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ThePoetic Edda is the modern name for an untitled collection ofOld Norse anonymousnarrative poems inalliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely relatedProse Edda, although both works are seminal to the study ofOld Norse poetry. Several versions of thePoetic Edda exist; especially notable is the medievalIcelandicmanuscriptCodex Regius, which contains 31 poems.[1]
TheEddic poems are composed inalliterative verse. Most are infornyrðislag ("old storymetre"), whilemálaháttr ("speech form") is a common variation. The rest, about a quarter, are composed inljóðaháttr ("song form"). The language of the poems is usually clear and relatively unadorned.Kennings are often employed, though they do not arise as frequently, nor are they as complex, as those found in typicalskaldic poetry.
Like most early poetry, the Eddic poems wereminstrel poems, passed orally from singer to singer and from poet to poet for centuries. None of the poems are attributed to a particular author, though many of them show strong individual characteristics and are likely to have been the work of individual poets. While scholars have speculated on hypothetical authors, firm and accepted conclusions have never been reached.
Accurate dating of the poems has long been a source of scholarly debate. Firm conclusions are difficult to reach; lines from the Eddic poems sometimes appear in poems by known poets. For example,Eyvindr skáldaspillir composed in the latter half of the 10th century, and he uses a couple of lines in hisHákonarmál that are also found inHávamál. It is possible that he was quoting a known poem, but it is also possible thatHávamál, or at least thestrophe in question, is the younger derivative work.
The handful demonstrably historical characters mentioned in the poems, such asAttila, provide aterminus post quem of sorts. The dating of the manuscripts themselves provides a number of usefulterminus ante quem.
Individual poems have individual clues to their age. For example,Atlamál hin groenlenzku is claimed by its title to have been composed inGreenland and seems so by some internal evidence. If so, it must have been composed no earlier than about 985, since there were no Scandinavians in Greenland until that time.
More certain than such circumstantial evidence are linguistic dating criteria. These can be arrived at by looking atSkaldic poems whose dates are more firmly known. For instance the particleof, corresponding toga- orge- in other old Germanic languages, has been shown to occur more frequently in Skaldic poems of earlier date.[2] Applying this criterion to Eddic poetry, Bjarne Fidjestøl found large variation, indicating that some of the poems were much older than others.[3]
Other dating criteria include the use of the negative adverbeigi 'not', and alliteration ofvr- withv-. In western dialects of Old Norse the former becamer- around the year 1000, but in some Eddic poems the wordvreiðr, younger formreiðr, is seen to alliterate with words beginning in an originalv-. This was observed already byOlaf ‘White Skald’ Thordarson, the author of theThird Grammatical Treatise, who termed thisv beforer thevindandin forna; 'the ancient use ofvend'.
In some cases, old poems may have been interpolated with younger verses or merged with other poems. For example, stanzas 9–16 ofVöluspá, the "Dvergatal" or "Roster of Dwarfs", is considered by some scholars to be aninterpolation.
The problem of dating the poems is linked with the problem of determining where they were composed. Iceland was not settled until approximately 870, so anything composed before that time would necessarily have been elsewhere, most likely inScandinavia. More recent poems, on the other hand, are likely Icelandic in origin.
Scholars have attempted to localize individual poems by studying the geography, flora, and fauna to which they refer. This approach usually does not yield firm results. For example, there are no wolves in Iceland, but we can be sure that Icelandic poets were familiar with the species. Similarly, the apocalyptic descriptions ofVöluspá have been taken as evidence that the poet who composed it had seen a volcanic eruption in Iceland – but this is hardly certain.
TheCodex Regius is arguably the most important extant source onNorse mythology andGermanic heroic legends. Since the early 19th century, it has had a powerful influence onScandinavian literature, not only through its stories, but also through the visionary force and the dramatic quality of many of the poems. It has also been an inspiration for later innovations inpoetic meter, particularly inNordic languages, with its use of terse,stress-based metrical schemes that lack final rhymes, instead focusing onalliterative devices and strongly concentrated imagery. Poets who have acknowledged their debt to theCodex Regius includeVilhelm Ekelund,August Strindberg,J. R. R. Tolkien,Ezra Pound,Jorge Luis Borges, andKarin Boye.
TheCodex Regius was written during the 13th century, but nothing was known of its whereabouts until 1643, when it came into the possession ofBrynjólfur Sveinsson, then Bishop ofSkálholt. At the time, versions of theProse Edda were known in Iceland, but scholars speculated that there once was anotherEdda, anElder Edda, which contained thepagan poems thatSnorri quotes in hisProse Edda. WhenCodex Regius was discovered, it seemed that the speculation had proved correct, but modern scholarly research has shown that theProse Edda was likely written first and that the two were, at most, connected by a common source.[4][page needed]
Brynjólfur attributed the manuscript toSæmundr the Learned, a larger-than-life 12th century Icelandic priest. Modern scholars reject that attribution, but the nameSæmundar Edda is still sometimes associated with both theCodex Regius and versions of thePoetic Edda using it as a source.
