Bjarni Einarsson. The Lovesick Skald

• Author: Bjarni Einarsson
• Title: The Lovesick Skald. A Reply to Theodore M. Andersson
• Published in: Mediaeval Scandinavia 4
• Year: 1971
• Pages: 21-41
• E-text:
• Reference: Bjarni Einarsson. "The Lovesick Skald. A Reply to Theodore M. Andersson." Mediaeval Scandinavia 4 (1971): 21-41.

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• Key words: poetry, intertextuality (kveðskapur, textatengsl)

Annotation

Bjarni Einarsson examines what the vocabulary and structure of the poetry in Kormáks saga and other early Icelandic sources tell us about when it was composed or written and about the extent to which the skalds were familiar with foreign events, literature and concepts such as love. Egils saga is touched upon, e.g. as an example of a saga sharing certain traits with Kormáks saga such as “a more or less varied repetition of an episode or stanza” (p. 26) and the two love stanzas in Egils saga are said to be “the only stanzas which in the sources themselves are called mansọngr” (p. 36).

Lýsing

Bjarni kannar hvað orðaforði og bragarháttur kvæða í Kormáks sögu og fleiri íslenskum fornritum geti sagt okkur um aldur eða ritunartíma kvæðanna og hvort draga megi ályktun um þekkingu skáldanna á erlendum samtímaviðburðum, -bókmenntum og hugtökum á borð við ást. Stuttlega er minnst á Egils sögu og bent meðal annars á að hún deili vissum einkennum með Kormáks sögu, þar á meðal breyttri endurtekningu vísna eða atburða. Ástarvísurnar tvær í Eglu eru sögð vera einu dæmin um dróttkvæðar vísur sem eru nefndar mansöngvar í heimildinum sjálfum.

See also

Andersson, Theodore M.. Skalds and Troubadours.

References

Chapter 56: hefir þú fólgið nafn hennar í vísu þessi: "I have, of course, never contended that there were "really significant correspondences between the conventions of love poetry in medieval Iceland and Provence", and I entirely agree with Andersson that "the differences are much more apparent". But when that has been stated, I still maintain that there are really significant signs of some influence, and I am not the first who has been struck by the resemblance between the Old Icelandic love poetry and certain characteristic traits of the love poetry fashionable on the continent in the twelfth century and later... It is only in the Sagas of the Skalds that the love-stanzas appear to be inconsistent with the above-named Provençal conventions, and no wonder! How should they be - or purport to be - other than "extemporaneous" and "specific" and pertaining "to a particular moment" ([Andersson 1969] p. 22), when they are part of a context in a saga?" (p. 36-7)

Links

• Written by: Jane Appleton
• Icelandic translation: Jón Karl Helgason