Accessible guide to and description of the medieval poetic tradition in
Scandinavia.
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 contextsthat 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 thatarise 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.
Margaret Clunies Ross is McCaughey Professor of English Language and
Early English Literature and Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies
at the University of Sydney.