Bishop Brynjólfur sent the manuscript as a present to the Danish king, hence theLatin nameCodex Regius,lit. 'Royal Book'. For centuries it was stored in theRoyal Library in Copenhagen, but in 1971 it was returned to Iceland. Because air travel at the time was not entirely trustworthy with such precious cargo, it was transported by ship, accompanied by a naval escort.[5]
Poems similar to those found in theCodex Regius are also included in many editions of thePoetic Edda. Important manuscripts containing these other poems includeAM 748 I 4to,Hauksbók, andFlateyjarbók. Many of the poems are also quoted inSnorri'sProseEdda, but usually only in bits and pieces. What poems are included in an edition of thePoetic Edda depends on the editor. Those not found in theCodex Regius are sometimes called the "eddic appendix". Other Eddic-like poems not usually published in thePoetic Edda are sometimes called Eddica minora and were compiled byAndreas Heusler and Wilhelm Ranisch in their 1903 book titledEddica minora: Dichtungen eddischer Art aus den Fornaldarsögur und anderen Prosawerken.[6]
English translators are not consistent on the translations of the names of the Eddic poems or on how the Old Norse forms should be rendered in English. Up to three translated titles are given below, taken from the translations ofBellows,Hollander, and Larrington with proper names in the normalized English forms found inJohn Lindow'sNorse Mythology and in Andy Orchard'sCassell's Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend.
After the mythological poems, theCodex Regius continues withheroic lays about mortal heroes, examples ofGermanic heroic legend. Theheroic lays are to be seen as a whole in theEdda, but they consist of three layers: the story ofHelgi Hundingsbani, the story of theNibelungs, and the story ofJörmunrekkr, king of theGoths. These are, respectively, Scandinavian, German, and Gothic in origin. As far as historicity can be ascertained,Attila,Jörmunrekkr, andBrynhildr actually existed, taking Brynhildr to be partly based onBrunhilda of Austrasia, but the chronology has been reversed in the poems.
Several of thelegendary sagas contain poetry in the Eddic style. Their age and importance is often difficult to evaluate but theHervarar saga, in particular, contains interesting poetic interpolations.
TheElder orPoetic Edda has been translated numerous times, the earliest printed edition being that byA. S. Cottle in 1797, though some short sections had been translated as early as the 1670s. Some early translators relied on aLatin translation of theEdda, including Cottle.[7]
Opinions differ on the best way to translate the text, on the use or rejection of archaic language, and the rendering of terms lacking a clear English analogue. Still, Cottle's 1797 translation is now considered very inaccurate.[7]
A comparison of the second and third verses (lines 5–12) of theVǫluspá is given below:
Ek man jǫtna (Finnur 1932) harv error: no target: CITEREFFinnur1932 (help) (unchanged orthography) | The Jötuns I remember (Thorpe 1866) harv error: no target: CITEREFThorpe1866 (help) |
I remember the Giants born of yore, (Vigfússon & Powell 1883) harv error: no target: CITEREFVigfússonPowell1883 (help) † | I remember of yore were born the Jötuns, |
I remember yet the giants of yore, (Bellows 1923) harv error: no target: CITEREFBellows1923 (help) | I call to mind the kin of etins (Hollander 1962) harv error: no target: CITEREFHollander1962 (help) |
I tell of Giants from times forgotten. (Auden & Taylor 1969) harv error: no target: CITEREFAudenTaylor1969 (help) | I remember giants of ages past, (Terry 1990) harv error: no target: CITEREFTerry1990 (help) |
I, born of giants, remember very early (Larrington 1996) harv error: no target: CITEREFLarrington1996 (help) | I remember giants (Dronke 1997) harv error: no target: CITEREFDronke1997 (help) |
I recall those giants, born early on, (Orchard 2011) harv error: no target: CITEREFOrchard2011 (help) | I remember being reared by Jotuns, (Dodds 2014) harv error: no target: CITEREFDodds2014 (help) |
I remember giants born early in time (Larrington 2014) harv error: no target: CITEREFLarrington2014 (help) | I remember the giants (Crawford 2015) harv error: no target: CITEREFCrawford2015 (help) |
| † The prose translation lacks line breaks, inserted here to match those in the Norse verse given in the same work. | |
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Notes
Further reading
The Elder Edda public domain audiobook atLibriVox
