Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Qupperneq 62

... kun et mindretal af værkerne foreligger i den skikkelse, de formentlig har haft,
da de i det 13. og begyndelsen af det 14. aarhundrede blev læst op ved de norske
kongers hird. De fleste tekster er udelukkende bevaret i islandske afskrifter fra
en tid, da det norske kongehof forlængst ikke eksisterede mere, og disse sene,
undertiden stærkt bearbejdede afskrifter er værdiløse som kilder til et studium af
stil og oversættelsesteknik i den oprindelige høviske litteratur.3
The antithetical positions enunciated above are predicated on contradic-
tory assessments of the merits of Icelandic manuscripts, and of the fideli-
ty of Icelandic scribes to the manuscripts they were supposed to be copy-
ing. According to the former view (Barnes), the text in Icelandic manu-
scripts does not deviate from that of the Norwegian translations; conse-
quently all modifications, deletions, and additions in the riddarasogur -
vis-å-vis their sources - are to be ascribed to the thirteenth-century Nor-
wegian translators. The latter view (Damsgaard Olsen) precludes com-
parative study, however, as well as any essays into stylistic analysis. Can
either position be justified?
The contradictory opinions expressed above have a direct bearing up-
on a study of the Arthurian riddarasogur. Whether we discuss their style,
or their content and structure relative to the French works from which
they derive, the problem of textual transmission must first be confronted.
Fortunately, sufficient manuscript evidence is available to enable us to
adopt a defensible position in regard to the merits of the preserved texts.
A review of the manuscript situation suggests that neither the blind trust
of Geraldine Barnes nor the agnostic disdain of Damsgaard Olsen is to be
emulated. The former misrepresents the translators’ achievements, the
latter underestimates the value of Icelandic manuscripts.
The debate about the relative merits of Icelandic manuscripts for as-
certaining the character of the thirteenth-century Norwegian translations
is not new to the twentieth century. In the introduction to his edition of
EUs saga (1881) - a work significant because it is extant in both Norwe-
gian and Icelandic redactions - Eugen Kolbing proposed that the Norwe-
gian manuscript De la Gardie 4-7 is tainted by textual corruption and
attrition.4 Kolbing had collated the Norwegian text of Elis saga with that
in the Icelandic redactions and come to the conclusion that the Norwe-
3 “Den høviske litteratur,” in Norrøn fortællekunst. Kapitler af den norsk-islandske mid-
delalderlitteraturs historie, ed. by Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Thorkil Damsgaard Olsen, Ole
Widding (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1965), p. 107.
4 Eugen Kolbing, ed. Elis saga ok Rosamundu mit Einleitung, deutscher Ubersetzung und
Anmerkungen (Heilbronn: Gebr. Henninger, 1881).
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