The Consolation presents two especially puzzling features that make its exegesis particularly challenging. Literarily, it adopts an uncommon style for a philosophical text, the prosimetrum, which combines prose with poetry. Content-wise, it develops a cogent philosophical message that, perplexingly, is conveyed in a labyrinthine way. These exegetical difficulties disappear if we interpret the Consolation as a form of self-examination grounded in Neoplatonic philosophy. The meandering way in which the text expresses its message illustrates Boethius’ inner conflict brought about by his sudden political fall. The root cause of his conflict is an unresolved tension within the Neoplatonic account of the human soul: the difficulty of reconciling our material self with our divine self. The Consolation’s highly unusual combination of prose and poetry is steeped in some of the basic principles of Neoplatonic pedagogy.

This chapter deals with the konungasögur, the sagas of the Norwegian and Danish kings. Taking a chronological approach, it outlines the development of the genre from the Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian histories of the twelfth century through to the major compilations of the thirteenth century (Morkinskinna, Fagrskinna and Heimskringla) and the substantial manuscript collections of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, such as Flateyjarbók. It stresses the diversity of the sources which the authors of the kings’ sagas incorporated within their works, emphasizing the fundamentally intertextual nature of the konungasaga genre. In discussing the growth of the genre, it highlights the variety of voices, sources and modes contained within these sagas, exemplified in their different approaches to the skaldic verses quoted within their prosimetric structure. Placing Old Norse-Icelandic historiography within the context of historical writing in medieval Europe, the chapter argues that the kings’ sagas offer a polyphonic history of the medieval north, and in doing so explore the process of history-writing itself.

This chapter describes the prevalence of prosimetrum – the alternation of narrative prose and skaldic verse – in the Íslendingasögur, with a brief consideration of prosimetrum in konungasögur and samtíðarsögur. A distinction is introduced between verses which are quoted as the dialogue of characters and those which appear to corroborate the narrative prose; it is explained that this distinction is established through the way the verses are incorporated in the prose, and is not inherent in the stanzas themselves. The aesthetic effects of verses representing dialogue in saga prose – additional content, the direct perspective and apparent voice of a character, control of narrative pace and ornamentation – are set out. The plausibility or otherwise of the impromptu recitation of skaldic verse is discussed, and a contrast drawn between the elaborate artificiality of skaldic verse and the ostensible simplicity of saga prose. The distinction between the two kinds of verse use is then problematized. A discussion of how and why the prose and verse first came together comes next, with speculation about how authors constructed their prosimetrical sagas and the literary effects achieved.