Performance and Norse Poetry: The Hydromel of Praise and the Effluvia of Scorn (2024)

Old Norse Folklore: Tradition, Innovation, and Performance in Medieval Scandinavia

Stephen A. Mitchell

Published:

2023

Online ISBN:

9781501773488

Print ISBN:

9781501773396

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Old Norse Folklore: Tradition, Innovation, and Performance in Medieval Scandinavia

Stephen A. Mitchell

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Stephen A. Mitchell

Stephen A. Mitchell

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Pages

51–76

  • Published:

    December 2023

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Mitchell, Stephen A., 'Performance and Norse Poetry: The Hydromel of Praise and the Effluvia of Scorn', Old Norse Folklore: Tradition, Innovation, and Performance in Medieval Scandinavia (Ithaca, NY, 2023; online edn, Cornell Scholarship Online, 23 May 2024), https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501773396.003.0004, accessed 24 May 2024.

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on performance and Norse poetry. It highlights how poetry was so highly prized in the Old Norse world that the chief god of their pagan pantheon, Óðinn, was reported to have spoken entirely in meter. Bragi Boddason the Old is the oldest known skald, a historical ninth-century figure famous as the primogenitor of the art. The oral presentation of poetry and prose in the Old Norse world provides a snapshot of distinctly different models of literary activity in the thirteenth century. The chapter discusses how the Nordic mead of poetry underscores the reality of the Norse materials that enable performance and referent of tradition.

Keywords: Norse poetry, performance, Old Norse, Bragi Boddason the Old, tradition, Óðinn, art

Subject

Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)

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