Kommentar Zu Den Liedern Der Edda. Bd. 7: Heldenlieder. Atlakviđa in Grœnlenzka, Atlamál in Grœnlenzko, Frá Guđrúno, Guđrúnarhvot, Hamđismál by Klaus von See, et al. (review)

With this publication, the editors of the huge Edda project in Frankfurt are only one volume away from completing their coverage of all the poems in the Codex Regius of the Elderor Poetic Edda in their mission to replace Gering and Sijmon’s impressive Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda (1927–1931). The volume follows the others in presenting a close reading and detailed analysis of virtually every word of the poems and provides nearly complete references to the works of scholars who have contributed to the understanding of this poetry since Gering and Sijmons’s time. An introduction to each poem gives an overview of its preservation and research history and presents as well the history of material from before and after the poems were recorded in Iceland and edited in the book that is now known as the Codex Regius of the Elder Edda (GKS 2365 4to, since 1971 housed in the Árni Magnússon collection in Reykjavík) from the latter half of the thirteenth century. Moreover, the introduction provides information about the literary treatment of ideas, themes, and characters; structural composition; metrics, vocabulary, and style; and the relative dating of the poem in question. It is not until then that a careful and detailed reading of the poem itself is presented.

Such a thorough treatment of Eddic poetry is a divine gift to students and scholars of the Poetic Edda. All the data assembled in the volume are immensely useful and illuminating to every reader, who is, of course, under no obligation to accept the authors’ interpretations. Those scholars who in recent decades have shown interest in the reception of medieval literature, will be delighted with the detailed information about literary and musical reworkings of the poems and/or the themes of the poems. It is, however, a little peculiar to find Haukur Tómasson’s opera, “Gudrun’s 4th Song,” referred to as a “musikalisches Drama” (pp. 166, 705, and 837) by Peter Laugesen, the author of the libretto, though it is recognized that this may be intentional because the information about the poems in this volume is text-oriented. It does not take into account the fact that Eddic poetry may actually have been performed at some point, and it does not consider the fact that the surroundings of its live performance may have influenced the recited or sung words of the poems. Eddic poetry would be quite unique in the world of oral poetry if some musical and dramatic accompaniment had not been involved in its performance.

There is no discussion in the volume of the oral background of the orally derived texts in the Codex Regius. The focus is on the undeniable fact that all that has been preserved of the once rich oral tradition of Eddic poetry is a few written words on vellum, that is, words that can be scrutinized by a philologist. Such an approach to orally derived poetic texts often leaves out potentially interesting discussions, with the result that analyses of the poems remain stuck in the old philological “mishmash” of problems that are as unlikely to be solved now as they were in the nineteenth century. This becomes apparent in discussions of possible connections between two or more orally derived traditional texts. The inherent methodological problems can also be observed when it comes to texts that clearly have a written connection, such as the prose interlude Frá Guðrúno in the Codex Regius, the related passages (through writing) in the slightly longer Skáldskaparmál of Snorri’s Edda, and the much longer parallel episode in Völsunga saga, in which...