Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 90

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Part One
troduced as an optional subject for students of philology, and there was
increasing interest in Old Norse literature among the general public -
even among the ladies, according to P. A. Munch (Olsen 1911: 318). The
same year as the Edda was published, P. A. Munch and C. R. Unger also
published an Old Norse grammar (Munch and Unger 1847a) and an Old
Norse reader (1847b), and Rudolf Keyser began his series of leetures on
Old Norse literature, which were eventually to become his posthumous
history of literature, already mentioned (Keyser 1866, cf. p. 4 above).
Rudolf Keyser
Keyser’s history of literature is the most comprehensive expression of
the general claim to Old Norse letters made by the so-called Norwegian
school. The Norwegian historians of this generation tried, with some
success, to present the Norwegians as the principal Scandinavian tribe,
which had come to Scandinavia from the North and East, and had later
on subdued their Gothic relatives further south. The most important
foundation for this immigration theory was found in the new compara-
tive linguistics, according to which Old Norwegian might be taken as
the form of the Nordic languages nearest to the original (cf. Andersen
[1961]: 183-240; Dahl 1970: 36-80; Holm-Olsen 1981: 62-64). As
far as Old Norse literature was concemed, it was most welcome that
German scholars had already stated that its Creative phase was largely
anterior to the colonisation of Iceland, and that the Norsemen who had
emigrated to Iceland therefore had the merit only of preserving what had
already been created in their homeland. The emigrants were animated
by an extraordinary desire to leam and pass on their leaming, but inde-
pendent scholarly activity, whereby the emigrants could express their
nationality as Icelanders, was out of the question. The principal merit of
the Icelanders, as far as Old Norwegian literature is concemed, was their
diligence as copyists.2
2 “Nu vare de selv [Islændingeme] besjælede af en stor Lærelyst, af en stor Meddelelses-
lyst, kort af en stor aandelig Virksomhed. Den mundtlige Overlevering fandt blandt dem en
ivrig Deeltagelse, og Skrivekunsten fandt hos dem Indgang og Anvendelse omtrent paa
samme Tid som i selve Norge. Men de sloge ikke ind paa nogen ny, fra den i Norge raaden-
de forskjellig Retning i deres aandelige Udvikling” (Keyser 1866:22). “Om en selvstændig