Note to Bjbp Jóms 5I
[8] sǫgukvæði ‘narrative poem’: The meaning of this hap. leg. depends largely on which sense of sǫgu (nom. sg. saga f.) is relevant, out of the possible range of ‘something spoken, a story, narrative, history’ (cf. CVC, Fritzner: saga; AEW: saga 1; also Meulengracht Sørensen 1993a, 33-6, 50-1). LP glosses sǫgukvæði as historisk dikt ‘historical poem’ but Lindow (1982, 110) comments that Bjarni’s use of the term ‘has much to say about skaldic narrative [...] indicat[ing] the possibility of a skaldic poem intended not for ornament, praise, or lyric, but to tell a story’; see Introduction for further discussion of Bjarni’s intentions in composing Jóms.
References
- Bibliography
- AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
- LP = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1931. Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis: Ordbog over det norsk-islandske skjaldesprog oprindelig forfattet af Sveinbjörn Egilsson. 2nd edn. Copenhagen: Møller.
- CVC = Cleasby, Richard, Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and W. A. Craigie. 1957. An Icelandic-English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon.
- Fritzner = Fritzner, Johan. 1883-96. Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog. 3 vols. Kristiania (Oslo): Den norske forlagsforening. 4th edn. Rpt. 1973. Oslo etc.: Universitetsforlaget.
- Lindow, John. 1982. ‘Narrative and the Nature of Skaldic Poetry’. ANF 97, 94-121.
- Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben. 1993a. Fortælling og ære. Studier i islændingesagaerne. Århus: Århus universitetsforlag.
- Internal references
- Emily Lethbridge 2012, ‘ Bjarni byskup Kolbeinsson, Jómsvíkingadrápa’ in Diana Whaley (ed.), Poetry from the Kings’ Sagas 1: From Mythical Times to c. 1035. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 1. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 954. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1122> (accessed 26 April 2024)