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Observations on Skaldic Rime Usage with Special Reference to the Dunhent and Liðhent Varieties of Dróttkvætt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Lee M. Hollander
Lee M. Hollander*
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

Since the investigations of Konráð Gíslason, Bernhard Kahle and Hjalmar Falk nothing has appeared on Skaldic rime usage. Later authors on Old Germanic, and specifically Old Norse, verse technique add virtually nothing on this aspect of Skaldic art. Indeed, as in anatomy, little seems left to do here. The present study was suggested by an intensive reading of Einar Helgason's Vellekla, preparatory to translating it; when the observation obtruded itself that a remarkable use of interlinear hendings is made in this poem. In his commentary on it, Finnur Jónsson has this to say:

(digtet) har et par eíendommeligheder at opvise, navnlig mangel på rim i nogle af de ulige linjer samt en åbenbar forkærlighed for en rimstilling, der kaldes dunhent (en slags assonans mellem en linjes slutning og den fϕlgendes begyndelse). Bægge dele kan være en efterligning af en tidligere tidsrums digte, og det er i så henseende oplysende, at af alle skjalde er Einar den eneste, som ligefrem siges at have været namgjarn (). Han havde sikkert “studeret sine klassikere” blandt skjaldene. I de ældste digte, f.ex. Brages, þjóðólfs og i nogle af Egils vers findes netop de nævnte ting, ganske vist af andre grunde end hos Einar; således er dunhent hos dem nærmest at betragte som en erstatning for eller et tillϕb til regelmæssige linjerim. . . .

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 61 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1946 , pp. 891 - 909
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1946

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References

1 Especially in his Fornnordisk Metrik, Efterladte Skrifter, ii (1898).

2 Die Sprache der Skalden auf Grund der Binnen- und Endreime (1892).

3 “Om de rimende konsonanter ved helrim i dróttkvætt.” Ark. f. n. Fil., xx (1894), 125-130. Cf. note 17, below.

4 Erik Brate, Fornnordisk, Metrik (1898).

Finnur Jónsson, Stutt íslenzk bragfræði (1892).

Andreas Heusler, Deutsche Versgeschichte. i. Band. 8.1.

Eduard Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik (1893).

In A. E. Kock's Notationes Norroenæ, Lunds Universitets Årsskrift (1922-40 f.), §§1-3397, I have found nothing importantly bearing on rime technique except the § quoted from below.

5 A remarkably inexact definition to come from the pen of the editor, several times, of Snorra Edda ! The quotation contains a number of other loose statements.

6 Litteraturhistorie 2, I, 534.

7 Op. cit. §2240 (1932).

8 Ivar Lindquist, Norröna Lovkväden från 800- och 900-Talen, Del l. Förslag till Restituerad Text Jämte Översättning (1929).—Justification and approval must wait for the appearance of the second part of this work.

9 Cf. below, p. 898.

10 Heyra for hlýði, already proposed by Gíslason, op. cit., I, 222.

11 As the investigation can have meaning only to those who are acquainted with the art practice of the skalds, definitions are not given here.

12 Exemplified also in the Háttalykil of R$oognvaldr jarl and Hallr Pórarinsson, stanzas 33 a) and b).—The quotations from Háttatal are according to the text of Finnur Jónsson, Edda Snorra, 1900. The edition by Th. Moebius of the Háttatal, 1879-81, does not touch on the matter. All other quotations are from the same author's Den norsk-islandske Skjaldedigtning, 1908, vol. i. B— faute de mieux; but its many inconsistencies, misprints, unwarranted changes have no important bearing on the general findings.

13 See also Háttatykil 29 a).

14 E.g. Egill vii, 27, 1-2.

15 Cf. Sievers, op. cit., 60, 5, dA2: “Nicht alles was Snorri im Háttatal durch eine besondere strophe exemplifiziert, findet sich in der literatur durch entsprechende vollstrophen vertreten. Vielmehr handelt es sich zum grossen teile um eigentümlichkeiten, die sich nur in einzelnen zeilen oder teilen der strophen finden, und die durchführung derselben durch ganze strophen bei Snorri dient nur zum zwecke der verdeutlichung.” Cf. also Finnur Jónsson, Lit. Hist., i, 2, 406.

16 Cf. Noreen, Altisländische Grammatik 4, §§331-332.

17 Falk, op. cit. supra, came to the unwarranted conclusion that it is the stem of the word which determines the rime. This paper—not one of the best of this excellent scholar—contains a grievous number of mistakes and misapprehensions, the latter due to the application of ‘philology’ to the empirical rules of medieval poets.

18 Though my friend Professor Stefán Einarsson informs me that in Mod. Icel. vingott = vI·gt, mungát = mųgau:t. Cf. also Noreen, op. cit., §262, 2 and Blöndal, Islandsk-Dansk Ordbog, p. xxiv, sub n. 3.

19 Op. cit., ii, p. 60. His examples are too scanty (and too poorly printed) to be very helpful.

20 Op. cit., p. 13.

21 Ibid., p. 7 f.

22 This is not saying, however, that exact rime between identical consonants, or groups of consonants, is not overwhelmingly more numerous, even in a) lines and especially in the aðalhending of b) lines—as a glance at Kahle's Rimarium, op. cit., pp. 93 ff. will show.

23 Sievers, op. cit. §60; 7 Anm. 4, Brate, op. cit. 34, Finnur Jónsson, Stutt íslenzk bragfræði p. 28, and Heusler, Deutsche Versgeschichte §401, all deal with the matter in a cavalier and unsatisfactory way.

24 Noreen, op. cit. §238, b (ð > d).

25 Only the viðrhending of a) and the h$oofuðstafr and (or) the oddhending of b) lines are given—in italics—; except in cases where special circumstances render it advisable to quote the entire vísuorð.—Háttlausa is indicated by O.

26 Cf. Gísli Súrsson 26, 1; þorbj$oorn hornklofi iii, 3; Eilífr Goðrúnarson ii, 11, 1 for similar division of hending between a) and b).

27 Cf. Gering, Kvæðabrot Braga ens gamla, p. 11; Kahle, op. cit. p. 26.

28 Cf. note 26.

29 A very unorthodox line, rhythmically.

30 Nú hefr folkstríðir Fróða. To have -stríðir carry the hending would make it a questionable dróttkvætt verse. Still, cf. Kormákr ii, 20, 5.

31 Cf. note 26.

32 Though admittedly making excellent sense, Lindquist's emendation þyrr alda Óþræris must be rejected because it would give the line four accents (syllables bearing alliteration and those furnishing hending require stress).

33 Accepting Lindquist's emendation.

34 Cf. Moebius, ed. p. 146.

35 Cf. note 26.

36 The “sword-stanza”; cf. above, p. 895.

37 Sigurður Nordal and Guðný Jónsson (ed., Íslenzk Fornrit vol. 3) emend grásíma: glóðspýtis.

38 Cf. note 26.

39 Cf. note 26.

40 In the 84 pages of Kahle's Rimarium (op. cit. pp. 93-177) I find, roughly, 15½ pages of hendingar with r and its combinations, as against ½ p. for dd, 3½ for f, 5½ for g, 3 for k, 11 for l, 2½ for m, 11 for n, 3 for ng, 1 for p, 6 for s, 10 for t, 9½ for þ and their combinations, and ½ for long vowel.