Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 2020, Blaðsíða 319

Do we have the complete text of the poem?
One of the most interesting — and important — parts of the thesis is the question
of whether f. 99v contained the poem in its entirety, or whether parts of it are
missing, either written on another leaf, now lost, or simply never added. Þorgeir
is very clear on this point, and does a good job arguing that there is no reason to
think that there was any more of the poem than what we have on f. 99v (p. 76):
I have shown that it is possible to do without a lost part, and for that reason
alone its existence should not be assumed. The scientific reason for this is
that one should always opt for the more restrictive option when two are
available (this is implied in what is referred to as Occam’s razor).
It might, however, have been interesting had there been more discussion on what
Þorgeir thinks the implications of this are.
Elsewhere, in Chapter 4, Þorgeir looks at quotations from Arinbjarnarkviða
in Snorra-Edda and the Third Grammatical Treatise, arguing, again convincingly,
that where there are discrepancies between the text which can be read in f. 99v
and that cited by Snorri and Ólafur Þórðarson, there are no compelling reasons
to choose the latter readings over the former. A stanza cited by Ólafur Þórðarson
which is attributed to Egill but has no parallel in Arinbjarnarkviða is not from the
poem, he argues. Both of these are important contributions to our understanding
of the poem.
A reconstruction, not an edition
In Part III of the thesis, Þorgeir presents the text of the poem, introducing new
readings he has been able to produce through multi-spectral scanning of the heav-
ily damaged f. 99v. He chooses not to call this recovered text an edition, because,
as he says, he has ‘in many instances left open issues that an editor would nor-
mally resolve’. This is an entirely defensible position, it seems to me, but it is not
an uncontroversial one. He does not present any explanation for taking it, how-
ever, and in general there is little or no discussion of editorial theory or the like.
But his whole approach, presenting the text, as much of it as can be read, of a sin-
gle witness, without conjecture or emendation, is very much in line with the pre-
cepts of the so-called “new” or “material” philology. Þorgeir does not mention
new or material philology anywhere, however — in fact, the word “philology”
does not appear at all in the thesis — nor does he cite any of the many articles and
books in which these issues are discussed. It would definitely have been good to
have had more about the theoretical background for his decision to proceed in
this way.
Comments from the first opponent 319