Läsning för folket? : Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu i skandinaviska nyöversättningar: Hur? För vem? Varför?

In 2014 were published translations of the complete Íslendingasögur into Danish (Da), Norwegian (No), and Swedish (Sw), each in five volumes with compre­hensive paratexts. Involving some 60 translators and editors, this is presumably one of the biggest retranslation projects ever in Scandinavia and it has received sub­stantial financial support in each country, respectively, as well as from Iceland. The initiative emanated with an Icelandic publisher, whose 1987 Icelandic edition of the sagas – with modernized spelling – served as a source text (Ice). However, having an Iceland-based publisher may have hampered the access to mainland Scandi­navian markets and especially in Sweden sales have reportedly been poor. Like all translations of sagas, the triplet had to face classical problems like the rendering of proper names, the narrative shifts between past and present tense, and the interspersed Scaldic poetry. As for names, Sw abandons the time-honoured tradition of adaptation and maintains their original forms including diacritics, save that the nominative ending -ur is omitted, e.g. Þórður > Þórð (Da/No: Tord). Sw also treads an original path in poetry translation by printing the original Icelandic stanzas in a parallel column. No, in contrast, opts for comprehensibility and simpli­fies most of the poetic kenningar, whereas Da preserves them accompanied by extensive explanations. Concerning Norse loanwords – once the hallmark of saga translation – all three editions use them restrictively, and Da even admits more Latin-based loanwords than has been customary in this genre. As for the three versions of Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu (GS), Da and No tend to verbosity with app. 9% more words than Ice (in contrast to +3% in Sw), and especially in No this serves to enhance a certain colloquial tone. Sw, on the other hand, shortens and simplifies sentences by favouring main clauses with subject first, thus at times running the risk of syntactic monotony. It is furthermore sug­gested here, tentatively, that the differences in the three GS can be explained by different aims (and target groups?): A popular approach in No, a pedagogical zeal in Da, and a learned leaning in Sw.https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-439403