Adaptations and Applications of Grammatical Studies in Iceland c. 1150-1350

The project has so far produced three articles, two articles under publication, five articles under evaluation, one anthology under evaluation, and two monographs under evaluation. One of the monographs will become the most important product of the project. It is titled 'The Poetic Genesis of Old Icelandic Literature' and demonstrates how the local poetic tradition and Latin Learning were the crucial ingredients in the shaping of Old Icelandic literature. In many ways, the book analyses how Icelandic scholars used traditional forms (poetry, mythology etc.) and Latin methods (systematic analysis, normativity etc.) and through a combination of these gave rise to a literature that was both old and new, unique and yet European. The second monograph is a popular description in Swedish of the working methods of medieval Icelandic intellectuals, and how later perceptions of Nordic history are predicated on these. The anthology treats medieval etymology and wordplay and is the result of a collaboration project With an international team collected by the project leader. The articles treat various issues of relevance for the overall project, such as the development of the sentiment that the vernacular could replace Latin, the evolution of poetics and mythology, medieval exegesis etc. The projected leader has instigated two international Networks and arranged two Conferences on that basis; one on etymology and wordplay and one on medieval myths about language. The second will take the results of the project into new domains and feed into the next project.

Grammatica was the discipline in which both language and literature were studied all through the Middle Ages. Because of its rich poetic and grammatical production, Old Norse literature offers exceptionally good possibilities for studying how grammatica w as applied to the needs of the vernacular language and its poetry and mythology. An understanding for how literary criticism and interest in mythology and theology intermingled within this discipline provides a context within which to analyse change in th e poetic tradition, as well as how mythology was used and understood. The Old Norse mythological stories were different than the classical ones, but they were interpreted in similar ways. This will make national romantic and racist constructions of histor y more difficult to maintain. Another aspect of the project is the analysis of early grammatical interest, c. 1150-1220. If grammatica is defined the way it was in the Middle Ages, the sources are more abundant than scholarly literature generally admits. Also, a combination of methods, including analysis of diction and metre as well as indications of earlier transmission, can serve to provide understanding of how grammatical studies got started in the North. This has implications for Old Norse literature in general, since grammatical training was one of the formative impulses to the genres that has since made this literature famous. This observation is fundamentally new, and in general, the project will fit into the newest scholarly trends, in that it bui lds on recent ground-breaking scholarship not otherwise applied to Old Norse studies. The project, furthermore, adresses needs that this scholarship identifies. In short, the project will provide an understanding of some of the most important premises for the character of Old Norse literature and mythology in general, and give important indications of how both developed, how they were received and how they were interpreted in the Middle Ages.