Ferhend hrynjandi í fornyrðislagi og ljóðahætti

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to shed a metrical light on the history of the Eddic forms of fornyrðislag and Ijóðaháttr in relation to West Germanic alliterative verse. It starts by pointing out that the main difference between the Eddic poems on the one hand, and West Germanic alliterative poetry on the other, lies in the stanzaic structure of the former. The stanzaic division of the Eddic poems is clearly indicated e.g. in the Codex Regius by punctuation and the use of capital letters at the beginning of each new stanza. This structure is absent from the West Germanic texts, which obviously means that the search for understanding of the relation between the two Germanic sub-genres should start by investigating the development of the Nordic innovation of stanzaic structure. Modern metrical investigation aims at clarifying the relation between metrical patterns and studying the interplay between characteristics that can be ascribed, on the one hand, to general musical principles, and on the other hand to the linguistic characteristics of the languages to which the texts belong. Among the results of these investigations is the finding that the quatrain form is among the most natural of metrical forms. This is so because of the simplicity of its 4x4 rhythm (quadruple time, cf. e.g. Attridge 1982, Hayes & McEachern 1998, Hayes 2000). Quatrains are widely known, and their ubiquity can be seen as a consequence of their naturalness. In the light of these considerations, this paper maintains that the difference between the Eddic metres and its West Germanic cognates lies in the stanzaic structure and that the Eddic forms are quatrains, the fornyrðislag a basic one and the Ijóðaháttr a catalectic and truncated one. Thus, like the later rímur, the Eddic forms, because of their 4x4 rhythm, became more musical than their West Germanic cognates. But the difference between the style of rímur and Eddic metres lies in the rules of realization. The Eddic rhythm demands four strong positions, just like the rímur quatrain, but the mapping conditions are different. The Eddic poems base their rhythm on sentence stress, referring to strong or weak words, whereas the rhythm of rímur is syllable based, defining its strength requirements on the basis of stress relations below the word level. Since the Eddic metres are more musical than the West Germanic metres, reference to Roman Jakobson's idea that verse is more suited for the lyric function in literature and prose better suited for the epic function, would seem to suggest that the Eddic poems, being more verse-like in their structure, should be more lyrical in their function than e.g. Beowuif and Hildebrandslied. This is left as a thought for further study, and so is the connection between this development in the Eddic metres and the rise of skaldic poetry, with its very musical dróttkvætt as a basic form.