Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1981, Side 148

Norwegian predilection for prose, based as it was on tradition, when we
consider that even the French authors of the day, unlike their illustrious
predecessors Thomas and Chrétien, did not choose the elegance of
rhymed verse.
The Middle Ages did not recognize as clear a distinction between prose
and poetic style as we do today; frequently one finds the two combined.
As Ernst Robert Curtius has pointed out, it was characteristic “fur das
unformulierte, aber lebendige Kunstempfinden des Mittelalters, daB
man es liebte, diese Stilmittel zu verbinden und zu kreuzen.”10 More-
over, the prose chosen by the Norwegian translators is unlike the “pure
classical prose of the Icelandic sagas.”* 11 According to Einar Ol. Sveins-
son, “the style of the romances is an artificial product, at its best a piece
of elaborate craftsmanship, but always ornate. Its principal characteris-
tics are a tendency to rhythmical structure, a straining after parallelism,
and a love of alliteration.”12 The embellished and rhythmical prose of the
riddarasogur was indebted to classical rhetorical rules as taught in the
schools. Such prose was modelled after Latin style and, to some extent,
syntax.13 Two principles govern this “courtly style” (høvisk stil):14 elabo-
ration and euphony. The combination results in a rhythmical prose char-
acterized chiefly by amplification through syntactic parallelism, synony-
mous as well as antithetic, and through tautological or synonymous collo-
cations. These rhetorical devices are frequently accompanied - and con-
10 Europåische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern & Miinchen: Francke Verlag,
1948), p. 159.
11 Finnur Jonsson, Den oldnorske og oldislandske litteraturs historie, vol. II, 2nd ed.
(Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gads Forlag, 1923), p. 951.
12 Einar 6l. Sveinsson, “Viktors saga ok Blåvus. Sources and Characteristics,” in Viktors
saga ok Blåvus, ed. Jonas Kristjånsson, Riddarasogur, II (Reykjavik: Handritastofnun
Islands, 1964), p. CC.
13 Damsgaard Olsen, “Den høviske litteratur,” pp. 103-104; see also Jakob Benedikts-
son, “Traces of Latin prose rhythm in Old Norse Literature,” The Fifth Viking Congress.
Torshavn, July 1965, ed. Bjarni Niclasen (Torshavn, 1968), pp. 17-24; the same, "Cursus in
Old Norse Literature,” MedScan, 7 (1974), pp. 15-21.
14 See E. F. Halvorsen, “Høvisk stil,” KLNM, VII, 315-18; Damsgaard Olsen (“Den
høviske litteratur”) calls the translators’ prose hofprosa, that is, “court prose.” In The
Norse Version of the Chanson de Roland (Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, XIX [Copenhagen:
Munksgaard 1959]), p. 10, Halvorsen distinguished between two styles for the period with
which we are dealing: “The real ‘Court Style’, an ornate, strongly rhetorical, and usually
flexible and effective style” and “a more colloquial ‘Translator’s Prose’, in which rhetorical
devices are used less frequently.” Since the distinction between the two is primarily one of
degree, and the dividing point between the two categories not easily established, the term
“court style” will suffice for the translations under consideration here.
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