Mythen der Edda in der deutschen Dichtung: Gerstenberg—Klopstock—Günderrode—Heine by Sergej Liamin (review)

Old Norse-Icelandic or eddic mythology made its first strong impact on German poetry during the time of the so-called Gelehrtenrepublik (Republic of Letters), from the eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth-end of romanticism, and during the literary movement known as Junges Deutschland (Young Germany). In Mythen der Edda in der deutschen Dichtung, which is, according to the undated acknowledgment (p. 7), based on his DPhil thesis from the University of Regensburg, Sergej Liamin discusses the poetological and aesthetic implications that eddic mythology had on the poetic work of selected authors of these time periods: Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Karoline von Günderrode, and Heinrich Heine. Liamin neither justifies his apparently random choice of authors nor does he comment on the fact that some of the authors took part in opposing literary movements. This may be due to the fact that Liamin explicitly declares that his exemplary study is neither a historical discourse analysis nor ideology critique, but a firmly philological study (p. 15).

The monograph has a chapter dedicated to each of the four selected authors (chaps. 3, 4, 6, and 7), and a middle section (chap. 5) that discusses four additional authors (Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, and Achim von Arnim). These five chapters are framed by two introductions (chaps. 1 and 2), one discussing the general topic of the book and Liamin's intended approach toward the Old Norse-Icelandic material and the reference texts used (chap. 1), the other covering the history of editions and translations of Old Norse-Icelandic literature and its mediation in Germany during the eighteenth century. The book concludes with a rather brief summary of the results from the previous chapters (chap. 8), an appendix (chap. 9) providing synoptic presentations of Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg's Gedicht eines Skalden and Der Skalde, and Friedrich Wilhelm Klopstock's two versions of Braga, respectively, and a bibliography (chap. 10). The table of contents (pp. 9–10) lists only chapters and subheadings. These are titled associatively and do not convey clear meanings concerning the eddic material they discuss. Neither do they reference methodological or theoretical approaches. A well-structured index would have been useful for readers interested in the methodology chosen for the study or in the individual eddic texts, characters, or motifs used during the literary periods under discussion.

One of the main problems with Mythen der Edda in der deutschen Dichtung is its use of German academic style and language, affecting the disposition of a universal scholar by adopting a traditional and arguably antiquated persona throughout the book. The text itself is littered with untranslated words and phrases from Latin and Ancient Greek, long and complicated sentences including as many technical terms as possible, and references to theoretical concepts that are mentioned only in passing. The latter is common throughout the book when the author refers to concepts such as lieux de mémoire (p. 16), kollektives Gedächtnis (p. 49), Bedingung der Möglichkeit (p. 126), littérature au second degré (p. 14), and Prätexte—Paratexte (p. 36), to name just a few, without referring to Pierre Nora, Maurice Halbwachs, Immanuel Kant, or Gérard Genette in a footnote or in the bibliography. It is also remarkable that Liamin makes frequent use of Hans Blumenberg's concept of Arbeit am Mythos (Work on Myth) without ever referring to Blumenberg or discussing the content and the implications of this theory of myths. Furthermore, Liamin refers to Blumenberg's Arbeit am Mythos (pp. 88, 244) as Arbeit an der Edda (pp. 11, 315), Arbeit am kulturellen Gedächtnis (p. 29), Arbeit an den Quellen (p. 37), Arbeit am Epos (p. 110), and Arbeit am 'Mythos der Revolution' (p. 297) without defining the content or implications of these phrases at all. This loose usage makes the terms arbitrary. Sentences such as "Lange bevor die Arbeit am Mythos beendet ist, beginnt die Arbeit mit...