The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature written by Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
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7 THE INFLUENCE OF OLD NORSE LITERATURE UPON ENGLISH LITERATURE
by
CONRAD HJALMAR NORDBY
1901
Deyr fe
deyja fraendr,
deyr sialfr it sama;
en orethstirr
deyr aldrigi
hveim er ser goethan getr.
_Havamal_, 75.
Cattle die,
kindred die,
we ourselves also die;
but the fair fame
never dies
of him who has earned it.
Thorpe's _Edda_.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The present publication is the only literary work left by its author.
Unfortunately it lacks a few pages which, as his manuscript shows, he
intended to add, and it also failed to receive his final revision. His
friends have nevertheless deemed it expedient to publish the result of
his studies conducted with so much ardor, in order that some memorial of
his life and work should remain for the wider public. To those
acquainted with him, no written words can represent the charm of his
personality or give anything approaching an adequate impression of his
ability and strength of character.
Conrad Hjalmar Nordby was born September 20, 1867, at Christiania,
Norway. At the age of four he was brought to New York, where he was
educated in the public schools. He was graduated from the College of the
City of New York in 1886. From December of that year to June, 1893, he
taught in Grammar School No. 55, and in September, 1893, he was called
to his Alma Mater as Tutor in English. He was promoted to the rank of
Instructor in 1897, a position which he held at the time of his death.
He died in St. Luke's Hospital, October 28, 1900. In October, 1894, he
began his studies in the School of Philosophy of Columbia University,
taking courses in Philosophy and Education under Professor Nicholas
Murray Butler, and in Germanic Literatures and Germanic Philology under
Professors Boyesen, William H. Carpenter and Calvin Thomas. It was under
the guidance of Professor Carpenter that the present work was conceived
and executed.
Such a brief outline of Mr. Nordby's career can, however, give but an
imperfect view of his activities, while it gives none at all of his
influence. He was a teacher who impressed his personality, not only upon
his students, but upon all who knew him. In his character were united
force and refinement, firmness and geniality. In his earnest work with
his pupils, in his lectures to the teachers of the New York Public
Schools and to other audiences, in his personal influence upon all with
whom he came in contact, he spread the taste for beauty, both of poetry
and of life. When his body was carried to the grave, the grief was not
confined to a few intimate friends; all who had known him felt that
something noble and beautiful had vanished from their lives.
In this regard his career was, indeed, rich in achievement, but when we
consider what, with his large equipment, he might have done in the world
of scholarship, the promise, so untimely blighted, seems even richer.
From early youth he had been a true lover of books. To him they were not
dead things; they palpitated with the life blood of master spirits. The
enthusiasm for William Morris displayed in the present essay is typical
of his feeling for all that he considered best in literature. Such an
enthusiasm, communicated to those about him, rendered him a vital force
in every company where works of creative genius could be a theme of
conversation.
A love of nature and of art accompanied and reinforced this love of
literature; and all combined to produce the effect of wholesome purity
and elevation which continually emanated from him. His influence, in
fact, was largely of that pervasive sort which depends, not on any
special word uttered, and above all, not on any preachment, but upon the
entire character and life of the man. It was for this reason that his
modesty never concealed his strength. He shrunk above all things from
pushing himself forward and demanding public notice, and yet few ever
met him without feeling the force of character that lay behind his
gentle and almost retiring demeanor. It was easy to recognize that here
was a man, self-centered and whole.
In a discourse pronounced at a memorial meeting, the Rev. John Coleman
Adams justly said: "If I wished to set before my boy a type of what is
best and most lovable in the American youth, I think I could find no
more admirable character than that of Conrad Hjalmar Nordby. A young man
of the people, with all their unexhausted force, vitality and
enthusiasm; a man of simple aims and honest ways; as chivalrous and
high-minded as any knight of old; as pure in life as a woman; at once
gentle and brave, strong and sweet, just and loving; upright, but no
Pharisee; earnest, but never sanctimonious; who took his work as a
pleasure, and his pleasure as an innocent joy; a friend to be coveted; a
disciple such as the Saviour must have loved; a true son of God, who
dwelt in the Father's house. Of such youth our land may well be proud;
and no man need speak despairingly of a nation whose life and
institutions can ripen such a fruit."
L.F.M.
COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK,
May 15, 1901.
INTRODUCTORY.
It should not be hard for the general reader to understand that the
influence which is the theme of this dissertation is real and
explicable. If he will but call the roll of his favorite heroes, he will
find Sigurd there. In his gallery of wondrous women, he certainly
cherishes Brynhild. These poetic creations belong to the
English-speaking race, because they belong to the world. And if one will
but recall the close kinship of the Icelandic and the Anglo-Saxon
languages, he will not find it strange that the spirit of the old Norse
sagas lives again in our English song and story.
