Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Síða 82

62
Part One
Koeppen modified the general view in so far as he did not regard
Lokasenna as a shameless jest, but as a profoundly tragic poem.37 To
him the oldest group was therefore Vgluspå, Grimnismål, Vaflprudnis-
mål, Hrafnagaldr Odins, Baldrs draumar and Lokasenna, which present
Nordic mythology in its universal totality. Whereas the three former
contain the cosmogony and theogony of Old Norse religion, the three
latter look forward to Ragnargk in an “anticosmogonic” way and may be
somewhat later. Certainly later are the poems which treat one particular
myth or legend, like the poems on Porr: Hymiskvida, Prymskvida, Hår-
bardsljod and Alvissmål. As we have already mentioned (p. 58), Koep-
pen found influence from skaldic poetry in the latter. The “ethical”
poems in Håvamål are considered as a group apart, which is not dated in
relation to the cosmo-theogonic and mythological poems. In Vgluspå
later Christian passages are interpolated in the old text, he thought
(Koeppen 1837: 59-66).
Common to the datings from this period is the conviction that in spite of
later additions Vgluspå is at its core close to the origin of Eddie poetry.38
An important new tone is audible, however, in Franz Dietrich’s introduc-
tion to his Old Norse reader (1843), where he suggested that the poems
telling a single myth, such as Hymiskvida, Prymskvida, Hårbardsljod,
and Baldrs draumar, are probably older than more comprehensive sum-
maries like Vgluspå and Hyndluljod (Dietrich 1843: xxii).
It might be suggested that this is an influence on Eddie scholarship
from Karl Lachmann’s “Lieder-Theorie”, which was set forth in com-
plete form in the years 1836 to 1841, and which in its tum had been influ-
enced by F. A. Wolf’s prolegomena to Homer, one of the most important
37 “Loka-senna ist ein echt heidnisches Lied, ihr Grundton tief tragisch. Die Asen sind
nichts weniger als engelrein und wer sie dazu machen will, der entbehrt alles mythologi-
schen Sinnes. Sie fallen vielmehr durch ihre eigne Schuld in der Gotterdammrung und
Loki, obwohl sonst der Frevler und Liigner, lugt hier nicht, sondem redet die Wahrheit [...]
Der Friede ist mit Baldur verschwunden und jene furchtbare Zerrissenheit, welche dem
Untergange vorhergeht, hat sich ihrer bemeistert. Dieselbe wird unnachahmlich schon ge-
schildert, so dass man nicht umhin kann, bei nur einiger Auffassungsgabe das Gedicht fur
eins der tiefsinnigsten und best ausgefiihrten der Edda zu erklaren” (Koeppen 1837: 63).
38 Cf. Ettmiiller 1847: 50, quoted above (p. 58 n. 26). In the introduction to a translation
of Vgluspå Friedrich Majer suggested that this poem might be the very oldest known mon-
ument of Germanic poetry: “Die Voluspå ist der groBten Wahrscheinlichkeit gemass nicht
allein das alteste aller auf uns gekommenen skandinavischen Lieder, sondem auch iiber-
haupt das alteste Denkmal germanischer Poesie” (Majer 1818: 125; cf. Du Méril 1839: 53;
Magnusen 1821-23, vol. 1: 1; Koeppen 1837: 60.)