ABSTRACT
Saga plots have been a rich source for historical dramas in the modern period. Prominent examples of nineteenth-century Scandinavian saga adaptations for the stage are Adam Oehlenschlager’s Kiartan og Gudrun and Henrik Ibsen’s Hærmændene pa Helgeland. The dramatic qualities of the sagas and their analysis in scholarship can only be discussed meaningfully when involving general developments in literary history as well as theoretical approaches to drama and the dramatic mode, since saga studies implicitly or explicitly relate to these trends. Classical drama theory differentiates between two types of drama, tragedy and comedy. Aristotle’s Poetics was translated into Latin in 1256 but did not have sustainable influence on medieval developments of drama, as it never became part of the scholastic curriculum. The preoccupation with dramatic qualities of the sagas is long-standing, not as the primary object of research but as the underlying analytical lens in a multitude of approaches.
