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 Eight - Poetics and Grammatica 2: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson
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
The background to Snorri and his Edda
Snorri Sturluson's Edda (or The Prose Edda or The Younger Edda) is without doubt the most important Old Norse contribution to medieval Scandinavian poetics and arguably one of the most interesting and original theoretical works of the Western Middle Ages considered as a whole. It differs from the other extant Icelandic grammatical works in that it deals not only with Old Norse poetic diction and metrics, but also with the conceptual background to traditional eddic and skaldic poetry. In order to achieve the latter goal, it includes a coherent exposition of Norse mythology and a statement about the place pre-Christian lore should have in Christian Icelanders’ world vision. Its date of composition is not precisely known but is probably c.1221–5; the oldest manuscript that contains it (Codex Upsaliensis) ascribes its compilation to Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241), a member of a powerful Icelandic family who was deeply involved in Icelandic and Norwegian politics.
Who was Snorri Sturluson? We are lucky that we know more about this man than about most other medieval Icelanders, largely thanks to the information supplied about him by his nephew Sturla þórõarson, in whose brilliant Íslendinga saga, the main work in the samtíõarsaga (‘contemporary saga’) Sturlunga saga, he appears as a character. Snorri was born into a family, the Sturlungar, who were to be among the most powerful in Iceland during the politically troubled and often violent half-century from 1200 to 1262–4, when Iceland surrendered its political independence to Norway, and became a dependency of its parent society. This period is in fact named after the Sturlung family, as we often refer to it today as Sturlungaöld, ‘the age of the Sturlungs’. Snorri, like most male members of his family, was deeply involved in the political manoeuvres of that time, and in fact met his death because of them. On 22 September 1241 a force of seventy men hostile to Snorri, led by his estranged son-in-law Gizurr Ãorvaldsson, attacked his farm at Reykjaholt. They found Snorri hiding in the cellar and, despite his twice-repeated desperate plea eigi skal hǫggva, ‘don't strike’, they killed him there.
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- A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics , pp. 157 - 184Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005