Tools of Literacy: The Role of Skaldic Verse in Icelandic Textual Culture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Book

	List of Tables, Maps, and Figures	viii
	Preface	ix
	Introduction	3
Part 1	Skaldic Verse and Learning	17
1.	The Twelfth Century	19
	Drottkvaett and the study of grammatica	19
	The grammatical literature	25
	Hattalykill	29
	A twelfth-century poet: Bishop Kloeingr Porsteinsson	36
2.	Snorra Edda and the Study of Grammatica	41
	Manuscript textuality	41
	The medieval codices of Snorra Edda	44
	The manuscripts of Snorra Edda and the grammatical literature	46
	Conclusion	68
Part 2	The Sources and the Thirteenth-Century Poet	73
3.	Sources of Skaldic Verse	75
	Textbooks and treatises	77
	Translations from Latin	88
	A saint's life	89
	Historical writing	90
	Biographies	99
	Conclusion	114
4.	The Poet's Profession	117
	Professional poets	120
	Aristocratic poets in Iceland	138
	Clerics as poets	141
	Conclusion	142
	Excursus: The Thirteenth-Century Poet	144
	Unknown thirteenth-century poets listed in both versions of Skaldatal and their patrons	144
	Twelfth-century poets in Sturlunga saga	147
	Known thirteenth-century poets	156
Part 3	Theory and Practice in Skaldic Poetics	197
5.	Theoretical Discussion of the Kenning	199
	The Kenning in vernacular literary theory	200
	The fusion of vernacular and Latin traditions	206
	The Kenning in grammatica	210
	Categories of meaning in Skaldskaparmal and Litla Skalda	213
	Pulur	232
	Conclusion	235
6.	Theory and Practice in Skaldic Verse	237
	The Poetic treatises	237
	The human body dismembered in skaldic diction	239
	Conclusion	263
Part 4	Sources of Inspiration	269
7.	Cosmology, Learning, and Body Imagery	271
	Neoplatonist ideas and the world-body	273
	Ymir's body in Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning	277
	The poetic landscape in body imagery	283
	Cosmological imagery	285
	Natural landscape	296
	Flora	304
	The human body	306
	Conclusion	306
8.	Digging for Gold in Skaldic Verse	309
	The Danish material	311
	Gold myths in Skaldskaparmal	319
	Gold-kennings in thirteenth-century verse	327
	Conclusion	335
	Conclusion	339
	Genealogies	347
	Notes	359
	Abbreviations	389
	Bibliography	393
	Index	411