The survey that this essay takes begins with Thomas Gray (1716-1771),
and comes down to the present day. It finds the fullest measure of the
old Norse poetic spirit in William Morris (1834-1896), and an increasing
interest and delight in it as we come toward our own time. The
enterprise of learned societies and enlightened book publishers has
spread a knowledge of Icelandic literature among the reading classes of
the present day; but the taste for it is not to be accounted for in the
same way. That is of nobler birth than of erudition or commercial pride.
Is it not another expression of that changed feeling for the things that
pertain to the common people, which distinguishes our century from the
last? The historian no longer limits his study to camp and court; the
poet deigns to leave the drawing-room and library for humbler scenes.
Folk-lore is now dignified into a science. The touch of nature has made
the whole world kin, and our highly civilized century is moved by the
records of the passions of the earlier society.
This change in taste was long in coming, and the emotional phase of it
has preceded the intellectual. It is interesting to note that Gray and
Morris both failed to carry their public with them all the way. Gray,
the most cultured man of his time, produced art forms totally different
from those in vogue, and Walpole[1] said of these forms: "Gray has
added to his poems three ancient odes from Norway and Wales ... they are
not interesting, and do not, like his other poems, touch any passion....
Who can care through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys
and glories they could conceive--the supreme felicity of boozing ale out
of the skull of an enemy in Odin's Hall?"
Morris, the most versatile man of his time, found plenty of praise for
his art work, until he preached social reform to Englishmen. Thereafter
the art of William Morris was not so highly esteemed, and the best poet
in England failed to attain the laurel on the death of Tennyson.
Of this change of taste more will be said as this essay is developed.
These introductory words must not be left, however, without an
explanation of the word "Influence," as it is used in the subject-title.
This paper will not undertake to prove that the course of English
literature was diverted into new channels by the introduction of Old
Norse elements, or that its nature was materially changed thereby. We
find an expression and a justification of our present purpose in Richard
Price's Preface to the 1824 edition of Warton's "History of English
Poetry" (p. 15): "It was of importance to notice the successive
acquisitions, in the shape of translation or imitation, from the more
polished productions of Greece and Rome; and to mark the dawn of that
aera, which, by directing the human mind to the study of classical
antiquity, was to give a new impetus to science and literature, and by
the changes it introduced to effect a total revolution in the laws which
had previously governed them." Were Warton writing his history to-day,
he would have to account for later eras as well as for the Elizabethan,
and the method would be the same. How far the Old Norse literature has
helped to form these later eras it is not easy to say, but the
contributions may be counted up, and their literary value noted. These
are the commission of the present essay. When the record is finished, we
shall be in possession of information that may account for certain
considerable writers of our day, and certain tendencies of thought.
CONTENTS.
Prefatory Note
Introductory
I. The Body of Old Norse Literature
II. Through the Medium of Latin
Thomas Gray
The Sources of Gray's Knowledge
Sir William Temple
George Hickes
Thomas Percy
Thomas Warton
Drake and Mathias
Cottle and Herbert
Walter Scott
III. From the Sources Themselves
Richard Cleasby
Thomas Carlyle
Samuel Laing
Longfellow and Lowell
Matthew Arnold
George Webbe Dasent
Charles Kingsley
Edmund Gosse
IV. By the Hand of the Master
William Morris' works
" " " 1
" " " 2
" " " 3
" " " 4
" " " 5
" " " 6
" " " 7
" " " 8
V. In the Latter Days
Echoes of Iceland in Later Poets
Recent Translations
I.
THE BODY OF OLD NORSE LITERATURE.
First, let us understand what the Old Norse literature was that has been
sending out this constantly increasing influence into the world of
poetry.
It was in the last four decades of the ninth century of our era that
Norsemen began to leave their own country and set up new homes in
Iceland. The sixty years ending with 930 A.D. were devoted to taking up
the land, and the hundred years that ensued after that date were devoted
to quarreling about that land. These quarrels were the origin of the
Icelandic family sagas. The year 1000 brought Christianity to the
island, and the period from 1030 to 1120 were years of peace in which
stories of the former time passed from mouth to mouth. The next century
saw these stories take written form, and the period from 1220 to 1260
was the golden age of this literature. In 1264, Iceland passed under the
rule of Norway, and a decline of literature began, extending until 1400,
the end of literary production in Iceland. In the main, the authors of
Iceland are unknown[2].
