The Saga of Eric the Unlucky

In The Saga of Eric the Unlucky, Jane Bliss examines Rider Haggard's use of medieval narrative techniques in his nineteenth-century novel The Saga of Eric Brighteyes. He exploits the paratactic narrative style familiar from chronicle history; he also uses a typical and often very effective tense-switching from past to present and back, to bring scenes to life. The story is enlivened with his own verses, composed with a traditional alliterative style in mind. Jane Bliss is an independent scholar; she has written on several aspects of medieval literature, and runs an Anglo-Norman Reading Group in Oxford. A transcript is available here.