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soviel wir wissen, Nachahmung” (2001, 133). Meulengracht Sørensen’s
principal concern in this article was, however, quite a different one, in fact
about source criticism and allowable anachronism; these remarks on medi­
ality are a fruitful digression, but the word ‘revolutionizing,’ without a
prefix such as ‘potential’ or ‘would-be,’ hardly seems to describe Varinn’s
idea in its results.27
*
Rök is a cul-de-sac, a dead end with regard to cultural change, but can any­
thing about the larger subject be learned from such a failure? A philologist
is likely to have little confidence at this level of generalization. nevertheless,
some closing axioms present themselves. When a cultural anomaly appears
in situations of potential intercultural influence, hasty embrace of the for­
eign may be a likely hypothesis, along with maladaptation to the receiving
culture. Technology is a main vector of change, along with prestige and
fashion, but native common sense may resist even an apparently bright
idea. In terms of broadest cultural history, Rök should be portrayed as an
early stage in the battle of literacy with orality where, clearly, orality won
out. Yet scholars naturally see it not as something novel, but as a witness to
an archaic time – both points of view have their value, the Little Tradition
and the glimpse into the uneven progress of the Great tradition.
27 On memory and the mediality of Rök see now also Schulte 2008 and Malm 2008.
PHILoLoGy, eLeGy, AnD CuLtuRAL CHAnGe