Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1999, Blaðsíða 191
VI From the turn of the century to Jan de Vries
171
Probably it was this discovery that gave de Vries the courage to ven-
ture a historical approach in his history of literature, even if he stressed
the difficulties of his undertaking. The chronology of anonymous works
of art is always difficult to establish, and that is the obvious reason why
histories of Old Norse literature usually organise their subject matter
rather in terms of literary genres than in terms of individual works.
Nevertheless, the advantages of the “synchronic” approach finally led
de Vries to opt for the more demanding solution, in full consciousness
that the assignment of an anonymous work of art to a particular period
may be utterly subjective.103
In the introduction to his work de Vries put forth his arguments for the
historical point of view: literature is a form of art, conditioned by his-
tory, in which each new generation expresses its own essence, which
cannot but manifest itself even though it may be veiled by the use of in-
herited forms. These literary forms, certainly, have a history of their
own, which is worthwhile investigating, but for de Vries it was more im-
portant to get to know the spirit of the time and the spirit of the artists.
Only a “synchronic” treatment of literature will make clearly visible the
character of its spiritual history. The different periods are so dissimilar
one to the other that each of them needs to be treated as a separate entity.
A poem from the lOth century has the characteristics of the heathen
period, in the same way as another from the 13th century will be felt and
thought in a wholly Christian way. A work of literature, therefore, can
never be fully understood until it has been placed in the cultural context
of its own time. A “synchronic” treatment has other advantages as well:
103 “Eine Literatur, die fur einen betrachtlichen Teil aus Werken besteht, von denen weder
der Name des Verfassers noch die Entstehungszeit iiberliefert sind, bietet mehrere Schwie-
rigkeiten, wenn man sie in einer Ubersicht zusammenfassen will. Die chronologische
Festlegung soleher anonymen Werke bleibt immer fraglich; die Meinungen konnen sogar
weit auseinandergehen. Wenn sichere Entscheidungen fehlen, ist es gefahrlich, die iiber-
lieferten Literaturwerke nach chronologischen Gesichtspunkten einzuteilen; man unter-
scheidet in einem solehen Fali lieber die Dichtarten als die einzelnen Werke” (de Vries
1941: 2).
“Wenn wir uns dazu entschlossen haben, die bis jetzt befolgte diachronische Betracht-
ungsweise aufzugeben und die altnordische Literatur in ihrer historischen Bezogenheit
darzustellen, so bedeutet das keineswegs, daB wir die damit verbundenen Schwierigkeiten
unterschatzen. Ganz im Gegenteil, wir sind davon uberzeugt, daB in zahlreichen Fallen
die zeitlichen Grenzen nicht scharf gezogen werden konnen, und daB die Zuteilung eines
Literaturwerkes zu einer bestimmten Periode durchaus subjektiv sein kann” (de Vries
1941: 3).