are short episodes, mostly from the Icelandic kings’ sagas, that were published as separate narratives in the twentieth century, with the first
þættiredition appearing in Reykjavík in 1904. Influenced by these editions, scholars began to regard these narratives as independent short stories, closely related to the sagas of Icelanders, while their connection to the kings’ sagas was mostly ignored. In the 1970s, Harris argued for a structuralist and thematic analysis of the
þættirbut met with resistance from Lönnroth (1975) who argued that the
þættirwere not a medieval saga genre. Lindow (1978) also demonstrated that the term
þáttr, meaning a short independent narrative, was not medieval but still believed in the
þættiras a saga genre. Jakobsson (2013, 2014) has…
1875 words
Citation: Jakobsson, Ármann. "Þættir". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 January 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19678, accessed 03 October 2024.]