Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Page 104

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Part One
from geography and natural history (Jessen 1871: 32-37), but unlike
Keyser and Grundtvig he did not think that their age excluded an Ice-
landic origin for the poems in question. Some of the poems which were
unknown to Snorri’s Edda (Baldrs draumar, Hymiskvida, Hårbards-
Ijod) might even be younger than Snorri’s work, he thought (Jessen
1867-69: 284).
The importance of Jessen’s articles is first and foremost that by seri-
ously considering a medieval dating of the poems, he changed some of
the basic presuppositions on which the discussion had been conducted.
It makes a great difference to the whole methodology of dating whether
the possibility of such a late dating is admitted or not. A scholar who
presupposes that Eddie poetry in general is older than skaldic poetry has
very little material for comparison, and the natural consequence was that
Grundtvig and a majority of older scholars admitted that it was highly
improbable that the question of the age and origin of the Eddie poems
“in spite of every effort and aeumen devoted to it, ever will be brought
beyond the State of probability” (Grundtvig 1869-70: 43). By calling
this basic presupposition into question Jessen provided the discussion
with a fresh start, as he made possible a comparison with the better-
doeumented skaldic poetry.
Grundtvig had pointed to the West Nordic linguistic shift from initial
vr- to r- as a possible criterion for dating. In some Eddie stanzas lacking
alliteration in their present manuscript form, the alliteration would be
correct if an older form of a word which began in vr- were restored, and
this was according to Grundtvig an argument for an origin either outside
the West Nordic domain or anterior to this shift. Both alternatives would
in principle corroborate his main view. Jessen pointed to examples
where v- could not be inserted before the -r- in corresponding words
without ruining the alliteration, and he found similar linguistic features
which were not compatible with an origin in the Early or Middle Iron
Age, such as the loss of initial j- and of initial w- before a rounded
vowel. Another late form is the post-positive article, which is relatively
frequent, in particular in Hårbardsljod. According to Grundtvig the
post-positive article is to be taken as an indication not of age but of style,
with the funetion of heightening the poem’s comic effeet (1869-70: 73).
The debate on loan words, initiated by Riihs and the Grimms more than
half a century earlier, was also taken up again, and Grundtvig’s point of
view was that the words might well be as old as the objects they refer to