There are several well-marked periods, therefore, in Icelandic literary
production. The earliest was devoted to poetry, Icelandic being no
different from most other languages in the precedence of that form.
Before the settlement of Iceland, the Norse lands were acquainted with
songs about gods and champions, written in a simple verse form. The
first settlers wrote down some of these, and forgot others. In the
_Codex Regius_, preserved in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, we have a
collection of these songs. This material was published in the
seventeenth century as the _Saemundar Edda_, and came to be known as the
_Elder_ or _Poetic Edda_. Both titles are misnomers, for Saemund had
nothing to do with the making of the book, and _Edda_ is a name
belonging to a book of later date and different purpose.
This work--not a product of the soil as folk-songs are--is the fountain
head of Old Norse mythology, and of Old Norse heroic legends. _Voeluspa_
and _Havamal_ are in this collection, and other songs that tell of Odin
and Baldur and Loki. The Helgi poems and the Voelsung poems in their
earliest forms are also here.
A second class of poetry in this ancient literature is that called
"Skaldic." Some of this deals with mythical material, and some with
historical material. A few of the skalds are known to us by name,
because their lives were written down in later sagas. Egill
Skallagrimsson, known to all readers of English and Scotch antiquities,
Eyvind Skaldaspillir and Sigvat are of this group.
Poetic material that is very rich is found in Snorri Sturluson's work on
Old Norse poetics, entitled _The Edda_, and often referred to as the
_Younger_ or _Prose Edda_.
More valuable than the poetry is the prose of this literature,
especially the _Sagas_. The saga is a prose epic, characteristic of the
Norse countries. It records the life of a hero, told according to fixed
rules. As we have said, the sagas were based upon careers run in
Iceland's stormy time. They are both mythical and historical. In the
mythical group are, among others, the _Voelsunga Saga_, the _Hervarar
Saga_, _Frieththjofs Saga_ and _Ragnar Loethbroks Saga_. In the historical
group, the flowering time of which was 1200-1270, we find, for example,
_Egils Saga_, _Eyrbyggja Saga_, _Laxdaela Saga_, _Grettis Saga_, _Njals
Saga_. A branch of the historic sagas is the Kings' Sagas, in which we
find _Heimskringla_, the _Saga of Olaf Tryggvason_, the _Flatey Book_,
and others.
This sketch does not pretend to indicate the quantity of Old Norse
literature. An idea of that is obtained by considering the fact that
eleven columns of the ninth edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ are
devoted to recording the works of that body of writings.
II.
THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF LATIN.
THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771).
In the eighteenth century, Old Norse literature was the lore of
antiquarians. That it is not so to-day among English readers is due to a
line of writers, first of whom was Thomas Gray. In the thin volume of
his poetry, two pieces bear the sub-title: "An Ode. From the Norse
Tongue." These are "The Fatal Sisters," and "The Descent of Odin," both
written in 1761, though not published until 1768. These poems are among
the latest that Gray gave to the world, and are interesting aside from
our present purpose because they mark the limit of Gray's progress
toward Romanticism.
We are not accustomed to think of Gray as a Romantic poet, although we
know well that the movement away from the so-called Classicism was begun
long before he died. The Romantic element in his poetry is not obvious;
only the close observer detects it, and then only in a few of the poems.
The Pindaric odes exhibit a treatment that is Romantic, and the Norse
and Welsh adaptations are on subjects that are Romantic. But we must go
to his letters to find proof positive of his sympathy with the breaking
away from Classicism. Here are records of a love of outdoors that
reveled in mountain-climbing and the buffeting of storms. Here are
appreciations of Shakespeare and of Milton, the like of which were not
often proclaimed in his generation. Here is ecstatic admiration of
ballads and of the Ossian imitations, all so unfashionable in the
literary culture of the day. While dates disprove Lowell's statement in
his essay on Gray that "those anti-classical yearnings of Gray began
after he had ceased producing," it is certain that very little of his
poetic work expressed these yearnings. "Elegance, sweetness, pathos, or
even majesty he could achieve, but never that force which vibrates in
every verse of larger moulded men." Change Lowell's word "could" to
"did," and this sentence will serve our purpose here.
Our interest in Gray's Romanticism must confine itself to the two odes
from the Old Norse. It is to be noted that the first transplanting to
English poetry of Old Norse song came about through the scholar's
agency, not the poet's. It was Gray, the scholar, that made "The Descent
of Odin" and "The Fatal Sisters." They were intended to serve as
specimens of a forgotten literature in a history of English poetry. In
the "Advertisement" to "The Fatal Sisters" he tells how he came to give
up the plan: "The Author has long since drop'd his design, especially
after he heard, that it was already in the hands of a Person well
qualified to do it justice, both by his taste, and his researches into
antiquity." Thomas Warton's _History of English Poetry_ was the
execution of this design, but in that book no place was found for these
poems.
