Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Qupperneq 110
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Part One
younger one, but there is an overlap between the forms, and the
distinction in itself is older than the extant poems. In both there is a
mixture of narration and dialogue, the proportion of dialogue tending to
increase.
The oldest poetic form is a succession of narration and dialogue - ob-
viously corresponding to what was later called “the double-sided lay”
(cf. p. 134 below). Each character participates in the dialogue, and the
action is displayed so to speak before the eyes of the audience. This
form has a more epic variant, where a series of incidents is treated in a
comprehensive manner, and a more lyric one, concentrating on one
single episode or a situation without any action, one where the utteranc-
es of the characters constitute the real content. The relative age of these
two variants is impossible to establish with certainty, as both forms are
represented by poems belonging to the culminating period, but it is
probable that the lyric variant represents a later development.34
A positive argument for the relatively young age of the retrospective
poems, like Oddrunargråtr and GudrunarhvQt, where the main content
is given in a monologue by the principal character after an introductory
presentation, is derived from an analysis of Gudrunarkvida II, which in
its present form is a monologue containing reports of the sayings of
other persons. It thus belongs to the retrospective monologue type, but
Gubrun’s monologue is anomalous in so far as she includes in her narra-
tion of past events the speeches of other characters. In this case it seems
that an ordinary (“double-sided”) epic poem has been recast into a new
monologue form; if so, this can only be explained by the influence of a
34 “Kaste vi nu et blik på selve besyngelsesmåden, sangformen fra den tid, hvori
digtningen stod på sit hojdepunkt, så se vi, [...] at denne deler sig i to hovedarter,
af hvilke den ene er mere episk, hvori der gives en sammentrængt udsigt over en række
af begivenheder, dog således, at digtningen endda giver sig tid til at lade personerne kom-
me til orde; men karaktéren er dog overvejende episk, fortællende eller antydende. En an-
den er mere lyrisk, der indskrænker sig til fremstillingen af et enkelt optrin eller endog
kun en væsenlig handlingsløs situatjon, hvor personernes udtalelser er det egenlige ind-
hold. Vi kunne ikke fra det vi have med bestemthed slutte, hvilken af de to arter der er den
ældste [...] Det er dog i sig selv rimeligt, at den mere lyriske besyngelsesmåde er senere
udviklet; men dette ligger da forud for, hvad vi have i poetisk form; ti det ældste stadium,
vi have repræsenteret i selve oldkvadene, er som sagt kulminatjonen, hvor begge arter stå
side om side i fuldeste blomstring, med Helgekvadene og 3dje Sigurdskvad [i.e. Sigurd-
arkviåa in skamma] på den ene, mere episke, Fåfnesmål, Sigrdrivemål og 1ste Gudruns-
kvad på den anden, mere lyriske side” (Grundtvig 1867: 77-78 = Grundtvig 1863:
103-04).