4.2.5. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise

The Fourth Grammatical Treatise (FoGT) is extant only in W, where it occupies pages 111-19 of the ms.’s seventh gathering, immediately following the end of The Third Grammatical Treatise (TGT). Together with the Prologue to all the grammatical treatises in W, which may have been composed by the same anonymous author (Sverrir Tómasson 1993), FoGT is the youngest of the four main Old Icelandic grammatical treatises, and most likely dates from some time after 1309, the date of an incident mentioned in one of the stanzas (Anon (FoGT) 7), and before 1350, the latter being the probable date of the writing of W. Although the author of FoGT is unknown, it is likely that he belonged to a learned milieu, and various indications suggest a connection with one of the northern Icelandic Benedictine monasteries of Þingeyrar or Munkaþverá.

FoGT is best considered as a continuation and amplification of TGT, a relationship discussed in detail in the Introduction to FoGT 2014 (FoGT 2014, xxxvii-xliv). The author acknowledges his debt to TGT’s composer, Óláfr hvítaskáld ‘White Skald’ Þórðarson, in several places and also shows his awareness of Snorri Sturluson’s writing, particularly Háttatal. However, the foundation of FoGT and its principal source was the twelfth chapter of the Doctrinale (c. 1200) of Alexander de Villa-Dei. The Doctrinale (ed. Reichling 1893) was a popular versified textbook of Latin grammar for intermediate students in medieval European schools. Its twelfth chapter describes a selection of rhetorical figures used by Latin poets. In the second part of TGT, the so-called Málskrúðsfræði ‘The Lore of Rhetoric’, Óláfr Þórðarson based himself largely on Donatus’s Barbarismus, but TGT also shows the influence of the Doctrinale, especially towards the end of Málskrúðsfræði, as Wellendorf (FoGT 2014, xli-xliv and forthcoming) has now demonstrated. The author of FoGT has presented an Icelandic version of all the Graeco-Latin figures in the Doctrinale’s twelfth chapter, together with some additional figures from another popular Latin treatise, the Graecismus (c. 1200), ascribed to Eberhard of Béthune (ed. Wrobel 1887). He also knew and made use of some Latin commentaries on the Doctrinale and the Graecismus for his examples of rhetorical figures, as Björn Magnússon Ólsen (1884) and now Clunies Ross and Wellendorf (FoGT 2014) have shown in their editions.

What is new in FoGT, from the perspective of the history of medieval Icelandic grammatical literature, is the unique selection of indigenous poetic examples the author uses to illustrate the various rhetorical figures. Although both Snorri Sturluson and Óláfr Þórðarson do use some anonymous poetic examples to illustrate their treatises on poetics, most of their citations are taken from named Norse poets, of whom the majority are Icelanders. By contrast, the majority of the poetic examples in FoGT (forty-seven out of sixty-two stanzas) are anonymous. Moreover, many of them are so ingeniously crafted to demonstrate close parallels to the examples given in FoGT’s Latin sources that it seems probable that they were composed for that very purpose and did not otherwise have currency in the skaldic repertoire. They are therefore likely to be of early fourteenth-century date and possibly the work of the treatise’s author himself. Many of the examples have a strongly Christian religious or didactic character, unlike most of the examples provided by Snorri and Óláfr, which are either secular or (especially in the case of early skaldic poetry) draw upon the pre-Christian mythological system. The prose text of FoGT, too, delights in theological or moralising explanations and digressions.

The fifteen stanzas of FoGT that are either attributed to named poets in the treatise or can be identified from external sources include the work of some of the major poets of the Old Norse repertoire cited in the grammatical treatises: Bragi Boddason, Arnórr jarlaskáld ‘Jarls’ Poet’ Þórðarson, Einarr Skúlason, Snorri Sturluson and Óláfr (probably Þórðarson). Others are less frequently cited and, as a general comment, it can be observed that FoGT’s coverage of poetic examples from the chief poets of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is quite restricted compared with both SnE and TGT. On the other hand, the author quotes stanzas by three late tenth- or early eleventh-century skalds from the north of Iceland, Þorleifr jarlsskáld ‘Jarl’s Poet’ Rauðfeldarson, Eiríkr viðsjá ‘the Circumspect’ and Þorleifr skúma ‘Dusky’ (?) Þorkelsson. This slight bias in favour of northern skalds may support the presumption of many scholars that W was itself a product of the Þingeyrar scriptorium (W 1924, i-ii; Sigurður Nordal 1931, 17-18), and that FoGT may have been composed somewhere nearby, if not in that monastery.

