Gripla - 20.12.2013, Blaðsíða 7

RusseLL PooLe
sCHoLARs And skALds
the northwards diffusion of Carolingian Poetic fashions
‘We might have to commit ourselves in a measure to the
possibility of Latin influence on classic skaldic art, though
most connoisseurs of it, I fear, would not want to commit
themselves thus even a little.’1
in these worDs frederic Amory issued a challenge, albeit one phrased
with diplomatic caution, to reconsider nativist assumptions. the present
essay aims to combine his comparativist insights on the development of
tmesis with new ideas on the development of skaldic ekphrasis canvassed
in recent articles by Margaret Clunies Ross and signe Horn fuglesang.2
I propose to synthesise and supplement their propositions on possible
Carolingian influence in the evolution of skaldic poetry. I shall do so in
three ways: by outlining frankish-danish political and cultural contacts
in the late eighth century and through the ninth century; by undertaking
a fuller study of ekphrasis and its closely related sister-genre titulus in
1 frederic Amory, ‘tmesis in MLat., on, and oIr. Poetry: An unwritten notatio norrœna’,
Arkiv for nordisk filologi 94 (1979): 48. With this essay I take the opportunity to salute the
memory of a true ‘Pacificus salomon’ and generous friend. I am grateful to Lesley Abrams,
Carolyne Larrington, Heather o’donoghue, eric stanley, and other participants for their
comments on a version of this essay read at an old norse in oxford Research seminar
in november 2010. All errors in the present version of the article are due to me alone.
thanks are also due to the social sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada and
to Western university (formerly the university of Western ontario), which provided
funding toward the research presented in this essay.
2 Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘stylistic and Generic definers of the old norse skaldic ekphra-
sis’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 3 (2007): 161–92; signe Horn fuglesang, ‘ekphrasis
and surviving Imagery in Viking scandinavia’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 3 (2007):
193–224; for scholarly adoption of the non-native term ‘ekphrasis’, cf. Clunies Ross,
‘stylistic and Generic definers’, 161, n. 3.
Gripla XXIV (2013): 7–44.