What was scaldic poetry?

Close

Link to this answer

Share this credible answer with others. Simply paste this code into your blog or Web page:

<a href="http://qanda.encyclopedia.com/question/scaldic-poetry-104254.html" >What was scaldic poetry?</a>

Also composed in alliterative verse, but more complex and artificial in form, was scaldic poetry, which flourished in Norway about the 10th cent. and reached its height slightly later in Iceland. Comprising poems of praise, triumph, lamentation, and love, it is subjective in approach and highly mannered in technique... As scaldic poetry declined, new forms rose to replace it, among them the ballad and the sacred hymn... The bulk of medieval Norse literature, and the most readable today, survives in the form of sagas...