The First Lay of Guðrún (Guðrúnarkviða I) is one of the most intense and moving poems of the Poetic Edda. It is distinguished by its polyphonic structure and its exploration of individual grief through the interplay of multiple female voices. At the centre of the poem is Guðrún, wife of the hero Sigurðr, who confronts the trauma of his death and the betrayal of her brothers. An extradiegetic narrator introduces the mourning scene and presents Guðrún as initially silent and paralysed by grief. She is gradually prompted to speak through the interventions of other female figures, who recount their own experiences of mourning and suffering. Among them, Gullrǫnd plays a crucial role: by unveiling Sigurðr’s body and recalling the love that once bound Guðrún to him, she enables the heroine to confront her loss and recover her voice. The succession of female voices thus creates an empathic chain in which individual experiences of suffering become part of a shared narrative of grief. This process moves Guðrún from silence to speech and from being the object of the narrator’s gaze to becoming an active speaking subject. Her subsequent speech reconstructs the memory of her relationship with Sigurðr and articulates the loss of both her emotional and social identity. This article argues that the interaction between narrative voice, silence, memory, and female subjectivity constitutes a central structural principle of the poem. A narratological approach makes it possible to illuminate the different levels of discourse embedded within the lay and to interpret its multivoicedness as a form of poetic polyphony.
| Published in | Languages, Literatures and Cultures (Volume 2, Issue 3) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12 |
| Page(s) | 114-121 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Guðrúnarkviða I, Eddic Poetry, Narratology, Female Subjectivity, Memory
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APA Style
Sipione, C. (2026). Voices, Memory, and Identity in the First Lay of Guðrún: A Narratological Analysis. Languages, Literatures and Cultures, 2(3), 114-121. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12
ACS Style
Sipione, C. Voices, Memory, and Identity in the First Lay of Guðrún: A Narratological Analysis. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2026, 2(3), 114-121. doi: 10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12
AMA Style
Sipione C. Voices, Memory, and Identity in the First Lay of Guðrún: A Narratological Analysis. Lang Lit Cult. 2026;2(3):114-121. doi: 10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12
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Download@article{10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12,
author = {Concetta Sipione},
title = {Voices, Memory, and Identity in the First Lay of Guðrún:
A Narratological Analysis},
journal = {Languages, Literatures and Cultures},
volume = {2},
number = {3},
pages = {114-121},
doi = {10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.llc.20260203.12},
abstract = {The First Lay of Guðrún (Guðrúnarkviða I) is one of the most intense and moving poems of the Poetic Edda. It is distinguished by its polyphonic structure and its exploration of individual grief through the interplay of multiple female voices. At the centre of the poem is Guðrún, wife of the hero Sigurðr, who confronts the trauma of his death and the betrayal of her brothers. An extradiegetic narrator introduces the mourning scene and presents Guðrún as initially silent and paralysed by grief. She is gradually prompted to speak through the interventions of other female figures, who recount their own experiences of mourning and suffering. Among them, Gullrǫnd plays a crucial role: by unveiling Sigurðr’s body and recalling the love that once bound Guðrún to him, she enables the heroine to confront her loss and recover her voice. The succession of female voices thus creates an empathic chain in which individual experiences of suffering become part of a shared narrative of grief. This process moves Guðrún from silence to speech and from being the object of the narrator’s gaze to becoming an active speaking subject. Her subsequent speech reconstructs the memory of her relationship with Sigurðr and articulates the loss of both her emotional and social identity. This article argues that the interaction between narrative voice, silence, memory, and female subjectivity constitutes a central structural principle of the poem. A narratological approach makes it possible to illuminate the different levels of discourse embedded within the lay and to interpret its multivoicedness as a form of poetic polyphony.},
year = {2026}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Voices, Memory, and Identity in the First Lay of Guðrún: A Narratological Analysis AU - Concetta Sipione Y1 - 2026/09/20 PY - 2026 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12 DO - 10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12 T2 - Languages, Literatures and Cultures JF - Languages, Literatures and Cultures JO - Languages, Literatures and Cultures SP - 114 EP - 121 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 3070-6440 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.llc.20260203.12 AB - The First Lay of Guðrún (Guðrúnarkviða I) is one of the most intense and moving poems of the Poetic Edda. It is distinguished by its polyphonic structure and its exploration of individual grief through the interplay of multiple female voices. At the centre of the poem is Guðrún, wife of the hero Sigurðr, who confronts the trauma of his death and the betrayal of her brothers. An extradiegetic narrator introduces the mourning scene and presents Guðrún as initially silent and paralysed by grief. She is gradually prompted to speak through the interventions of other female figures, who recount their own experiences of mourning and suffering. Among them, Gullrǫnd plays a crucial role: by unveiling Sigurðr’s body and recalling the love that once bound Guðrún to him, she enables the heroine to confront her loss and recover her voice. The succession of female voices thus creates an empathic chain in which individual experiences of suffering become part of a shared narrative of grief. This process moves Guðrún from silence to speech and from being the object of the narrator’s gaze to becoming an active speaking subject. Her subsequent speech reconstructs the memory of her relationship with Sigurðr and articulates the loss of both her emotional and social identity. This article argues that the interaction between narrative voice, silence, memory, and female subjectivity constitutes a central structural principle of the poem. A narratological approach makes it possible to illuminate the different levels of discourse embedded within the lay and to interpret its multivoicedness as a form of poetic polyphony. VL - 2 IS - 3 ER -
Department of Humanities (DISUM), University of Catania, Catania, Italy
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