Abstract: Scholars have traditionally reflected on the Old Norse cultural area’s poetic output on the basis of a binary classification of the poetry into two types: the categories are labelled as ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’. This paper explores the formation of the dichotomy and how the application of these categories in scholarship may obscure rather than clarify the nature of Old Norse poetry.
The Winter 2015/2016 issue of RMN
Newsletter focused on the relationship of
poetic forms and especially metres in relation to their ‘ecology’, or the environment of language, genres, ethnopoetics, other metres and broader environments of practice in which they exist and evolve. When we consider the ‘ecology’ of the Old Norse poetic metres, the fundamental division we make as scholars between poetry deemed ‘eddic’ or ‘skaldic’ is applicable in a broad sense to the surviving Old Norse verse. Nevertheless, there is a sizeable proportion of the poetic corpus that cannot be reconciled with this neat dichotomy. The usefulness of the terms and bipartite division can thus be called into question.
The terms ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ are used in scholarship both to describe two types of Old Norse prosody and, more broadly, as two types of poetry differing from each other in style and content. In addition to some Old Norse poetry not conforming to the eddic/skaldic dichotomy, another of the difficulties with the constructs ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ and the application of the terms in scholarship, lies in the lack of separation between metre and content in the use of the terms. It is implicitly understood in scholarship that the simple alliterative metres we refer to as ‘eddic metres’ and eddic poetry are different things from each other, for example. This difference is sometimes reflected in encyclopaedic handbooks; Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (1993), for
instance, has four relevant entries: “Eddic Meters”, “Eddic Poetry”, “Skaldic Metres”, “Skaldic Verse”. However, it is seldom that this difference between metre and poetry is acknowledged in the terminology used in scholarship, nor are the categories clearly defined. This leaves us without the terminology to distinguish between, for example, poetry preserved in eddic metre and that has eddic content, and on the other hand, poetry that has
eddic metre but skaldic content. In such situations, the content rather than the metre of the verse tends to guide which appellation, eddic or skaldic, is applied to the poetry, but this decision is in many cases far from clear cut.
There are thus two reasons highlighted here to reconsider the eddic/skaldic dichotomy. Firstly, and as will be illustrated below, that some poetry cannot be reconciled with eddic/skaldic dichotomy should cause us to reconsider the applicability of the dichotomy to the corpus at a basic level. Are these analytical terms even useful for scholarship? Secondly, this lack of precision in defining and using the categories and terminology ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ in analysis causes potential haziness in the identification of eddic and skaldic verse, if we continue to accept the usefulness of the classification of poetry into two types. Both of these issues are important, because whether poetry is deemed eddic or skaldic by scholars has an impact on the questions we pose to our material, such as the role of poetry in the genre divisions of prose, and it influences what material we might select for an examination of a specific corpus. An example of this is the recent book by Seiichi Suzuki, The Meters of
Old Norse Eddic Poetry (2014), in which
Suzuki examines the eddic metres (those descending from common Germanic metre, discussed further below) only with reference to poems contained in a particular manuscript anthology, the Codex Regius of the Poetic
Edda. The poems in this anthology have
mythological and heroic content set in the ancient past, but there exists an abundance of poetry with ‘skaldic content’ (typically historically contextualised court poetry and praise of kings) also composed in eddic metres. In the case of Suzuki’s volume, preservation context trumps metre in the determination of a corpus, even in a volume specifically about metre. In addition, when, for example, we think
of verse as skaldic as opposed to eddic, we have different expectations about the background of the verses and orient our research accordingly. We might try to determine the authorship of skaldic verse, its time of composition, historical value and original context. On the other hand, questions of authorship, exact datability and historical value are not usually deemed relevant for most eddic poetry, which we tend to think of as anonymous via traditionality, timeless and as preserving folk rather than historical narratives.
The purpose of this article is to confront the eddic/skaldic divide with its ecology in mind. Firstly, I will discuss the constructions of the categories eddic and skaldic as used in contemporary scholarship. Then, I will use several case studies to examine how the metres functioned in Old Norse society with relation not only to one another, but also to the contexts in which they survive.
