Old Norse Poetic Translations of Thomas Percy: A New Edition and Commentary (Making the Middle Ages)
This study comprises a facsimile of the Old Norse poetic translations of Thomas Percy, with facing-page notes to allow the modern reader to situate Percy's work in its intellectual context. Thomas Percy was the first serious translator of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry into English. He published his Five Pieces of Runic Poetry in London in 1763 and in 1770 published his translation of Mallet's very influential work on early Scandinavian literature and culture as Northern Antiquities (with...
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Thomas Percy was the first serious translator of Old Norse-Icelandic poetry into English. He published his Five Pieces of Runic Poetry in London in 1763 and in 1770 published his translation of Mallet's very influential work on early Scandinavian literature and culture as Northern Antiquities (with extensive annotations and additions by Percy himself). In publishing Five Pieces, Percy was influenced by the success of Macpherson's first volume of Ossian poetry (1760) and his own wide-ranging interest in ancient, especially 'gothic' poetry. Five Pieces had a mixed reception and was never republished as a separate work, but reappeared as an appendix to the second edn. of Northern Antiquities. Nevertheless, it was a seminal work in the history of reception and understanding of Old Norse poetry in Britain and it also has more general significance in our understanding of the development of the discipline of Old Norse-Icelandic studies. This work makes available to the modern scholarly community the work of one of the pioneers of the discipline and produces in easily accessible format a text that is currently only available as a rare book. The study comprises a facsimile of the 1763 edition, with facing-page notes to allow the modern reader to situate Percy's work in its intellectual context, together with an introduction on Percy himself, his work on Old Norse-Icelandic studies, and the contemporary context of the reception of Old Norse poetry in Britain (and to some extent in the rest of Europe). In addition, this study publishes eight other poetic translations (one from Old English and the others from Old Icelandic) that Percy completed about the same time as the translations now in FivePieces of Runic Poetry, but did not then publish, due to the restrictions of contemporary tolerance for demanding or difficult 'ancient' poetry. This publication reveals his full range as a translator for the first time.
AcknowledgementsAbbreviations and Short TitlesA Note on the Translation of Skaldic VerseIntroductionAnnotated facsimile of the 1763 edition of Five Pieces of Runic PoetryIntroduction to the Facsimile Edition19Preface24The Incantation of Hervor52The Dying Ode of Regner Lodbrog90The Ransome of Egill the Scald132The Funeral Song of Hacon158The Complaint of Harold184The Icelandic Originals of the Preceding Poems204Percy's Translations of Old Norse Poetry in Bodleian MS Percy c. 71Translations from the works of Viking Age skalds2252Two translations of Darraoarljoo2473Extracts from the Old English Battle of Brunanburh267References275Index285
