Essay Question: To what extent do the authors of Gísla saga Súrssonar and Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar critique Icelandic law and the sentence of outlawry?
Essay Question: Why do the authors of the skáldasögur (Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Hallfreðar saga, and Kormáks saga) incorporate poetry in their sagas?
Essay Question: How is the figure of the poet presented in the skáldasögur (Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Hallfreðar saga, and Kormáks saga)?
Essay Title: ‘There is ample evidence in the eddic corpus of a distinct genre of Odinic wisdom dialogue. The poems belonging to this genre are uniform in their themes and formulaic in their execution.’ Discuss.
Essay Title: ‘The primary value of eddic poetry and Snorri Sturluson’s Edda is located not in their aesthetic accomplishments but in their status as mythological sources.’ Discuss.
Essay Title: ‘The incorporation of Norse mythological material in Beowulf is nothing more than a random assortment of half-remembered stories.’ Discuss.
Extended essay questions from the seminar course 'Poetry of the Vikings' (Old Norse poetry in translation) which ran in 2013/2014 at University College Cork. The seminar was led by Dr Tom Birkett.