The Emic and Etic Categorisation of Old Norse Poetry
The division ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ is not used in Old Norse texts themselves; rather, they are terms used in popular discourse and scholarship most often as binary analytical categories through which scholars access the Old Norse poetic system. This at once alerts us that ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ are etic as opposed to emic terms. An etic approach describes observable behaviour from a standpoint outside a particular linguistic or cultural system, such as definitions and terms constructed by scholars to describe a phenomenon they observe; by contrast, an emic approach is built from perspectives and characteristics internal to the system itself and emic terms are terms used by people within that system: how behaviour functions within the system and how it relates to and contrasts with other linguistically and culturally significant behaviour. An etic analysis may include a range of behaviour that is not culturally significant, but that nevertheless provides the researcher with an entry point into the system being studied and a starting point for analysis, even if the final result must be informed by emic units. Since eddic and skaldic are etic terms, their usage must be informed by examples we find of the metres and styles of the extant poetry if the
categories they refer to are to be considered valid categories for analysis.
Dan Ben-Amos’ (1976) discussion of ethnic genres, the genre system as experienced by members of the culture (emic), and analytic categories, those established by scholars (etic), has been a useful addition to scholarship on the eddic/skaldic divide (begun by Harris 1975; refreshed by Thorvaldsen 2006: 35–48). Despite the obvious attraction for modern scholars of attempting to adopt a genre system and a terminological vocabulary based on ethnic genres, it is not always easy to separate ethnic genres from analytical categories, nor is it possible to extract an ethnic genre system that we can be sure was actually experienced as we might assume by those engaged with Old Norse oral and written literature in the medieval period.
‘Eddic’
The denotation ‘eddic’ usually refers to poetry that is in or is associated with the anthology of poetry found in the Poetic Edda, the 13th-
century Icelandic manuscript (Gks 2365 4to) of mythological and heroic poetry in the metres
fornyrðislag, málaháttr and ljóðaháttr or
variants thereof. The name ‘Edda’ initially appeared as the title of Snorri Sturluson’s textbook of poetics known as Snorra Edda [‘Snorri’s Edda’] or the Prose Edda. The name ‘Edda’ in this case is derived from a passage in one of the manuscripts of the text in which it is so titled.1 In 1643, Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson
got hold of the manuscript now known as the
Poetic Edda. He and his seventeenth century
contemporaries were well aware of Snorri’s work and had posited the existence of an earlier manuscript containing the poems Snorri drew upon. The discovery of Gks 2365 4to seemed to confirm this and the title Edda was duly conferred on the manuscript collection of poems in acknowledgment of this supposed connection with Snorri Edda.2 What the name
Edda actually means is a topic of much
discussion: suggestions include ‘grandmother’ (in which meaning edda appears in the poem
Rígsþula), ‘poetics’ (as derived from óðr in its
meaning ‘poem; poetry’), or as a derivation from the name Oddi, the farm on which Snorri grew up (Stefán Einarsson 1957: 15). Anthony Faulkes (in a revised version of his 1977 article), argues that edda is coined from Latin
edo in the sense of composing poetry.3 We do not know the meaning in the background of the name ‘Edda’, but there is no reason to believe it was used for a vernacular category of poetry. Moreover, the adjectival derivative ‘eddic’ and its equivalents in other languages is a modern development and unambiguously an etic term.
‘Skaldic’
The term ‘skaldic’ indicates that the poetry under this heading is to be associated with a
skáld [‘poet’], a medieval, Nordic poet, who is
normally named and often referred to as a ‘court poet’. Bjarne Fidjestøl makes the following point:
In modern use, skaldic poetry is defined primarily as Old Norse poetry distinct from eddic poetry. This distinction is not known in Old Norse, however, where the word skáld may be used indiscriminately of authors of both genres. Since eddic poetry is anonymous, there was little need for the word
skáld in this context, and therefore it naturally
would be used more commonly of authors of skaldic verse. (Fidjestøl 1993a: 592.)
