Speaker and Authority in Old Norse Wisdom Poetry (Trends in Medieval Philology)

While there is a long tradition of research into eddic poetry, including the poems classed as wisdom literature, much of this has approached the subject either as a primarily philological commentary or has addressed literary and thematic topics of individual or small groups of poems. This book offers a wide-ranging enquiry into the defining features of Old Norse wisdom, including the representation of wisdom in texts which cross traditional generic boundaries. It builds on recent advances in understanding of pre-Christian religion in Scandinavia, and calls on comparative and supporting work from several different disciplinary backgrounds (including literary theory, other medieval literatures and anthropology). __Speaker and Authority__ interrogates important questions about the concept of knowledge, as well as its role in medieval Scandinavian society and its broader European cultural context. "Speaker and Authority" is an analysis of wisdom as represented in traditional medieval Scandinavian poetry. Its focus is on how wisdom was gained and exchanged through adversarial dialogue, often between supernatural beings such as gods and giants. This study brings together material from across the whole corpus of eddic poetry to consider how this mode was adapted by medieval authors to Christian and other sapiential traditions. 1. Introduction: a Word to the Wise 1 2. 'Gáttir allar, áðr gangi fram, um scoðask scyli': Approaching Wisdom in Eddic Poetry 17 3. Mankind and the Supernatural World in Eddic Wisdom Verse 37 4. Speaker and Situation in the Mythological Frames of Wisdom Poetry 85 5. Traditional Forms and Christian Authority 117 6. The Authority of Wisdom 149 7. Abbreviations 173 8. Bibliography 175 9. Index 196