The Uppsala Edda. DG 11 4to by Snorri Sturluson (review)

Heimir Pálsson’s edition of the manuscript Codex Upsaliensis of Snorri Sturluson’s Edda is a welcome, normalized reading edition, which will make the study of the transmission, textual variety, and context of Snorri’s Edda in the Middle Ages more accessible for students of Old Norse. Snorri’s Edda is one of the most important Old Norse texts. As is well known, the Edda is a handbook for comprehending and composing skaldic poetry. Guðrún Nordal (2001) has even argued that it was a sort of textbook used in schools. Snorri’s Edda belongs to the category of learned medieval writings, as has been argued by a number of scholars, not least Anthony Faulkes (1983) and Peter and Ursula Dronke (1977), even though scholars do not agree upon the extent of Snorri’s learning.

Snorri’s Edda has been transmitted in four almost complete manuscripts and in a number of fragments. Generally, the Codex Regius of Snorri’s Edda (GKS 2367 4to) is believed to come closest to Snorri’s original. This manuscript is thought to have been written in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. The Codex Trajectinus (Utrecht 1374), which is a copy from ca. 1595 of a now lost medieval manuscript, is closely related to the Codex Regius. From ca. 1350, we have the Codex Wormianus (AM 242 fol.), which preserves a text of Snorri’s Edda with a number of learned interpolations. Finally, there is the Codex Upsaliensis (DG 11 4to), believed to be slightly older than the Codex Regius and written ca. 1300, which preserves a third redaction of the text that is generally considered to be abridged in comparison to the other redactions.

There are facsimile editions of all four manuscripts, but until now only two of the manuscripts have been available in a normalized reading edition. The text of the Codex Regius has been published in a complete and normalized edition by Anthony Faulkes (1982–1998; with introduction and commentary), including an English translation by Faulkes (1997), and the text of Codex Wormianus has been published by Karl G. Johansson online at the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (menota.org). In addition to the facsimile edition from 1962, Codex Upsaliensis is available in a diplomatic edition with a palaeographic commentary and an introduction by Anders Grape, Gottfrid Kallstenius, and Olof Thorell (1977). With the present edition, including Anthony Faulkes’s translation, Codex Upsaliensis is now also easily accesible for students.

Each redaction of Snorri’s Edda on its own is naturally of interest to students and scholars of Old Norse. Accordingly, Heimir Pálsson has emended the text of Codex Upsaliensis as little as possible: “The intention is not to reconstruct the original text of Snorri Sturluson, much less that of the poets that he quoted, but rather to examine exhaustively the text that the anonymous scribe set down on parchment around the year 1300” (p. cxxv). With the exception of the Codex Trajectinus, all four manuscripts contain texts in addition to Snorri’s Edda, and none of the four manuscripts is entirely complete. In Codex Upsaliensis, the text has also been structured in a manner different from the other manuscripts. Apart from Snorri’s Edda, Codex Upsaliensis contains a genealogy of the Sturlungs, Skáldatal (a list of skalds), and a list of lawspeakers. One of the reasons why Codex Upsaliensis has attracted particular interest is that it is the only manuscript of Snorri’s Edda that provides information about Snorri Sturluson’s compilation of the work: Bók þessi heitir Edda. Hana hefir samansetta Snorri Sturlusonr eptir þeim hætti sem hér er skipat (This book is called Edda. It has been put together by Snorri the son of Sturla, following the manner in which it is arranged here). Thus it seems reasonable that Codex Upsaliensis was somehow written in connection with the Sturlungar, the...