The chief skaldic metre is dróttkvætt, in which five sixths of skaldic poetry is preserved. It is worth noting that the by-name skald (the earlier form of skáld) appears in runic poetry from the Viking Age. The title ‘skald’ appears mainly in relation to either rune-carvers or the commissioners of monuments, five times in the runic corpus for four men: Grímr (U 951) and Þorbiǫrn (U 29, U 532) in Uppland, Sweden, another Þorbiörn in Rogaland, Norway (N 239), and an Uddr in Sweden (Vg 4) who may not have been the carver of the stone (see Larsson 2007: 405). It is possible that these men gained this by-name because they were especially talented poets, and it has been assumed by Jansson that this demonstrates the presence of professional poets in Sweden in the Viking Age (Jansson 1976: 134). Problematically, none of these inscriptions have anything poetic about them, so there is nothing to point with certainty to ‘skald’ in this context meaning poet (cf. Jesch 2001: 6n.2; Larsson 2007: 405). The presence of ‘skald’ on runic inscriptions alone can thus testify neither to a poetic milieu nor to a wider connection between runic inscriptions and skaldic poetry in Eastern Scandinavia, although in a manuscript context after the period in which these inscriptions
were made, it is possible that the existence of a named individual, a skáld, may be a potential delineating factor between eddic and skaldic poetry. Overall, the denotation of skald/skáld are relatively unambiguous in contrast to ‘Edda’. The evidence speaks against this term for ‘poet’ denoting a poet of specifically ‘skaldic’ poetry as conceived today. The term ‘skaldic’ is a modern adjective derived from the Old Norse word for ‘poet’, and thus an etic term.
Concerns about a Binary Corpus
In scholarship, the two etic categories of ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ have become a primary distinction for approaching Old Norse poetry, effectively dividing it into two corpora – ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ – that tend to be analysed in isolation from one another. This has influenced the location and division of the poetic corpus in handbooks and reference works, questions posed in scholarship, editorial technique and not least publication decisions concerning the poetic texts and manuscripts containing them. Scholars have made several publication decisions about the corpus that have had an impact on how we view the divide between eddic and skaldic poetry. These are etic divisions, devised by scholars to provide an entry point into the primary sources. One aspect of this is how poems are grouped for publication and the basis for these decisions. It has long been common in reference works on Old Norse poetry to comment on the differences between eddic and skaldic poetry and to devote a chapter to each separately. Likewise, it has been common to publish edited texts of the poetry separately rather than in mixed eddic/skaldic compendia. In part, this has to do with the origin of each term ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’, and the manuscript preservation in anthology form of the core poems that make up the eddic corpus. If we consider what the terms ‘eddic’ and ‘skaldic’ imply, we begin to see the difficultly in analysing the two groups of poetry in binary opposition to one another. Below I will abstract how these analytical categories are constructed before turning to the problems with this distinction.
The Modern Division of ‘Eddic’ and ‘Skaldic’
Unknown to medieval sources, a dichotomy between Eddaic and scaldic poetry has been established mainly through peculiarities of
the transmission process. Actually, there are no precise criteria on which to base the drawing of such a line of demarcation. Nevertheless, scaldic poetry is distinguished from Eddaic poetry because of formal features as well as content. (Szokody 2002: 982.)
