7.4. The relationship between poetry and prose in fornaldarsögur

The interweaving of poetry and prose in Icelandic sagas is often referred to by the term prosimetrum, which indicates a text partly composed in prose and partly in verse. However, the relationship between the two component parts in Icelandic texts is not equal, either in quantity, distribution or, arguably, in age. There has been a great deal of debate about how the verse relates to the prose, and whether one gave rise to the other, as has already been discussed in Section 2 of this Introduction. In various of the separate editions of fornaldarsögur in this volume editors have suggested that some of the poetry probably had its origins in compositions likely to be older than the prose narratives in which they have been embedded. Such claims are based on the presence of archaic linguistic forms or older conventions of bragarmál in some of the manuscript versions, which point to exemplars from earlier than the period 1250-1300, to which these editions are normalised. Other criteria that can be invoked to attest to the age and independence of some fornaldarsaga poetry from the prose sagas in which they have been recorded draw on the undoubtedly independent presence of poetry with comparable subjects in Saxo’s Gesta Danorum, which often has an astonishing similarity to some of the poetry in Icelandic fornaldarsaga prosimetra. There is, then, strong evidence that some, though by no means all, of the poetry recorded in fornaldarsögur was originally older than the prosimetrical sagas themselves, and presumably based on earlier, orally transmitted compositions.

Another interesting question, that arises when Saxo’s Latin poems are compared with their Old Icelandic counterparts, is whether the poetry is used in a similar way in Saxo’s prose to its use in fornaldarsögur. Again, the evidence suggests that this is the case, not only with regard to the similar genres and literary modes employed (dialogue, monologue, mannjafnaðr, senna and ævikviða are all represented in both), but also to the ways in which the poetry and the prose are deployed in the prosimetrum. Frequently in both cases the poetry offers dramatic intensification of the narrative action, especially in cases where it is concentrated in particular scenes. Characters from the human world meet with Otherworld counterparts, as several times in sagas such as Ket, GrL and HjǪ, and exchange emotionally charged, usually hostile, stanzas. These exchanges are not evenly distributed through the saga prose, however, but clustered in concentrated bursts. In other examples, where dramatic monologue is dominant, the poetry has been compared in its emotive and action-retarding effect to ‘the arias of a nineteenth-century opera’ (Lönnroth 1971, 7).

It has of course been argued by many scholars that one of the functions of poetry in the prosimetra of the Íslendingasögur is very similar, in that the apparently objective saga prose is set off by stanzas that reveal the inner thoughts and motivations of the saga characters. While this is undoubtedly partly true, there is a much greater intensification of the dramatic element in fornaldarsaga poetry, mainly because the poetic medium is different: in Íslendingasögur, skaldic lausavísur are the main vehicle for the characters’ private thoughts, and these by their very nature have their expressive limitations, while in most fornaldarsögur the use of dialogue, monologue and non-skaldic verse-forms allows a much more extensive development of emotional, even sometimes melodramatic postures on the part of the characters.

It is evident from the editions in this volume that the relationship between poetry and prose in fornaldarsögur was an evolving one, and that changing tastes of the patrons and redactors of these sagas could alter the balance between the two elements and their relative positioning in the saga narratives. Different tendencies are apparent, pulling in different directions: towards the almost independent long poetic form of Ǫrvar-Oddr’s ævikviða in the fifteenth-century manuscripts 343a and 471, placed as it is almost at the end of the saga, to the fragmentation of Starkaðr’s ævikviða into groups of lausavísur cited like stanzas in historical sagas, with explanatory passages of prose, in the longer version of Gautr. Much still remains to be explored and analysed in connection with the fornaldarsaga prosimetrum, including the question of how it compares with the role of prose and poetry in other types of Icelandic saga narrative.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Lönnroth, Lars. 1971. ‘Hjálmar’s Death-Song and the Delivery of Eddic Poetry’. Speculum 46, 1-20. Rpt. with postscript in Lönnroth 2011, 191-218.
3. Internal references
4. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Gautreks saga’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 241. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=9> (accessed 26 April 2024)
5. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Hjálmþés saga ok Ǫlvis’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 488. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=49> (accessed 26 April 2024)
6. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ketils saga hœngs’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 548. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=71> (accessed 26 April 2024)
7. 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Gríms saga loðinkinna’ in Margaret Clunies Ross (ed.), Poetry in fornaldarsögur. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 288. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=76> (accessed 26 April 2024)
8. Not published: do not cite ()