The Epic Traditon In “Gosta Berling Saga” Essay, Research Paper

The epic tradition in ?G?sta Berling?s Saga?.

Having been born and bred in V?rmland, Selma Lagerl?f is conversant with the peasant culture and its folklore. In ?G?sta Berling?s Saga?, she is primary occupied with a provincial type and investigates deeply into the spirit of the folk-life of V?rmland. It took her ten years before her work was achieved. There were circumstances, which motivated its conception; the sale of her childhood?s home ? M?rbacka? emphasized her will to preserve the tales she was told about the V?rmland. Using the cavaliers? story at Ekeby, she underlines the importance of work, love and morality. Because of its style, its relationship to the Icelandic saga, its proximity to the primitive oral tradition, its affinity to nature and its romance G?sta berling ?s Saga discloses all the features of the epic tale.

The Epic genre could be defined as a long narrative poem recounting actions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style (with ennobled diction, for example). It may be written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic hexameter. Although her rhythm is prose, her diction is poetic. For instance in the chapter ?G?sta Berling Poet? G?sta is asked how does he like the promise land and here is his answer: ?It flows with milk and honey ? we empty the mountains of their iron and fill our cellar with wine. The fields bear gold with which we gild life?s misery, and we fell our forests to build pavilions and skittle alleys?. The recurrent comparisons and metaphors render the poetic style as well as all the romances that we witnessed.

The narrator?s voice is almost Omni-present thanks to the style of the author. She renders entirely the impression of oral tale. The reader can imagine himself sitting around a fire listening to her. Furthermore, the use of personal comments and interjections could remind the reader of a personal diary in the chapter ?Landscape”:?Now I must beg those of my readers who know this lake ? to skip a few pages?. By communicating with her readers, Selma Lagerl?f creates an intimate spirit, she divulge all her thought like secrets. The reader can notice as well the use of chronological involution techniques such as the ?flash back? and the ?in medias re? that help the reader to picture the life at Ekeby and its inhabitants. In G?sta Berling?s Saga, these retrospective tools occur repeatedly and thus emphasize the features of epic. Another recurrent device of the heroic epic tradition is the sense of history. This strong sense of the past, which links it with certain historical eras, is included within the mystical and the imaginative components. In fact, the story reflects a certain period of well-known history, in the chapter ?Torgan?, ? There was many there who could tell you how hard they had fared during the famine years of 1808 and 1809, and in the cold winter of 1812, when the sparrows froze to death. Famine was no stranger to them; they had seen his grim hand before. They knew how bark was prepared for bread, and how the cows would learn to eat moss?. Though there is no direct allusions to historical events, many of the characters appear to have existed. (Measured by the local people). Each chapter gives a new piece of information about the V?rmland and Ekeby. Although some chapters are even not needed for the understanding of the story, they render the real atmosphere of the life the cavaliers lead. As an example the first chapter ?The Pastor? does not take part in the action but describes the community, thus the reader is given the ambiance of the novel. Each story is pivotal to the other. The multiplicity of events necessitates a wealth of configurations. Often a new figure is introduced for each chapter. One destiny after another is depicted in different situation. Moreover, the simplicity of the sentence?s structures the parallelisms, the symmetries and the personification of feeling contribute to the saga atmosphere. An another characteristic of the epic genre is a great reliance upon the use of supernatural, the superstition and the magic. Superstition and magi are picture through nature. In the chapter ?The great bear of Gurlita Cliff?, nature becomes malicious: ? Trust not the moss nor the heather nor the ledge of rock; all Nature is evil, possessed by invisible spirits that hate mankind. There is no place where you can set your foot securely, and it is marvelous that feeble humanity can withstand so much persecution?. The picture, Selma Lagerl?f draws, is scary but fits in the epic genre as well as the chapter ?Ghost stories?. She punctuates the action with fairly tale, fantasy and superstition she might have heard while she was a little girl. She wants to transmit then to prevent them from forgetter. The nature, written with a capital letter, is personified and taken responsible for events. In the chapter ?Kevenh?ller?, we are told: ? A storm of recklessness swept over V?rmland, and all kinds of madness broke out among the young. Evil was rampant, and a good trembled. Man warred on earth, and spirits in heaven. The forces of Nature had been let loose; wolves from Drove came with witches on their back, and the Wood Nymph appeared at Ekeby.? As in all primitive writing, Selma Lagerl?f has a mythology. The good and evil elemental characters, which belong to folklore or Christian belief, control mankind?s step. Mythical characters from her own fantasy are presented to the reader. This world of supernatural begins and produces the epic?s movement. The traditional epic tendency was to present the life of the hero in terms of his most outstanding achievements. In ?G?sta Berling?s Saga?, the heroic motif is associated with the chivalrous era that is underlined by the troop of twelve cavaliers. The heroic motif is evidenced with the dominance and the presentation of the leading male character G?sta Berling. Its description conveys a heroic image in the chapter ?Christmas Eve?: ?Among them was one but thirty years old, in the full power of body and mind. This was G?sta Berling, the cavalier of the cavaliers, who himself was a greater orator, singer, musician, drinking champion, hunter and gamester than all the others. He had every cavalierly virtue.? The fate of Berling holds in the first chapter and gives the final closing in the last chapter. All the other characters are introduced along the story through condition related to him. Moreover, the entire troop is determined consequently by G?sta?s state of mind. He is the one who signs the contract with the devil on Christmas Eve, which conducts to the cavalier-domination over Ekeby for one year. Because of him, the majoress is forced to leave her home.

Selma Lagerl?f succeeded in ?G?sta Berling?s Saga to mix realism and fantasy, folklore and legend. She offered the reader a fantastic epic canvas of life in the V?rmland. Like the epic her work is structured along episodic lines, each separate yet related to all other episodes to form one story. She inserts through her story the importance of work and duty but also love. The heroic motif is emphasized as it is in epic. The nature and the landscape are used to open the book?s horizon. The reader having shared Selma Lagerl?f?s souvenirs and thoughts will keep them alive.