Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 49

III The period of Romanticism
Discussion of the Edda during the Humanistic period and in the Age of
Enlightenment reveals a pattem of controversy which would also
continue into the following century, but until 1800 the debate was mostly
of a general nature, and was hampered by insufficient knowledge of the
sources. Snorri’s Edda was known only in the form given to it by Magnus
Olafsson in Resen’s edition, which in Schlozer’s view was a perfect
model of an uncritical manuscript edition (Schlozer 1773: 16). It was not,
in faet, a manuscript edition, but rather a redaction; the mythological part
was rendered in 78 “Dæmesogur”, while the heiti and kenningar were ar-
ranged in alphabetical order according to their meaning (cf. Faulkes
1979). Skaldic stanzas were omitted. It is important to bear in mind that
when people in this period talked about the Edda, they were usually refer-
ring to this version of Snorri’s Edda. Of Eddie poetry itself only a small
part was edited. In addition to Snorri’s Edda, Resen had in 1665 pub-
lished Håvamål and Vpluspd, which were often bound together with
Snorri’s Edda, and he published a second separate edition of VQluspå in
1673. Parts of Baldr s draumar and other fragments were printed in Bar-
tholin’s Antiqvitates danicae (1689), and Vajprudnismal was edited by
Grimur Jonsson Thorkelin in 1779. Thus the bulk of the Eddie poems
were still unknown 150 years after the discovery of the manuscripts, and
it is revealing that the great French encyclopedia, which gave an account
of the Edda under the entry Islande, mainly based on Mallet, still be-
lieved Sæmundr’s collection to be lost, except for three items that had
been “preserved to our times” (Anon. 1765: 916).
A major improvement in knowledge concerning the Edda came
only when the great Amamagnæan edition began to appear in 1787 with
a volume that contained thirteen “Odas mythologicas, a Resenio non
editas”, namely “Vafthrudnismal, Grfmnis-mål, For Scimis, Harbarz-
liop, Hymis-qvida, Ægisdrecka (Loka senna, Loka glepsa), Pryms-qvida
(Hamarsheimt), Hrafna-galdr OJrins (Forspialls-liojr, Forspialls-mål),