''Skáldskaparmál'' (
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
: 'The Language of Poetry'; c. 50,000 words; ; ) is the second part of the ''
Prose Edda
The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been ...
''.
The section consists of a dialogue between
Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and
Bragi, the god of poetry, in which both
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern per ...
and discourse on the nature of poetry are intertwined. The origin of a number of ''
kennings'' is given; then
Bragi delivers a systematic
list of ''kennings'' for various people, places and things. He then goes on to discuss poetic language in some detail, in particular ''
heiti'', the concept of poetical words which are
non-periphrastic (like ''steed'' for ''horse''), and again systematises these. This in a way forms an early form of poetic
thesaurus.
References
Bibliography
*
Further reading
* Anthony Faulkes
"The sources of ''Skáldskaparmál'': Snorri’s intellectual background" in: Alois Wolf (ed.), ''Snorri Sturluson'', Volume 51 of ScriptOralia, Gunter Narr Verlag (1993), 59–76.
External links
;Editions
*Sveinbjörn Egilsson (ed.) ''Edda Snorra Sturlusonar:: eða Gylfaginníng, Skáldskaparmál og Háttatal'' (1848)
45ndash;143.
*
Guðni Jónsson (ed.), ''Eddukvaeði'',Íslendingasagnaútgáfan (1954)
heimskringla.no
*Anthony Faulkes (ed.), ''Edda; Skáldskaparmál'', 2 volumes: vol. 1:
Introduction, Text and Notes', vol. 2:
Glossary and Index of Names', London (1998; 2007).
;Translations
*
Rasmus Björn Anderson (trans.) (1872)
*
Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (trans.) (1916)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skaldskaparmal
Sources of Norse mythology
Old Norse prose
Skaldic poetry
Nibelung tradition
Works by Snorri Sturluson