FoGT exists in six independent editions. The first edition of FoGT was that of Rasmus Rask in his edition of SnE (SnE 1818, 335-53). Rask did not consider FoGT an independent text but a continuation of TGT, entitled Figúrur í ræðunni ‘Figures of speech’. The second edition was that of Sveinbjörn Egilsson (SnE 1848, 200-12), in which FoGT was entitled Seinni viðbættir við málskrúðs-fræðina ‘Later supplement to the lore of rhetoric’ and the third the Arnamagnæan Commission’s edition (SnE 1848-87, II, 190-249, III, 152-63), whose editor-in-chief was Jón Sigurðsson, but to which Sveinbjörn Egilsson contributed the facing Latin translation in Volume II (1852) and a number of Latin notes in Volume III (1880-7). In that edition FoGT is entitled IV (Málskrúðs-fræði). The fourth edition (FoGT 1884) is by Björn Magnússon Ólsen. It includes an Introduction, an unnormalised text with notes, citation of some Latin sources, and separate editions of the stanzas cited and notes on their interpretation. The fifth edition is the unpublished doctoral dissertation from the University of Palermo by Michele Longo (FoGT 2004), which includes an Italian translation and commentary on the Icelandic text, with separate notes on the poetry. Finally, Margaret Clunies Ross and Jonas Wellendorf (FoGT 2014) have recently produced a new edition of FoGT, with an Introduction that places the treatise in the medieval Latin rhetorical tradition, an English translation and extensive Commentary on both prose and verse.

References

1. Bibliography
2. SnE 1848-87 = Snorri Sturluson. 1848-87. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Edda Snorronis Sturlaei. Ed. Jón Sigurðsson et al. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Legatum Arnamagnaeanum. Rpt. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1966.
3. SnE 1848 = Sveinbjörn Egilsson, ed. 1848. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, eða Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja landsins.
4. FoGT 1884 = Björn Magnússon Ólsen, ed. 1884. Den tredje og fjærde grammatiske afhandling i Snorres Edda tilligemed de grammatiske afhandlingers prolog og to andre tillæg. SUGNL 12. Copenhagen: Knudtzon.
5. FoGT 2004 = Longo, Michele, ed. [2004]. ‘Il Quarto Trattato Grammaticale Islandese: Testo, Traduzione e Commento’. Dottorato di Ricerca in ‘Linguistica Sincronica e Diacronica’ (XV Ciclo). Palermo: Università degli Studi di Palermo, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia.
6. W 1924 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1924. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Codex Wormianus AM 242, fol. Copenhagen and Kristiania (Oslo): Gyldendal.
7. Sigurður Nordal, ed. 1931. Codex Wormianus (The Younger Edda): Ms. No. 242 fol. in The Arnamagnæan Collection in the University Library of Copenhagen. CCI 2. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard.
8. Reichling, Dietrich, ed. 1893. Das Doctrinale des Alexander de Villa-Dei. Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica 12. Berlin: A. Hofmann & Comp. Rpt. 1974. Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series, Studies in the History of Education 11. New York: Burt Franklin.
9. Sverrir Tómasson. 1993. ‘Formáli málfræðiritigerðanna fjögurra í Wormsbók’. Íslenskt mál 15, 221-40.
10. Wrobel, I., ed. 1887. Eberhardi Bethuniensis Graecismus. Corpus grammaticorum medii aeui I. Bratislava: G. Koebner.
11. SnE 1818 = Rask, Rasmus Kristian, ed. 1818a. Snorra Edda ásamt Skáldu og þarmeð fylgjandi ritgjörðum. Stockholm: Elmen.
12. FoGT 2014 = Clunies Ross, Margaret and Jonas Wellendorf, eds. 2014. The Fourth Grammatical Treatise. University College London: Viking Society for Northern Research.
13. Internal references
14. Edith Marold 2017, ‘Snorra Edda (Prologue, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál)’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols [check printed volume for citation].
15. (forthcoming), ‘ Óláfr hvítaskáld Þórðarson, The Third Grammatical Treatise’ in Tarrin Wills (ed.), The Third Grammatical Treatise. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=32> (accessed 29 November 2024)
16. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, The Fourth Grammatical Treatise’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=34> (accessed 29 November 2024)
17. Kari Ellen Gade 2017, ‘(Biography of) Einarr Skúlason’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 140.
18. Not published: do not cite (Eviðs^V)
19. (forthcoming), ‘ Unattributed, Háttatal’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. . <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=165> (accessed 29 November 2024)
21. Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Lausavísur, Stanzas from the Fourth Grammatical Treatise 7’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 579.