Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 57

III The period of romanticism
37
This discussion took place at the dawn of historical linguistics, and some
arguments may have lost their relevance today, but it is nevertheless im-
portant as the first thorough discussion of the dating of Eddie poetry from a
linguistic point of view.
Conceming the metrical question, Jacob Grimm reminded his readers
that Nordic poetry had several metres that were unknown to the Anglo-
Saxons, and that the kennings in particular were found mostly in drott-
kvætt poetry, which had no counterpart in England. Finally, the kennings
revealed knowledge of a mythology of which there were no traces in
Anglo-Saxon poetry. Both Grimms also criticized Riihs for not paying
due attention to the remnants of alliterative poetry in Germany and the
other Scandinavian countries. In the same year as Riihs published his
book on the Edda, the Grimms edited “the two oldest German poems
from the 8th century”, namely Hildebrandslied and Wessobrunner Ge-
bet; and these texts gave the proof “that alliteration prevailed before
rhyme in Germany also outside the Saxons”.23
The Danish reaction - extemal arguments
The Copenhagen librarian Rasmus Nyerup took up the gauntlet thrown
down by the German exponents of the Enlightenment and published in
1802 a counter-attack with the characteristic title “A letter conceming
some insults to Nordic antiquities”.24 This contained little in the way of
argumentation, however; among his proofs of the stability of an oral tra-
dition he adduced the evidence of the old age of the Ossian poems
(Nyerup 1802: 35, cf. 1807: 123). In a later work devoted to Eddie prob-
lems, where as a leamed librarian he primarily gave information con-
ceming editions and manuscripts that is still very useful for the history
of Old Norse scholarship, he pointed to Saxo’s knowledge of Eddie
23 J. and W. Grimm 1812a (Vorrede) = J. Grimm 1864-90. vol. 8: 4. Cf. Raumer 1870:
436. - It is interesting to note that despite inereased knowledge of alliterative poetry in dif-
ferent countries, including poetry in runic inscriptions, Riihs’s theory has been revived re-
cently, Gunther Schweikle (1967) having expressed doubts as to the common Germanic
origin of alliterative poetry of Eddie type. (On alliterative poetry, cf. Schweikle 1967:
204—05 = 1977: 344-45.) The parallel to Riihs is pointed out by Kiihnel 1978: 170.
24 “Skrivelse til Prof. Ole Worm i Horsens, om nogle Forhaanelser imod de nordiske Old-
sager i en tydsk Bog kaldet Erholungen” (Nyerup 1802).