadly. With the possible exception of the Kudrun, the failure of these accounts of the Hildr legend to resolve, as embodied by the final tableaux of the eternal battle, is self-evident since, the majority of the witnesses continue the narrative on to an ending past this point, their conclusions do not offer any closure to the predicament in which Hildr, Hogni and Heðinn find themselves.. These are endings which bring resolution only to the extent that, in the context of the dissolution of the Old Norse cosmological and divine order represented by ragnarøkr and the coming of Christianity, the Hjaðningavíg ceases to be relevant; they are not solutions to the conflict itself because, beyond the end of the world as they know it, they offer no closure to the conflict. The tableaux of two armies locked in eternal combat remains the legend’s lasting impression, not one of integrity, coherence, stability or completeness
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
