A History Of Old Norse Poetry And Poetics

by Clunies Ross, Margaret

• ISBN13: 9781843840343
• ISBN10: 1843840340
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-30
• Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc

Summary

This is the first book in English to deal with the twin subjects of Old Norse poetry and the various vernacular treatises on native poetry that were a conspicuous feature of medieval intellectual life in Iceland and the Orkneys from the mid-twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Its aim is to give a clear description of the rich poetic tradition of early Scandinavia, particularly in Iceland, where it reached its zenith, and to demonstrate the social contexts that favoured poetic composition, from the oral societies of the early Viking Age in Norway and its colonies to the devout compositions of literate Christian clerics in fourteenth-century Iceland. The author analyses the two dominant poetic modes, eddic and skaldic, giving fresh examples of their various styles and subjects; looks at the prose contexts in which most Old Norse poetry has been preserved; and discusses problems of interpretation that arise because of the poetry's mode of transmission. She is concerned throughout to link indigenous theory with practice, beginning with the pre-Christian ideology of poets as favoured by the god ódinn and concluding with the Christian notion that a plain style best conveys the poet's message.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Editorial Note	viii
Abbreviations	x
Introduction: The Old Norse Poetic Corpus	1	(28)
An Indigenous Typology of Old Norse Poetry 1: Technical Terms	29	(11)
An Indigenous Typology of Old Norse Poetry 2: Genres and Subgenres of Skaldic Verse	40	(29)
Circumstances of Recording and Transmission: Poetry as Quotation	69	(14)
Old Norse Poetic Aesthetics	83	(31)
The Impact of Christianity on Old Norse Poetry	114	(27)
Poetics and Grammatica 1: The Twelfth Century	141	(16)
Poetics and Grammatica 2: The Edda of Snorri Sturluson	157	(28)
Poetics and Grammatica 3: The Third and Fourth Grammatical Treatises	185	(21)
The Icelandic Poetic Landscape in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries	206	(26)
Conclusion	232	(4)
Appendix: Snorri Sturluson's View of Figurative Language	236	(10)
References	246	(27)
Index	273