SEARCHING FOR SYSTEM IN SKALDIC VERSE
Skaldic studies are in an interesting condition these days. The field is as productive as ever, full of talent and creative energy, yet the annual harvest is more likely to be greeted with silence than a cheer. Nineteen eighty three was a bumper year for skaldic publications, but it has so far produced only one major review.1 There is a suspicion confirmed, alas, by the bibliographical gaps in even the best recent studies that we are not reading, let alone admiring, our neighbor's work. In that same year Hans Kuhn dismissed the textual and literary historical exegesis of the last half century as "inadequate" and "mostly worthless," concluding that during this period "stillness had enveloped drottkvxtt as it had skaldic verse in general."2 Critical appraisals in English of skaldic publications are as rare as sightings of whooping cranes and far more difficult to arrange, as many a North American review editor has discovered. One popular explanation for this shyness is that most skaldicists know and like one another and would rather exchange praise and blame informally, by mail, telephone, or face to face. But the chief reason for our communal writer's block is probably fear fear of exposing our ignorance (here I speak chiefly for myself) and, conversely, fear of doing so and nobody noticing. Most of us have trouble conjuring up an audience, even an animated ear horn thirsting for our outpourings. Fluency comes hard when the material to be reviewed, as here, is highly technical, marginally fashionable, and typographically inventive.