Skaldic Time and Memory in Coleridge's 'Sæmund the Wise' (1797-1798)

Description

Although Samuel Taylor Coleridge never wrote the three-book long poem on the god Thor he once set out to do, he did write a short text about Sæmundr fróði, the man often credited as the author of the Poetic Edda. In this unpublished fragment, titled “Sæmund the Wise” (1797-1798) Coleridge narrates a winter evening in the company of Sæmundr, who retells the stories he has collected to a group of young men. In this paper, I will discuss “Sæmund the Wise” and how Coleridge portrays the role of the skald in relation to oral tradition, generational memory, and history. Although a brief and fragmentary work, I will show how Coleridge’s text articulates wider concerns of historiography, storytelling, and time seen in this period.
This paper will centre on Coleridge’s text and combine a close reading with a broader discussion on portrayals of the skald in the late eighteenth century. In Coleridge’s circle were Robert Southey and Amos Cottle, who both published material on the Norse past around the same time. In turn, this circle’s interest in the Norse past connects to a wider engagement with a northern European oral tradition and generational memory that emerged in the eighteenth century, alongside concerns of how to preserve these stories in the wake of industrialisation and forgetfulness. In this sense, Coleridge’s story of Sæmundr and his mission to preserve ancient sagas of the Icelanders becomes an allegory for eighteenth-century attempts to save the past through literature.

Period	2022 May 13
Event title	Nordic Association of English Studies triennial conference
Event type	Conference
Location	Stockholm, SwedenShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International