IV

[Tragic Imagination]

Tragic contradictions in the Sagas—Gisli, Njal[207]
Fantasy[208]
Laxdæla, a reduction of the story of Sigurd and Brynhild to the terms of common life[209]
Compare Ibsen's Warriors in Helgeland[209]
The Sagas are a late stage in the progress of heroic literature[210]
The Northern rationalism[212]
Self-restraint and irony[213]
The elegiac mood infrequent[215]
The story of Howard of Icefirth—ironical pathos[216]
The conventional Viking[218]
The harmonies of Njála
and of Laxdæla		[219]
[222]
The two speeches of Gudrun[223]

V

[Comedy]

The Sagas not bound by solemn conventions[225]
Comic humours[226]
Bjorn and his wife in Njála[228]
Bandamanna Saga: "The Confederates," a comedy[229]
Satirical criticism of the "heroic age"[231]
Tragic incidents in Bandamanna Saga[233]
Neither the comedy nor tragedy of the Sagas is monotonous or abstract[234]

VI

[The Art of Narrative]

Organic unity of the best Sagas[235]
Method of representing occurrences as they appear at the time[236]
Instance from Þorgils Saga[238]
Another method—the death of Kjartan as it appeared to a churl[240]
Psychology (not analytical)[244]
Impartiality—justice to the hero's adversaries (Færeyinga Saga)[245]

VII