Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Síða 130

110
Part One
Mogk’s general framework for the development of Eddie poetry com-
prises a simple scheme of different stylistic phases, showing inereasing
skaldic influence. Whereas the oldest poems, like Prymskvida, Vglund-
arkvida and the older Sigurdr-poems are narrated plainly in an unaf-
feeted manner, in the middle period represented by VQluspå the language
is richer in imagery, even containing some simple kennings, and this
tendency is more prevalent in the later poems, in particular in the Atli-
and Jgrmunrekr-poems.9 His localisation of the poems to Iceland led
him to consider most of them as slightly younger than Finnur Jonsson
had done, but only in particular cases did he disagree in a more radical
fashion, as in the case of Alvissmdl, which in his opinion was a product
of the early 12th century Renaissance in Iceland, in Gering’s words a
“versified chapter of the skaldic poetics” (Mogk 1904: (44) = 1901-09:
598), and of Hyndluljod, which he considered as a product from the
same time as Alvissmdl, composed by an Icelander well versed in the
heroic and genealogical history of his forefathers (Mogk 1904: (51) =
1901-09: 605).
Mogk’s views are echoed in other German works, such as the brief
survey published in the Sammlung Goschen by Wolfgang Golther
(1905).
In the second edition of his history of literature, which appeared a
quarter of a century later, Finnur Jonsson included a discussion of recent
contributions to the problem of dating the Eddie poems, but apart from
slight adjustments, he stuck firmly to his list from 1894 (1920: 67-68).
The other major survey is Barend Sijmons’s edition of Eddie poems
in Zacher’s Germanistische Handbibliothek, which appeared with a
very full introduction in 1906, nearly two decades after the publication
of the text itself (Sijmons [1888-1901], cf. Halldor Hermannsson 1920:
8). This is a comprehensive and most useful introduction to Eddie prob-
lems in general, and not least to the question of dating. In a chapter on
“the extemal history of the Eddie poems” Sijmons presented the history
of Eddie scholarship from the Middle Ages until his own time, including
9 “In den altesten Gedichten, wie in der brk., der Vkv., in den alteren Liedem der Sigurø-
sage u.a. sind die Thatsachen schlicht, aber lebendig in ungekiinstelter Sprache vorgefiihrt,
in den Gedichten mittleren Alters, wie in der Vsp., stellt sich neben die poetische Wieder-
holung, den Stef, das poetische Bild, die einfache Kenning. Diese haufen sich in den spate-
ren Gedichten, besonders in den Atli- und Iijrmunrekliedem, und stellen sie dadurch an die
Grenze der Skaldendichtung" (Mogk 1904: (23-24) = 1901-09: 577-78).