Prologue Snorra-Edda
It is controversial whether the prologue to the Snorra Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson himself. The function of the prologue is to integrate the Edda of Snorri into the medieval, learned Christian worldview.
The prologue (old Icelandic formáli ) begins with a clear reference to the Old Testament creation story . The ideas that predominate here come from medieval church history, such as that represented by Isidore of Seville . They address a natural religiosity of cultures, in which the Nordic "paganism" also believed in a highest God as the highest being , without imagining him in a Christian sense.
The prologue of the Snorra Edda then ties in with the Trojan fable, which was very popular in aristocratic circles in the Middle Ages , according to which the ancestors of the western and northern European aristocracy descended from heroes expelled from Troy , such as Aeneas . The aural affinity of Trór - Thor and Sibil - Sif is relevant for the Nordic scholarly prehistory , which Snorri also represents in the Ynglinga saga , which introduces the Heimskringla and in which he describes the migration of the Æsir ( Asen = " Asian men" from the East (Asia) “), And Óðinn and his followers , in line with the euhemeristic thesis , declared worldly kings.
The prologue serves to connect the narrated mythical episodes of Gylfaginning etymologically and genealogically with ancient mythology, which Christian ecclesiastical Europe attached great importance to. The euhemeristic tendencies echoing here serve Snorri to expose the pre-Christian gods in the Gylfaginning as human rulers: also insofar as deception or deception in the title of Snorri's mythography .
But Snorri is not only interested in writing a history of the origins of the Nordic gods. For him, the Snorra Edda is primarily about language, the language that Óðinn and his followers once spoke according to the euhemeristic immigration fable. This language, the old Icelandic, Snorri feels as ennobled by this descent. In this way he can put them on the same level as the languages honored by the Church, Hebrew , Greek and Latin - the learned languages of medieval Europe. In Snorri's prologue it says: “This is how the language of the Asians became the national language in all of these areas. People believed they could recognize this because the names of their forefathers were written down. Because the names belonged to this language, and the Aesir brought this language here to the north, to Norway and Sweden, to Denmark and Saxony. "
Snorri's prologue, if it comes from Snorri, serves the national legitimation of Iceland and its culture in the face of increasing Christian, and thus continental, dominance. Around 1200, the Dane Saxo Grammaticus with his Gesta Danorum (Danish history), and even before him, and as a predecessor Snorris, the Icelandic historian Ari Þorgilsson (1068–1148) set comparable impulses in Íslendingabók and Landnámabók . Snorri's special achievement is the attempt to put Icelandic culture on a level with the Christian cultures of Europe (for example the Franconian ). In his presentation in the Snorra Edda, he draws on common forms and authorities of medieval Europe, which he combines virtuous with the Icelandic material he has collected.
Footnotes
- ↑ quoted from Krause, Snorra-Edda, p. 14
literature
- Andreas Heusler : The learned prehistory in ancient Icelandic literature . Treatises of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, 1908.
- Heinz Klingenberg : Trór Þórr (Thor) like Tros Aeneas. Snorra Edda Prologue; Virgil Reception and Old Icelandic Scholars Prehistory . Alvíssmál 1, 1992-93: 17-54.