Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Note
- Abbreviations
- Chapter One Introduction: The Old Norse Poetic Corpus
- Chapter Two An Indigenous Typology of Old Norse Poetry 1: Technical Terms
- Chapter Three An Indigenous Typology of Old Norse Poetry 2: Genres and Subgenres of Skaldic Verse
- Chapter Four Circumstances of Recording and Transmission: Poetry as Quotation
- Chapter Five Old Norse Poetic Aesthetics
- Chapter Six The Impact of Christianity on Old Norse Poetry
- Chapter Seven Poetics and Grammatica 1: The Twelfth Century
- Chapter Eight Poetics and Grammatica 2: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson
- Chapter Nine Poetics and Grammatica 3: The Third and Fourth Grammatical Treatises
- Chapter Ten The Icelandic Poetic Landscape in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
- Chapter Eleven Conclusion
- Appendix: Snorri Sturluson's View of Figurative Language
- References
- Index
- The Scandinavians from the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century
Chapter One - Introduction: The Old Norse Poetic Corpus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Note
- Abbreviations
- Chapter One Introduction: The Old Norse Poetic Corpus
- Chapter Two An Indigenous Typology of Old Norse Poetry 1: Technical Terms
- Chapter Three An Indigenous Typology of Old Norse Poetry 2: Genres and Subgenres of Skaldic Verse
- Chapter Four Circumstances of Recording and Transmission: Poetry as Quotation
- Chapter Five Old Norse Poetic Aesthetics
- Chapter Six The Impact of Christianity on Old Norse Poetry
- Chapter Seven Poetics and Grammatica 1: The Twelfth Century
- Chapter Eight Poetics and Grammatica 2: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson
- Chapter Nine Poetics and Grammatica 3: The Third and Fourth Grammatical Treatises
- Chapter Ten The Icelandic Poetic Landscape in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
- Chapter Eleven Conclusion
- Appendix: Snorri Sturluson's View of Figurative Language
- References
- Index
- The Scandinavians from the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century
Summary
What this book is about
The subject of this book, Old Norse poetry and poetics, was one of particular importance to the Viking Age and medieval societies of Scandinavia, and nowhere was it more significant than in Iceland, from where the major part of our extant textual evidence derives. An incident, doubtless mythical, recorded in the Edda (‘Poetics’) of c.1225 by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson reveals something of the complex of ideas that underpinned traditional Norse views of poetry and poets. It concerns an exchange of verses between a troll-woman and a poet, Bragi Boddason the Old, an archetypal figure of semi-divine status and the earliest named poet whose verses have survived in written form. The troll-wife challenged Bragi to identify himself as they met in a wood one dark evening and he did so in the following verse (one of a pair of verses, in the first of which the troll-woman listed her own characteristics):
‘Skáld kalla mik
skapsmiõ Viõurs,
Gauts gjafrǫtuõ,
grepp óhneppan,
Yggs ǫlbera,
óõs skap-Móõa,
hagsmiõ bragar.
Hvat er skáld nema þat?’ (Faulkes 1998 I: 83–4, verse 300b)
Translation. ‘They call me skald, thought-smith of Viõurr ⟨Óõinn⟩ [poet], gift-getter of Gautr ⟨Óõinn⟩ [poet], un-scant poet, Yggr’s ⟨Óõinn’s⟩ ale-bearer [poet], inspired poetry's creating-Móõi ⟨son of Ãórr⟩ [poet], skilful smith of verse [poet]. What is a poet other than that?’
Bragi's self-definition employs a list of kennings (kenningar) or poetic periphrases for the concept ‘poet’ (given here in square brackets) and poetic synonyms (heiti) to reflect the two dominant indigenous Nordic conceptions of the art of poetry: poetry as a gift of the gods, particularly of the god Óõinn, and poetry as craft or skill (íþrótt), with the poet represented as a clever song-smith or craftsman of verse (Kreutzer 1977; Clover 1978). The analogy between a poet and a smith, which we find in many other places in Old Norse verse, is important, for it expresses technological excellence and power. The craft of the blacksmith or worker in wood or metal represented the peak of early medieval technology, so the analogy between creating clever craftwork and creating complicated, clever poetry would have held a great deal of importance for early medieval people.
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- Information
- A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics , pp. 1 - 28Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005