In the social sense.įrom a literary perspective, The Prose Edda a mess. The work, Byock explains, was also intended to ease Iceland into Christianity, a transition which, in contrast to many other parts of the world happened smoothly and relatively bloodlessly which would indicate his experiment was, at least to some extent, successful. He was inventing new origins so as to give the traders and rulers making contact with the rest of the world cultural, economic, and social credibility. He was attempting to place the Nordic countries into continuity with long-standing European tradition. Byock’s introduction to the Penguin Classics version of The Prose Edda suggests the credited author (there was likely more than one), Snorri Sturluson’s version of the old tales was intended to serve a very specific purpose.
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