A review by bluestjuice
The Poetic Edda: The Mythological Poems by

3.0

It's a mixed bag. This volume is a collection of (primarily Icelandic, although there are arguments about this) Scandinavian poetry, dating from probably about 900 to as late as 1400. Like most works that arise in an oral tradition, there is a lot of argument about when each piece is actually dated from, and of course the date at which it was composed may not correspond well with the date at which it was written down. Additionally, many of the poems have likely been modified many times over the intervening years, and there are lots of footnotes which try to make sense of these possibilities, and also give context and meaning to the many names and mythological references herein. Constantly referring to footnotes makes reading this less pleasurable than it could be, but it's also true that for the most part, the poetry is not complex, and the particular style of the verses tends to repeat lines over and over and over again in a way that is not my favorite (but is excellent for memorizing poems). My favorite pieces were the Hovamol, a collection of proverbs which seem surprisingly applicable for being 1000+ years old, and the Lokasenna, which features a spry smack-talk argument between Loki and the rest of the Aesir. I want to translate/abbreviate it into modern English in the worst way.