Kennedy, John, 'Translating the Sagas: Two Hundred Years of Challenge and Response': (Making the Middle Ages, 5), Turnhout, Brepols, 2007; hardback; pp. ix, 219; R.R.P. €60.00; ISBN 9782530507729.

Abstract

This very timely volume from Brepols is the fifth in the Making of the Middle Ages, an internationally admired series whose editors, Geraldine Barnes and Margaret Clunies Ross, lead the Centre for Mediaeval Studies at the University of Sydney. The volume offers many competent, wide-ranging and helpful reflections on the task of translating the sagas into English from the pioneer work of Thomas Percy on the Gylfaginning in 1770 in his Northern Antiquities (2 volumes). Relatively early on here we are presented with a listing in chronological order of the pioneers' translations (i. e., up to 1868), while subsequent chapters treat of those in the shadow of William Morris (1869-1913), then from 1914 to 1950; and those later in the century. The last chapter is concerned with the future of saga translation, when 'mediaeval studies in general and the study of Old Icelandic literature in particular appear to be under challenge in the universities in which they have been supported' (p. 187).