| 释义 |
‖ Edda|ˈɛdə|
[ON.; usually identified with Edda the name of the great-grandmother in the ON. poem ‘Rigsþul’ (see Vigf. and Powell Corpus Poet. Bor. II. 514); others consider it to be f. óðr poetry.]
The name given to two distinct Icelandic books: a. By Icelandic poets of 15th c. applied to a miscellaneous handbook to Icel. poetry, containing prosodic and grammatical treatises, with quotations and prose paraphrases of myths from old poems. This work (partly written by the Icelandic historian Snorre Sturluson c 1230) has since 1642 been commonly called Snorre's Edda, or the Younger or Prose Edda.
b. A collection (made c 1200) of ancient ON. poems on mythical and traditional subjects. The names ‘Elder or Poetic Edda’, ‘Edda of Sæmund’, were applied to this work by Biorn of Skardsá, who erroneously ascribed its compilation to the Icelandic historian Sæmund (d. 1133).
1771Macpherson Introd. Hist. Gt. Brit. 180 Neither does the Islandic Edda..supply that defect. 1840Carlyle Heroes (1858) 196 Edda, a word of uncertain etymology, is thought to signify Ancestress. 1866Reader 3 Mar. 221/2 The Elder (or Poetic) Edda is a volume of very old mythological and heroic lays. 1875Whitney Life Lang. x. 181 The Edda is the purest and most abundant source of knowledge for primitive Germanic conditions.
Hence Eˈddaic, ˈEddic a., of or pertaining to the Eddas; resembling the contents of the Eddas.
1868G. Stephens Runic Mon. I. Introd. 41 No Eddic or other Manuscripts..are older than..the 13th century. 1884Athenæum 30 Aug. 267/1 African and Australian myths almost as Eddaic..may be quoted. 1883Vigf. & Powell Corp. Poet. Bor. I. 101 There are not one but many mythologies in the Eddic poems. |