In his absurd _Life of Gray_, Dr. Johnson said: "His translations of
Northern and Welsh Poetry deserve praise: the imagery is preserved,
perhaps often improved, but the language is unlike the language of other
poets." There are more correct statements in this sentence, perhaps,
than in any other in the essay, but this is because ignorance sometimes
hits the truth. It is not likely that the poems would have been
understood without the preface and the explanatory notes, and these, in
a measure, made the reader interested in the literature from which they
were drawn. Gray called the pieces "dreadful songs," and so in very
truth they are. Strength is the dominant note, rude, barbaric strength,
and only the art of Gray saved it from condemnation. To-day, with so
many imitations from Old Norse to draw upon, we cannot point to a single
poem which preserves spirit and form as well as those of Gray. Take the
stanza:
Horror covers all the heath,
Clouds of carnage blot the sun,
Sisters, weave the web of death;
Sisters, cease, the work is done.
The strophe is perfect in every detail. Short lines, each ending a
sentence; alliteration; words that echo the sense, and just four strokes
to paint a picture which has an atmosphere that whisks you into its own
world incontinently. It is no wonder that writers of later days who have
tried similar imitations ascribe to Thomas Gray the mastership.
That this poet of the eighteenth century, who "equally despised what
was Greek and what was Gothic," should have entered so fully into the
spirit and letter of Old Norse poetry is little short of marvelous. If
Professor G.L. Kittredge had not gone so minutely into the question of
Gray's knowledge of Old Norse,[3] we might be pardoned for still
believing with Gosse[4] that the poet learned Icelandic in his later
life. Even after reading Professor Kittredge's essay, we cannot
understand how Gray could catch the metrical lilt of the Old Norse with
only a Latin version to transliterate the parallel Icelandic. We suspect
that Gray's knowledge was fuller than Professor Kittredge will allow,
although we must admit that superficial knowledge may coexist with a
fine interpretative spirit. Matthew Arnold's knowledge of Celtic
literature was meagre, yet he wrote memorably and beautifully on that
subject, as Celts themselves will acknowledge.[5]
THE SOURCES OF GRAY'S KNOWLEDGE.
It has already been said that only antiquarians had knowledge of things
Icelandic in Gray's time. Most of this knowledge was in Latin, of
course, in ponderous tomes with wonderful, long titles; and the list of
them is awe-inspiring. In all likelihood Gray did not use them all, but
he met references to them in the books he did consult. Professor
Kittredge mentions them in the paper already quoted, but they are here
arranged in the order of publication, and the list is lengthened to
include some books that were inspired by the interest in Gray's
experiments.
=1636= and =1651=. Wormius. _Seu Danica literatura antiquissima,
vulgo Gothica dicta, luci reddita opera Olai Wormii. Cui accessit de
prisca Danorum Poesi Dissertatio._ Hafniae. 1636. Edit. II. 1651.
The essay on poetry contains interlinear Latin translations of the
_Epicedium_ of Ragnar Loethbrok, and of the _Drapa_ of Egill
Skallagrimsson. Bound with the second edition of 1651, and bearing the
date 1650, is: _Specimen Lexici runici, obscuriorum quarundam vocum, quae
in priscis occurrunt historiis et poetis Danicis enodationem exhibens.
Collectum a Magno Olavio pastore Laufasiensi, ... nunc in ordinem
redactum, auctum et locupletatum ab Olao Wormio_. Hafniae.
This glossary adduces illustrations from the great poems of Icelandic
literature. Thus early the names and forms of the ancient literature
were known.
=1665.= Resenius. _Edda Islandorum an. Chr. MCCXV islandice
conscripta per Snorronem Sturlae Islandiae. Nomophylacem nunc primum
islandice, danice et latine ... Petri Johannis Resenii_ ... Havniae.
1665.
A second part contains a disquisition on the philosophy of the _Voeluspa_
and the _Havamal_.
=1670.= Sheringham. _De Anglorum Gentis Origine Disceptatio. Qua
eorum migrationes, variae sedes, et ex parte res gestae, a confusione
Linguarum, et dispersione Gentium, usque ad adventum eorum in Britanniam
investigantur; quaedam de veterum Anglorum religione, Deorum cultu,
eorumque opinionibus de statu animae post hanc vitam, explicantur._
_Authore_ Roberto Sheringhamo. Cantabrigiae. 1670.
