Drápa

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The drápa (pl. Drápur "song with included refrains") is the main form of the high medieval, courtly - Skaldic price song in Old Norse literature .

The history of the Drápa in its preforms goes back to the 9th century and is documented in Bragi's Ragnarsdrápa , among others . Above the intermediate level of the Erfidrápa , a memorial song for the deceased, the strict, classical and poetologically demanding Drápa developed as a foil for composing poems to praise the nobility, especially the Norwegian kings. In religious poetry to praise church saints such as the Ólafsdrápa for Saint Olaf , the drápa was used until the Reformation .

Structure and style

The Drápur poems are mainly written in the meter of Dróttkvætt , their structure is divided into several stanzas:

  • an introduction ( Upphaf ),
  • a middle or main part ( Stefjabálkr ), which in turn can consist of several parts,
  • a final part ( Slœmr ).

This structure is indicated by lines of refrain ( Stef ). The stef are usually laid out in two lines, but can be up to four lines long, i.e. show the character of stanzas. The Stef can be worked out even more finely and appear to be divided into half-stanzas over the whole and, as variables, achieve the intended artificial effect of the piece. In these chorus lines and stanzas, the theme or the central message is emphasized with recitative.

Due to the fragmented tradition, since almost no Drápa (like Nordic price songs in general) has been passed down completely and coherently, statements about the structure of the Drápa are generally made (isolated parts as insertions in prose texts of saga literature, only use in Snorris Skáldatal or Skáldskaparmál , possible Internal divisions of Stefjubálkr by Stef for individual stanzas). In specific individual pieces, a Drápa can show deviations due to its own special type. Reasons for this can already be found in the simple drapur in the occasion that motivated the poetry of the piece. The biographical Drápa, for example, weighs differently than that which thematizes the course of a battle or the vita / deeds of a saint.

The Kenning is an essential stylistic device as in the rest of Old Norse poetry (price songs of the Edda), which, on the other hand , can show its own price character in the Drápur .

The most common form of the classic Drápa is the type of rulers' prize, whereby individual stages of the protagonist's biographical history are enumerated, from acts of youth to successes to gain and maintain power to the present. The Glymdrápa des Þorbjörn hornklofi for Haraldr hárfagri and the more extensive Vellekla by Einarr Skálaglamm for Hákon Jarl , which has been handed down in thirty-seven stanzas, are examples of this type, according to Edith Marold.

literature