Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 41

II Scholarly prehistory
21
latter term being defined in a contemporary dictionary as “Lie, im-
posture [...] also used of poetic inventions and chimeric visions conjured
up in one’s mind.”34
The bone of contention was not the question of the age as such, but
the value of the Edda as an authentic witness to the religion and the po-
etry of the old Scandinavians. Huet’s passage on Norse literature was no
more than a remark en passant, but his essay was very much read, and in
other contexts his point of view was reiterated in a sharper form. In an
anonymous article from 1703 in the Jesuit journal Mémoires de Trevoux
it was suggested that the Edda had been composed only after the conver-
sion to Christianity and the introduction of the Latin language in the
North,35 and it was maintained that parts of the Edda seem to be imita-
tions on the model of the Song of Songs in the Old Testament or to be
imitations of Horace. Hypotheses about the different OSinns was char-
acterized as historical rubbish.36
Defence of the authenticity of the Edda
The first scholar to take exception to Huet’s provocative view was ap-
parently the Royal Antiquarian Thomas Bartholin, who, thanks to his
amanuensis Åmi Magnusson, had access to extensive unpublished
sources. In 1689 he published lengthy extracts from Old Norse literature
with Latin translations in his monumental work on the heathen Norse-
men’s contempt of death, Antiqvitates danicae, a work which together
with Resen’s editions was the European public’s chief source of know-
34 “Fiction: Mensonge, imposture [...] se dit aussi des inventions poétiques, & des visions
chimeriques qu’on se met dans l’esprit.” Example: “Les Anciens avoient un champ libre
pour leur fictions, toutes les advantures de leurs Dieux n’estoient que fictions” (Antoine
Furetiére, Dictionnaire Universel, Paris 1690).
35 “[...] il nous paroit que YEdda n’a été composée qu’aprés l’introduction du Christia-
nisme & de la langue Latine dans le Septentrion” (Mémoires de Trevoux 1703: 954, cf.
p. 961).
36 “Quelque ancienneté que M. Torff [Torfæus] attribué å ce monument qu’il juge si pre-
cieux, il nous paroit que YEdda n’a été composée qu’aprés l’introduction du Christianisme
& de la langue Latine dans le Septentrion. En lisant les fragmens que notre auteur en a tra-
duits dans son ouvrage, on y remarque quelques endroits evidemment copiez d’aprés le
Cantique des Cantiques, & d’autres qu’on sent bien avoir été imitez d’Horace [...] Ces
deux Odins, assez ressemblans d’ailleurs, sont un Galimathias historique qu’il est assez
difficile de déméler” (Mémoires de Trevoux 1703: 954—55, 960-61).