Poetic Edda

The Poetic Edda is a modern label for a collection of Old Norse narrative poems, all anonymous and written in alliterative verse—these are called Eddic poems. It should not be confused with the Prose Edda, though both are essential for understanding Old Norse poetry.

Other manuscripts

Since the Poetic Edda is a compiled work, editors have disagreed on which poems to include, so published editions vary. Still, every version is built around the poems preserved in the medieval Icelandic manuscript known as the Codex Regius. This manuscript, and by extension the Poetic Edda, is also called the Elder Edda or Sæmundar Edda.

Composition

The poems use alliterative verse. Most are written in fornyrðislag, or "old story metre," with málaháttr, or "speech form," as a common variant. About a quarter are in ljóðaháttr, or "song form." The language is generally clear and straightforward. Kennings appear, but they are less frequent and simpler than those in typical skaldic poetry.

Authorship

Like most early poetry, these were minstrel poems, passed down orally for centuries. None are credited to a specific author, though many show strong individual traits and were likely composed by single poets. Scholars have proposed hypothetical authors, but no firm conclusions have been accepted.

Date

Dating the poems has been a long-standing debate. Firm answers are hard to reach. Lines from Eddic poems sometimes show up in works by known poets. For instance, Eyvindr skáldaspillir, active in the late 10th century, includes a couple of lines in his Hákonarmál that also appear in Hávamál.

He might have been quoting an existing poem, or Hávamál—or at least that stanza—might be the later work. A handful of historical figures, like Attila, give a rough earliest possible date. The manuscripts themselves provide a latest possible date. Individual poems also offer clues.

Atlamál hin groenlenzku claims in its title to have been composed in Greenland, and some internal evidence supports this. If so, it must date from after about 985, since Scandinavians only reached Greenland then. More reliable than such circumstantial evidence are linguistic dating criteria, drawn from skaldic poems with firmer dates. For example, the particle of, related to ga- or ge- in other old Germanic languages, appears more often in earlier skaldic poems.