Themes of gospel and nativity in Icelandic biblical paraphrase

Abstract

The article examines stanzas 27–33 from “Lilja”, an Icelandic biblical paraphrase written in the form of skaldic drapa and dating from the first half of the XIV c. The subject of the article is the sources of these stanzas and the nature of the skald’s work with the sources. Comparative textual analysis, which is the main method of work, has shown that the skald borrowed the general idea of the text from the Bible of Herman de Valenciennes, and stanzas 27–33, where the theme of the Gospel sounds, are an adaptation of a fragment from “Conception Nostre Dame” (“The Conception of the Virgin”) by Wace (lines 783–864). Analysis of the forms of speech and narrative strategies in stanzas 27–33 has shown their convergence with the forms of speech characteristic of “The Elder Edda” and the use of eddic narrative strategies by the skald. The noted interaction of the eddic and the skaldic traditions in «Lilja» suggests reconsideration of the traditional classification of the text as a skaldic work, despite the form of skaldic drapa and its semantic aureole. “Lilja” is regarded in the paper as a poetic biblical paraphrase born as a result of adaptation of the continental tradition of vernacular theology to the verbal culture of Iceland, i. e. as a manifestation of a new function of the art of poetry.