Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Side 145

VI From the tum of the century to Jan de Vries
125
an “immune” model, hardly subject to invalidation. As we have seen, a
fundamental presupposition for his method - which strictly speaking re-
mains to be proved - is that the style, in particular the form of binding,
is uniform within the work of each poet. After the application of higher
criticism, this will hold true for every poem, however, since if a poem
should happen not to be uniform, higher criticism will split it up into
parts which are homogeneous in this respect. Furthermore, if a stanza
with old-fashioned binding also contains later features, the binding will
be interpreted as an imitation of an older poem, i.e. explained by tradi-
tion and not by the style of the period; this is typically the case in
Gudrunarkvida III (cf. p. 116 above). Neckel also accepts linguistic
archaisms in a late poem such as Atlamål (Neckel 1908: 244). Neckel’s
whole procedure of dating thus desperately lacks an Archimedean point
from which his world can be moved.
A possible way of testing the hypothesis that the same poet will tend
to stick to one type of binding would be to consider the binding in
skaldic verse, where the poets are generally known by name. If such
poems show different types of binding and other stylistic registers -
which I believe they do - Neckel’s initial presupposition would be
undermined. But skaldic poems were also exposed to Neckel’s higher
criticism, meaning that he abstained even from this possibility of con-
trolling his hypothesis. Ynglingatal is analysed especially thoroughly,
and Neckel’s conclusion is that only traces are left of FjoSolfr’s original
work after it had been exposed to radical reworkings by learned Ice-
landers in the 12th century (Neckel 1908: 389-419).
Neckel’s ambitious attempt to solve some of the fundamental Eddie
problems is therefore a failure, in my opinion, despite a great many val-
uable observations and perceptive analyses, and this is I think the com-
mon opinion among Old Norse scholars. In a criticism of Neckel’s
methods Erik Noreen, while abstaining from qualifying his results as
definitely erroneous, claimed that they went beyond what can be
known,30 and Magnus Olsen, in a mainly generous and positive review,
30 “Åven i fråga om ‘hogre kritik’ måste enligt min tro bladet vånda sig och ett konserva-
tivare och nyktrare betraktelsesatt gora sig gållande. Jag påstår icke att de ovan som illu-
strationer tamligen godtyckligt framdragna undersokningama av Neckel och Boer aro till
sina resultat oriktiga, endast att forfattama gått långt utanfor det overhuvudtaget vet-
baras grans” (E. Noreen 1923: 28).