Chapter XII contains an account of Odin extracted from the _Edda_,
Snorri Sturluson and others.
=1679-92.= Temple. Two essays: "Of Heroic Virtue," "Of Poetry,"
contained in The Works of Sir William Temple. London. 1757. Vol. 3, pp.
304-429.
=1689.= Bartholinus. _Thomae Bartholini Antiquitatum Danicarum de
causis contemptae a Danis adhuc gentilibus mortis libri III ex vetustis
codicibus et monumentis hactenus ineditis congestae._ Hafniae. 1689.
The pages of this book are filled, with extracts from Old Norse sagas
and poetry which are translated into Latin. No student of the book could
fail to get a considerable knowledge of the spirit and the form of the
ancient literature.
=1691.= Verelius. _Index linguae veteris Scytho-Scandicae sive Gothicae
ex vetusti aevi monumentis ... ed Rudbeck._ Upsalae. 1691.
=1697=. Torfaeus. _Orcades, seu rerum Orcadensium historiae_. Havniae.
1697.
=1697=. Perinskjoeld. _Heimskringla, eller Snorre Sturlusons
Nordlaendske Konunga Sagor_. Stockholmiae. 1697.
Contains Latin and Swedish translation.
=1705=. Hickes. _Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium thesaurus
grammatico criticus et archaeologicus_. Oxoniae. 1703-5.
This work is discussed later.
=1716=. Dryden. _Miscellany Poems. Containing Variety of New
Translations of the Ancient Poets_.... Published by Mr. Dryden. London.
1716.
=1720=. Keysler. _Antiquitates selectae septentrionales et Celticae
quibus plurima loca conciliorum et capitularium explanantur, dogmata
theologiae ethnicae Celtarum gentiumque septentrionalium cum moribus et
institutis maiorum nostrorum circa idola, aras, oracula, templa, lucos,
sacerdotes, regum electiones, comitia et monumenta sepulchralia una cum
reliquiis gentilismi in coetibus christianorum ex monumentis potissimum
hactenus ineditis fuse perquiruntur._ _Autore_ Joh. Georgio Keysler.
Hannoverae. 1720.
=1755=. Mallet. _Introduction a l'Histoire de Dannemarc ou l'on
traite de la Religion, des Lois, des Moeurs, et des Usages des Anciens
Danois. Par_ M. Mallet. Copenhague. 1755.
Discussed later.
=1756=. Mallet. _Monumens de la Mythologie et la Poesie des Celtes et
particulierement des anciens Scandinaves ... Par_ M. Mallet. Copenhague.
1756.
=1763=. Percy. _Five Pieces of Runic Poetry translated from the
Islandic Language_. London. 1763.
This book is described on a later page.
=1763=. Blair. _A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the
Son of Fingal_. [By Hugh Blair.] London. 1763.
=1770=. Percy. _Northern Antiquities: or a description of the
Manners, Customs, Religion and Laws of the ancient_ _Danes, and other
Northern Nations; including these of our own Saxon Ancestors. With a
translation of the Edda or System of Runic Mythology, and other Pieces
from the Ancient Icelandic Tongue. Translated from M. Mallet's
Introduction a l'Histoire de Dannemarc_. London. 1770.
=1774=. Warton. _The History of English Poetry_. By Thomas Warton.
London. 1774-81.
In this book the prefatory essay entitled "On the Origin of Romantic
Fiction in Europe" is significant. It is treated at length later on.
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE (1628-1699).
From the above list it appears that the earliest mention in the English
language of Icelandic literature was Sir William Temple's. The two
essays noted above have many references to Northern customs and songs.
Macaulay's praise of Temple's style is well deserved, and the slighting
remarks about the matter do not apply to the passages in evidence here.
Temple's acknowledgments to Wormius indicate the source of his
information, and it is a commentary upon the exactness of the
antiquarian's knowledge that so many of the statements in Temple's
essays are perfectly good to-day. Of course the terms "Runic" and
"Gothic" were misused, but so were they a century later. Odin is "the
first and great hero of the western Scythians; he led a mighty swarm of
the Getes, under the name of Goths, from the Asiatic Scythia into the
farthest northwest parts of Europe; he seated and spread his kingdom
round the whole Baltic sea, and over all the islands in it, and extended
it westward to the ocean and southward to the Elve."[6] Temple places
Odin's expedition at two thousand years before his own time, but he gets
many other facts right. Take this summing up of the old Norse belief as
an example:
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