Eddic Poetry – A Case Study: Sólarljóð

Summary

Christian Genres

The long processes of the Scandinavian and Icelandic conversion to Christianity over the tenth and eleventh centuries had an unparalleled effect on the Old Norse-Icelandic literary polysystem, in Even-Zohar’s terminology. The new religion’s institutions not only imported manuscript literacy to the North, they also brought Latin texts, most notably the Bible. New genres: saints’ lives, hymns and moral tales were introduced alongside other less distinctively Christian kinds of writing, such as annals and written versions of the law. In association with the new genres came, of course, new topics and subjects. These could be mediated through the newly introduced literary forms, but they were also adopted into existing Old Norse literary genres. After a hiatus in skaldic composition, as poets reformulated kennings in order to incorporate Christian concepts, praise-poetry, now adapted for characteristic Christian purposes, had a triumphant relaunch in the mid-twelfth century. Four important and closely related drápur (a long stanzaic poem with a refrain) are preserved from this period. These include Geisli, composed by Einarr Skúlason most likely in 1153 and Gamli kanóki (canon)’s Harmsól. This is both ‘a praisepoem addressed to Christ, whose purity, magnificence, creative power and holiness are stressed throughout the work in a series of magnificently crafted kennings’, and a sermon on Christian values, harnessing the poet’s sense of his own sinfulness to instruct and inform his audience. The other two poems are anonymous: Leiðarvísan is a version of the so-called ‘Sunday letter’, in which Christ adjures his followers to keep the Church’s festivals and to mediate on his own suffering and sacrifice; Plácitusdrápa is a fragmentary account of the life of St Plácitus (Placitus, later St Eustace), a Roman general who converts to Christianity after encountering Christ in the form of a stag.5 Unlike the other three drápur in this group, Plácitusdrápa is a vivid narrative – indeed, a saint’s life; the surviving stanzas relate how Eustace converts his family, how his wife and children were abducted, and tell of the family’s reunion, breaking off just before they are martyred for their faith. While the move from praising kings to praising God, Christ and the Apostles does not demand a huge conceptual leap, it is notable that the dramatic narrative of Plácitus should also be so mediated.