Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 89

V Nordic debate in the period of Scandinavianism
The first centuries of Eddie scholarship were mainly a Danish-German
concem, the Danish scholarly milieu including some important Ice-
landic contributions. Even Mallet’s elegant French presentation origin-
ated in the vibrant international environment of Copenhagen about 1750
(cf. Fjord Jensen 1983: 192-203).
Until the middle of the 19th century Norwegian scholars took little part
in the Eddie debate. Only the establishment of “Det Kongelige Frederiks
Universitet” in Christiania in 1811, a kind of aprelude to the nation’spo-
litical independence in 1814, provided the institutional framework for
historical and philological research on a larger scale. One of the major
scholarly achievements of the young university was a series of editions of
medieval sources. In a historical perspective the most important of these
was the corpus of medieval laws, Norges gamle love indtil 1387
(1846-95). To a certain extent, medieval laws were still in force - in Dan-
ish translation - and the leaders of the young nation expected them to be
of some value in the process of recreating a new national law (cf. Ander-
sen [1961]: 151-52). One of the earliest Christiania editions was also P.
A. Munch’s scholarly edition of the elder Edda, published in 1847 in col-
laboration with C. R. Unger as a University programme, in order to make
it easily accessible to the general public.1 In 1845 Old Norse had been in-
1 “Forresten ville vistnok Alle, der interessere sig for vort Oldsprog og vor Oldliteratur,
være det academiske Collegium taknemmelige, fordi det saa beredvilligen er gaaet ind på
mit Forslag, paa denne Maade, nemlig som Program, at faa en smuk, let haandteerlig, og
saavidt mulig correct Udgave af vor Oldliteraturs storste Prydelse og vort ældste og her-
ligste Nationalverk tilvejebragt. Dette er nu i Ordets egentligste Forstand gjort tilgængeligt
for det hele Folk. Adgangen til at erholde et Exemplar udleveret vil, som sædvanligt ved
Programmer, staa aaben for enhver Nordmand, der interesserer sig for Fædrelandets Old-
Literatur. Maatte denne Interesse, der allerede saa biensynligt er i Begreb med at stige og
gribe om sig iblandt os, derved endnu mere vækkes og næres!” (Munch 1847: xviii). -
Munch’s name appears unaccompanied on the title page, as University programmes had to be
published by university staff only. C. R. Unger had, however, made a significant contribution
to this edition, a faet which Munch generously acknowledges in the preface, p. xviii.