Fragment — Egill FragIII
Egill SkallagrímssonMargaret Clunies Ross 2017, ‘ Egill Skallagrímsson, Fragment’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 66. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=1168> (accessed 2 May 2024)
This dróttkvætt couplet (Egill Frag) is cited in mss W (main ms.) and A of TGT as one type of metaplasmus, defined there (TGT 1927, 61) as framskapan nǫkkurrar réttrar ræðu í aðra mynd fyrir nauðsynja sakir eða fegrðar ‘the transformation of correct speech into another form on account of necessity or aesthetics’. The particular type of metaplasmus involved here is prothesis, which TGT defines as viðrlagning stafs eða samstǫfu i upphafi orðs sem Egill kvað ‘the addition of a letter or a syllable at the beginning of a word, as Egill said’. It has generally been assumed that the Egill to whom the couplet is attributed is Egill Skallagrímsson, and indeed the presence of the word-initial combination <vr> is a linguistic phenomenon typical of early skaldic poetry (see Note to l. 1 below).
References
- Bibliography
- TGT 1927 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1927b. Óláfr Þórðarson: Málhljóða- og málskrúðsrit. Grammatisk-retorisk afhandling. Det kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historisk-filologiske meddelelser 13, 2. Copenhagen: Høst.
- Internal references
- (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 2 May 2024)
- Not published: do not cite (EgillV)
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