Description
Book SynopsisEddic, Skaldic, and Beyond shines light on traditional divisions of Old NorseIcelandic poetry and awakens the reader to work that blurs these boundaries. Many of the texts and topics taken up in these enlightening essays have been difficult to categorize and have consequently been overlooked or undervalued. The boundaries between genres (Eddic and Skaldic), periods (Viking Age, medieval, early modern), or cultures (Icelandic, Scandinavian, English, Continental) may not have been as sharp in the eyes and ears of contemporary authors and audiences as they are in our own. When questions of classification are allowed to fade into the background, at least temporarily, the poetry can be appreciated on its own terms. Some of the essays in this collection present new material, while others challenge long-held assumptions. They reflect the idea that poetry with medieval characteristics continued to be produced in Iceland well past the fifteenth century, and even beyond the Protestant Reformatio
Trade Review"A wide-ranging and thoughtful collection of essays which challenges our conceptions of medieval Icelandic poetry, its categorizations and its links with European literature. From early translations to late ballad reflexes of traditional material, Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond offers fresh new readings of poems, probes into the complex nature of Icelandic poetics and unpacks the contexts and connections of literary production over a five-hundred year period. Laying down a crucial foundation for the future study of Icelandic poetry, this book inspires scholars and students to take up the unfamiliar and to rethink the familiar." -- -Carolyne Larrington St John's College "This volume, which brings together studies by eleven scholars, represents a major contribution to the study of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry, not least by following its subject well beyond the end of the middle ages proper. Any other approach, as editor Martin Chase argues in his introduction, fails to appreciate the continuity to Old Norse-Icelandic literary history over a far longer period of time, a continuity due in part to the persistence of manuscript culture in Iceland long after the introduction of print. The essays thus address topics ranging from some of the earliest poetic works extant, such as Merlinusspa, to some of latest, such as ballads and rimur (metrical romances). While many of these topics will be familiar to students of Old Norse-Icelandic - Snorri Sturluson and his Edda, for example - others, such as editor Martin Chase's own excellent contribution on Icelandic devotional poetry of the 15th and 16th century, have hitherto received little or no scholarly attention." -- -M. J. Driscoll Arnamagnaean Institute, University of Copenhagen "This wide-ranging and innovative volume offers a welcome reminder that the study of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry has much to contribute to the field of medieval studies as a whole." -Speculum
Table of ContentsIntroduction Gunnlaugr Leifsson's Uses in Merlinusspa of Twelfth-Century English Sources Additional to the De Gestis Britonum of Geoffrey of Monmouth Russell Poole The Genesis of Strengleikar: Scribes, Translators, and Place of Origin Ingvil Brugger Budal Einarr Skulason, Snorri Sturluson, and the Post-Pagan Mythological Kenning Christopher Abram Skaldskaparmal as a Tool for Composition of "Early" Skaldic Poetry Mikael Males Hattatal Stanza 12 and the Divine Legitimation of Kings Kevin J. Wanner Creating Tradition: the Use of Skaldic Verse in Old Norse Historiography Rolf Stavnem Rattus Rattus as a Beast of Battle? Stanza 12 of Ragnars Saga Rory McTurk Wit and Wisdom: the World View of the Old Norse-Icelandic Riddles and Their Relationship to Eddic Poetry Hannah Burrows Devotional Poetry at the End of the Middle Ages in Iceland Martin Chase Love and Death in the Icelandic Ballad Paul Acker Steinunn Finnsdottir and Snaekongs Rimur Shaun F. D. Hughes Notes Bibliography Index