In The Nordic Languages: An International
Handbook, Szokody points out that we have no
definite criteria by which to distinguish eddic and skaldic poetry as analytical categories, and no medieval precedent, but we do it anyway. In keeping with the binary nature of the terms eddic and skaldic, the two types of poetry are often described in dichotomous terms with various characteristics that are ascribed to each, and these traits used to differentiate between the two groups (cf. Frank 1985: 159; Gade 2002: 856). The typical view has been, to quote Jón Helgason, that the two kinds of poetry “adskiller sig alligevel i det hele og store tydelig fra hinanden, baade med hensyn til indhold og form” [‘nevertheless clearly differ from one another, both with consideration of content and form’], despite being contempor- aneous and composed by the same men (1934: 55). These distinguishing characteristics can be divided into three main groups: metre, content and style. In encyclopaedic handbooks, it is thus the case that often both eddic and skaldic receive two entries each, one describing their metres and one concerned with the type of poetry more generally (discussed below under the headings ‘content and historical context’ and ‘style’, respectively).4
Metre
In scholarship since at least the 19th century, the metres of Old Norse verse are split into two types: eddic metres, and skaldic metres. The metre of the poem subsequently has been used by scholars as one of several bases on which to categorise poems as eddic or skaldic, as exemplified by Anne Holtsmark’s comment that “Skaldediktning kan defineres som vn. poesi diktet i de skaldiske versemål” (1970) [‘skaldic poetry can be defined as West Nordic poetry composed in the skaldic verse-forms’]. However, since skaldic poetry can easily be found composed in metres defined as ‘eddic,’ we can immediately problematize this: When is an eddic metre of the eddic type of poetry, and when is it skaldic? In scholarship, the
solution to this question is often presented by also including considerations of content and style alongside metre (two criteria discussed further below), although in some cases this also fails to resolve matters.
We can easily observe that there are both important similarities and differences between eddic and skaldic metres, but two central points that are generally accepted can be taken as a point of departure: that 1) skaldic metres developed from eddic metres, and 2) this development into skaldic metre from eddic resulted in increasing complexity.5 On this basis,
we can describe eddic metres as relatively simple, and the skaldic as relatively complex. The three eddic metres, fornyrðislag,
málaháttr and ljóðaháttr,6 likely represent to a large extent the common Germanic alliterative metre, as it evolved in Old Norse. They are related to the metrical forms found in the Old High German Hildebrandslied and Old English poetry such as Beowulf.7 Eddic metres have neither regular internal rhyme (hendingar) nor end rhyme, as variously found in skaldic metres. Eddic metre is accentual, and tends to be in freer measures, in which stresses are counted, not syllables or line-endings, although alliteration is regular.8
Skaldic forms, on the other hand, count syllables and are peculiar to the Old Norse area (in particular to Norway and Iceland, although see below for other Scandinavian contexts). Skaldic metres are more complex and particular than eddic, and a named poet is often credited for the manipulation of the form, as opposed to the anonymity of the extant eddic poetry. Skaldic metre is stricter than eddic metre in terms of the number of syllables in each metrical position. The most popular metre of skaldic poetry is
dróttkvætt, which literally means ‘court metre’,
reflecting the common use of the metre for praise poetry presented at a royal court. This meter has a six-position line normally realized with one syllable per position (allowing for the ‘resolution’ of light syllables into a single position), with variants possible.9
Both eddic and skaldic poems are stanzaic, although the older eddic poetry can be in rather looser strophe form, with strophes of varying lengths.10 Since this earlier eddic metre is not
strictly divided into stanzas, the regular stanzaic form found in eddic poetry, which developed
into an eight-line strophe with a deep caesura after the fourth line (see e.g. Kristján Árnason 2006), likely developed under the influence of the arrangement of skaldic metres (Fidjestøl 1993a), which was divided into strophes from the beginning (Lie 1967). Although a certain chronological change can be detected, it is worth noting that eddic and skaldic metres existed alongside each other, and, as mentioned, poetry in skaldic style could be composed in fornyrðislag or other eddic metres. Metre is thus not the only criterion that is used to distinguish between eddic and skaldic poetry, and, all things considered, is arguably one of the least important; most of the difference identifiable between the two kinds of poetry lies in the subject matter of the verse and the context of the preservation of the verse.
Content and Historical Context
Both the content taken up by Old Norse poetry and its historical context have also been used by scholars to help define what we might consider either eddic or skaldic.11 To some
extent the division made by distinguishing eddic and skaldic content or historical context corresponds with that made by dividing eddic and skaldic metres, although this is far from