Entre a História e o Discurso: Uma análise da crônica islandesa Íslendingabók

Abstract

Between the years 1122 and 1133, Ari Þorgilsson the Wise, a chronicler and a man connected to the Church, wrote the Íslendingabók (The Book of the Icelanders), a chronicle that concisely presents the history of Iceland from the arrival of the first settlers around the year 874, through the official conversion to Christianity, up to the appointment of the first Icelandic bishops in 1118. Due to its documentary characteristics—such as the pursuit of reliable sources, temporal proximity to the events described, and the naming of individuals and their family connections—the text has long been considered a unique source for the study of Icelandic history. Thus, this work aims to raise questions about the study of medieval Icelandic narratives and their methodological approaches, considering oral tradition and discourse analysis as fundamental tools to explore the text's subtleties. We start from the premise that no narrative is neutral; both what is said and what is omitted carry symbolic expressions and interests inherent to the context in which they were produced. Therefore, when investigating a people and the formation of their identity through narratives, it becomes pertinent to recognize such texts as symbolic practices of their time.