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E-book
Author Guðrún Nordal

Title Tools of literacy : the role of skaldic verse in Icelandic textual culture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries / Guðrún Nordal
Published Toronto : University of Toronto Press, ©2001

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Description 1 online resource (x, 440 pages) : illustrations, 1 map
Contents Skaldic Verse and Learning -- The Twelfth Century -- Drottkvaett and the study of grammatica -- The grammatical literature -- Hattalykill -- A twelfth-century poet: Bishop Kloeingr Porsteinsson -- Snorra Edda and the Study of Grammatica -- Manuscript textuality -- The medieval codices of Snorra Edda -- The manuscripts of Snorra Edda and the grammatical literature -- The Sources and the Thirteenth-Century Poet -- Sources of Skaldic Verse -- Textbooks and treatises -- Translations from Latin -- A saint's life -- Historical writing -- The Poet's Profession -- Professional poets -- Aristocratic poets in Iceland -- Clerics as poets -- Excursus: The Thirteenth-Century Poet -- Unknown thirteenth-century poets listed in both versions of Skaldatal and their patrons -- Twelfth-century poets in Sturlunga saga -- Known thirteenth-century poets -- Theory and Practice in Skaldic Poetics -- Theoretical Discussion of the Kenning -- The Kenning in vernacular literary theory -- The fusion of vernacular and Latin traditions -- The Kenning in grammatica -- Categories of meaning in Skaldskaparmal and Litla Skalda -- Pulur -- Theory and Practice in Skaldic Verse -- The Poetic treatises -- The human body dismembered in skaldic diction -- Sources of Inspiration -- Cosmology, Learning, and Body Imagery -- Neoplatonist ideas and the world-body -- Ymir's body in Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning -- The poetic landscape in body imagery -- Cosmological imagery -- Natural landscape -- Flora -- The human body -- Digging for Gold in Skaldic Verse
Summary "Tools of Literacy is a thorough, ground-breaking examination of skaldic verse or drottkvaett, Icelandic literary production in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and of the textual culture that nurtured the poets. Gudrun Nordal demonstrates the connection between skaldic verse and the formal study of grammatica in Icelandic schools, outlining how skaldic verse was treated much like a Nordic equivalent to classic texts. She also reevaluates and reemphasizes the versatility of skaldic verse, establishing the links between Icelandic authors and intellectual currents in Europe at the time. By systematically tying poets together with leading families of the time and with ecclesiastical and secular learning, Nordal shows how skaldic verse-making was one of the class symbols of the new aristocracy in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Iceland." "In giving a faithful account of Icelandic skaldic verse-making at this time, Nordal has developed a database of approximately 1900 kennings and heiti which serves as a point of reference throughout the book. The book's content is new and its overall coverage is unique. Tools of Literacy will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of comparative literature, comparative mythology, Old Norse/Icelandic literature and language, and medieval studies."--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 393-410) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Scalds and scaldic poetry -- History and criticism
Scalds and scaldic poetry -- Social aspects
Old Norse literature -- History and criticism
LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- German.
HISTORY -- Medieval.
Old Norse literature
Scalds and scaldic poetry
Skaldenpoëzie.
Oudnoords.
Grammatica.
Dichtkunst.
Culturele aspecten.
Altnordische Literatur -- Geschichte 12. Jh.
Altnordische Literatur -- Geschichte 13. Jh.
Skaldendichtung -- Island -- Geschichte.
Island -- Skaldendichtung -- Geschichte.
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2001272843
ISBN 9781442682665
1442682663