Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 11
Editor’s preface
When Bjarne Fidjestøl suddenly and unexpectedly died on 9 February
1994 the present work was near completion. He had, in faet, hoped to
finish the book in the course of that year. The groundwork for this study
of the dating of Eddie poetry was laid when the author spent a sabbatical
year in Freiburg 1982-83, and in the following decade he pursued this
investigation alongside his many other obligations, publishing some of
his findings along the way. The study was eventually divided into a his-
torical part, which brings the debate up to Jan de Vries, and a methodo-
logical part of a more technical nature. Two of the chapters planned for
this second part were never written, but the remainder was more or less
ready for publication. The book does not aim at presenting a new dating
of the Eddie poems; it is rather a historical and critical study of previous
attempts at dating, combined with a detailed discussion of the criteria
which have been used.
After Professor Fidjestøl’s death, his old workplace, the Department
of Scandinavian languages and literature at the University of Bergen,
appointed three literary executors, Prof. Sverre Bagge of the University
of Bergen, Prof. Else Mundal, then of the University of Oslo, now at
Bergen, and the undersigned. We felt the work to be so important and
of such a high quality that it should not be left unpublished. The editor-
ial committee of the Amamagnæan Institute was approached and agreed
to publish the book in its series, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana. Sub-
sequent work on the publication has been carried out by the undersigned
in close co-operation with the editors for the series.
The task of editing the present work has been mueh easier than might
have been expected, not only because it had progressed so far, but also
because Bjarne Fidjestøl was so meticulous in doeumenting his labour.
The entire manuscript was found on his computer, and many of the files
included notes on what had been checked and what remained to be