Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 51

III The period of romanticism
31
he found that Adelung had been somewhat harsh in his description of
Iceland as “great in extent, but small in inner value”,5 he shared the com-
mon prejudices of the Enlightenment conceming the barbarism of the
ancient Nordic peoples, but found an extenuating circumstance for the
Norsemen’s lack of culture in the stem climate they were forced to en-
dure (Riihs 1812: 36).6
Like Schlozer, Riihs therefore presupposed that Icelandic literature
had to be explained as the result of extemal influence, and he bluntly
stated that all culture in the North had Christianity as its point of depar-
ture.7 His theory of literary dependence was more specific and more
carefully argued than that of Schlozer, however. Riihs maintained that
Old Norse poetry originated in Iceland as an imitation of Anglo-Saxon
poetry. In his book from 1803, Riihs mentioned that the English anti-
quarian George Hickes had assumed that poetic art was introduced into
England by the Danes, but Riihs found it more probable that it had been
the other way round, that England was the cradle of Nordic poetry
(Riihs 1803: 106-09). In 1813 he expanded this theory in a book which
contained the main thesis in its title, Ueber den Ursprung der islån-
dischen Poesie aus der angelsåchsischen. Thus Icelandic poetry was far
from being a common Germanic heritage of the Scandinavian peoples;
rather so-called Nordic poetry was a “flower taken from abroad to Ice-
land”, whence it had spread to Norway, without really taking root in the
people there.8 The age of the poems could not be established, but ac-
5 “An den Grenzen der wohnbaren Welt liegt die Insel Island, zwar groB von Umfang,
aber klein an innerm Werthe. Denn nachdem die Natur ihre Schatze iiber den Erdkreis
verbreitet hatte, blieb ihr fur diese Insel nichts weiter iibrig, als Schnee und ewiges Eis,
Feuerschliinde und Schwefel, und, damit die Verzweifelung ihre schreckliche Hiitte nicht
vollig daselbst aufschlage, ein wenig Gras” (Adelung 1797a: 86). Cf. the riposte by Riihs
1803: 68-70, and the response by Adelung 1803.
6 Climatic theories explaining historical phenomena were very much in vogue in the 18th
century, cf. Th. Beck 1934-35: 337, index: Climatic theory. As for the history of the Scan-
dinavian peoples, the Nordic climate provided an explanation both for their barbarism and
lack of culture (Adelung) and for their love of freedom (Montesquieu) and even for their
chivalrous spirit (Mallet).
7 “Alle Cultur des Nordens ging vom Christenthum aus” (Riihs 1812: 38).
8 “[...] daB die sogenannte nordische Poesie keineswegs ein Gemeingut des ganzen ger-
manisch-skandinavischen Nordens war, sondem nur eine Blume, die aus der Fremde nach
Island gebracht ward, sich hier acclimatisirte, erhielt, und eigene SchoBlinge trieb [...] von
Island ward sie nach Norwegen heriiber gebracht, ohne aber je im Volke tiefe Wurzeln zu
schlagen” (Riihs 1812: 111-12).